emain ever, my beloved Victoria,
your devoted old Uncle,

LEOPOLD R.

[Footnote 38: Prince Alfred, who, some time before, had been
appointed to the _Euryalus_, in the course of the summer
visited South Africa. After making a tour through Kaffraria,
Natal, and the Orange Free State, he returned to Cape Town,
where, in September, he laid the foundation stone of the
breakwater in Table Bay. In a letter written by the Prince
Consort a few weeks earlier to Baron Stockmar, he remarks upon
the noteworthy coincidence that almost in the same week in
which the elder brother would open the great bridge across the
St Lawrence, the younger would lay the foundation stone of the
breakwater for the Cape Town Harbour. "What a cheering picture
is here," he wrote, "of the progress and expansion of the
British race, and of the useful co-operation of the Royal
Family in the civilisation which England has developed and
advanced" (_Life of the Prince Consort_, vol. v. p. 88).]

[Footnote 39: The Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the
Prince Regent of Prussia met at Warsaw on 20th October, and
held a conference which extended over several days.]

[Footnote 40: Walker, in the course of one of the Nicaraguan
revolutions, had seized the supreme power, and had been
recognised as President by the U.S. Government; he was
afterwards expelled, and, on venturing to return, was
arrested, and shot on the 25th of September 1860.]

_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _3rd November 1860._

The Queen returns the enclosed draft,[41] which she is afraid is not
likely to produce the beneficial results which Lord John seems to
anticipate.

The expression of our hope, that Rome and Venetia, from their Italian
nationality, will soon share in the freedom and good government of
the rest of Italy, can only be understood as a declaration on our part
that we wish to see them share the annexation to Sardinia, after that
of the Two Sicilies shall have been completed.

The declaration at the end after the quotations of the former
protests, vague as it is, viz. "That if other Powers interfere England
would do as she pleases," means either nothing at all (for England
is free to do as she pleases) or it means a threat of war, either
an empty threat, or one intended to be followed up when the occasion
arises. The first would hardly be dignified f