e may be no fortune to support the dignity in
the family--is most desirable. The mode in which the public will take
the introduction of it will however chiefly depend upon the merits of
the first case brought forward. Dr Lushington appears to the Queen
so unobjectionable in this respect that she cannot but approve of the
experiment being tried with him.

It would be well, however, that it should be done quietly; that it
should not be talked about beforehand or get into the papers, which so
frequently happens on occasions of this kind, and generally does harm.

[Footnote 1: Member of Parliament for Rye 1881-1832, and Ripon
1835-1843, afterwards a member of the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council: he became a Peer (Lord Kingsdown) in 1858,
having declined a peerage on the present and other occasions.]

[Footnote 2: Dr Lushington was judge of the Admiralty Court:
he had been counsel for, and an executor of, Queen Caroline.
He declined the offer now suggested, and the subsequent
debates on the Wensleydale Peerage show that the proposed
grant would have been ineffectual for its purpose.]

[Pageheading: DIPLOMATIC ARRANGEMENTS]

_Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _31st January 1851._

The Queen has received Lord Palmerston's letter of the 29th, in which
he proposes a change in those diplomatic arrangements which she had
already sanctioned on his recommendation, and must remark that the
reasons which Lord Palmerston adduces in support of his present
proposition are in direct contradiction to those by which he supported
his former recommendation.[3]

The principle which the Queen would wish to see acted upon in her
diplomatic appointments in general, is, that the _good of the service_
should precede every other consideration, and that the selection of
an agent should depend more on his personal qualifications for the
particular post for which he is to be selected than on the mere
pleasure and convenience of the person to be employed, or of the
Minister recommending him.

According to Lord Palmerston's first proposal, Sir H. Seymour was to
have gone to St Petersburg, Lord Bloomfield to Berlin, and Sir Richard
Pakenham to Lisbon; now Lord Palmerston wishes to send Lord Cowley to
St Petersburg.

The Queen has the highest opinion of Lord Cowley's abilities, and
agrees with Lord Palmerston in thinking that Russia will, for some
time at least, exercis