Viscount Palmerston
to have as assistant on such occasions a man like Mr Layard, knowing
the details of matters discussed, able to make a good speech in reply
to Mr Fitzgerald, or Mr Baillie Cochrane,[25] or Mr Hennessy,[26] or
Sir G. Bowyer,[27] and who would shape his course in strict conformity
with the line which might be chalked out for him by Viscount
Palmerston. Your Majesty need therefore be under no apprehension that
Mr Layard or anybody else, who might in the House of Commons hold the
office of Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, would appear
to the world as the organ or representative of the Foreign Policy of
your Majesty's Government. With respect to giving Mr Layard any other
office of the same kind, there is none other in which he could be
placed without putting into the Foreign Office somebody far less fit
for it, and putting Mr Layard into some office for which he is far
less fit. His fitness is for the Foreign Department, and to use the
illustration, which was a favourite one of the late Mr Drummond,
it would be putting the wrong man into the wrong hole. Viscount
Palmerston has, as charged with the conduct of the business of the
Government in the House of Commons, sustained a severe loss by the
removal of two most able and useful colleagues, Lord Herbert and
Lord John Russell, and he earnestly hopes that your Majesty will be
graciously pleased to assist him in his endeavours, not indeed to
supply their place, but in some degree to lessen the detriment which
their removal has occasioned.

[Footnote 25: Afterwards Lord Lamington.]

[Footnote 26: Mr (afterwards Sir) John Pope Hennessy, M.P. for
King's County.]

[Footnote 27: M.P. for Dundalk.]

[Pageheading: MR LAYARD]

_Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston._

OSBORNE, _25th July 1861_.

The Prince has reported to the Queen all that Lord Palmerston said
to him on the subject of Mr Layard; this has not had the effect of
altering her opinion as to the disqualifications of that gentleman
for the particular office for which Lord Palmerston proposes him. This
appointment would, in the Queen's opinion, be a serious evil. If Lord
Palmerston on sincere self-examination should consider that without it
the difficulty of carrying on his Government was such as to endanger
the continuance of its success, the Queen will, of course, have to
admit an evil for the country in order to avert a greater. She still
trusts, however,