almerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and
regrets very much to find that he has not succeeded in removing your
Majesty's objections to Mr Layard as Under-Secretary of State for the
Foreign Department; but he still hopes that he may be able to do so.
If he rightly understands your Majesty's last communication on this
subject, he is led to infer that your Majesty's main objection is
founded on a dislike that Mr Layard should be the representative and
organ of the Foreign Policy of the Crown in the House of Commons.

With regard to his being a subordinate officer in the Foreign Office,
your Majesty's sanction to that was obtained in 1851-52, when Mr
Layard was Under-Secretary to Lord Granville. His tenure of office
at that time was short; not from any fault of his, but because the
Government of that day was overthrown by Viscount Palmerston's Motion
in the House of Commons in February 1852 about the Militia; and Lord
Granville speaks highly of Mr Layard's performance of his official
duties at that time. There is no reason, but the reverse, for thinking
him less competent now than then; and an Under-Secretary of State is
only the instrument and mouthpiece of his principal to say what he is
told, and to write what he is bid.

With regard to Mr Layard's position in the House of Commons, he would
in no respect be the representative of the Foreign Policy of the
country; that function will belong to Viscount Palmerston, now that
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will be removed to the
House of Lords, and it will be Viscount Palmerston's duty and care
to see that nobody infringes upon that function. Mr Layard would be
useful to answer unimportant questions as to matters of fact, but all
questions involving the Foreign Policy of the country will be answered
by Viscount Palmerston as head of the Government, as was done when
Lord Clarendon was Foreign Secretary and in the House of Lords. But
there are not unfrequently great debates on Foreign Affairs in the
House of Commons, and there are many members, some of them not perhaps
of great weight, who join in attacks on such matters. It is of great
importance to your Majesty's Government to have a sufficient number
of speakers on such occasions. Lord John Russell and Lord Herbert
were ready and powerful. Mr Gladstone is almost the only one on the
Treasury Bench who follows up foreign questions close enough to take
an active part; it would be of great advantage to