The Queen hopes before long to visit all the Hospitals at Portsmouth, and to see in what state they are.
_When_ will the medals be ready for distribution?
_The Marquis of Dalhousie to Queen Victoria._
The Governor-General presents his most humble duty to your Majesty; and in obedience to the command, which your Majesty was pleased to lay upon him, that he should keep your Majesty acquainted with the course of public events in India, he has the honour to inform your Majesty that he has now felt it to be his duty to request the President of the Board of Control to solicit for him your Majesty's permission to retire from the office of Governor-General of India about the close of the present year.
The Governor-General begs permission respectfully to represent, that in January next, he will have held his present office for eight years; that his health during the last few months has seriously failed him; and that although he believes that the invigorating air of these hills will enable him to discharge all his duties efficiently during this season, yet he is conscious that the effects of an Indian climate have laid such a hold upon him that by the close of the present year he will be wholly unfit any longer to serve your Majesty.
Lord Dalhousie, therefore, humbly trusts that your Majesty will graciously permit him to resign the great office which he holds before he ceases to command the strength which is needed to sustain it. He has the honour to subscribe himself, your Majesty's most obedient, most humble and devoted Subject and Servant,
_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Clarendon._
The Queen returns the letter and Despatches from Vienna. They don't alter her opinion as to our demands. Every concession in form and wording ought to be made which could save Russian _amour-propre_; but this ought in no way to trench upon the _substance_ of our demands, to which Austria must feel herself bound.[47]
[Footnote 47: As has already been stated, the "Four Points" were the basis of the negotiations at Vienna; the third alone, which the Allies and Austria had defined as intended to terminate Russian preponderance in the Black Sea, caused difficulty.]
_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Clarendon._