that knowing the nature of the Queen's objections, he
will not place her in this dilemma.

_Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria._

94 PICCADILLY, _26th July 1861_.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs
to be allowed to make his grateful and respectful acknowledgments
for your Majesty's gracious and condescending acquiescence in his
recommendation of Mr Layard for the appointment of Under-Secretary
of State for the Foreign Department. It is always a source of most
sincere pain to Viscount Palmerston to find himself differing, on any
point, in opinion with your Majesty, a respect for whose soundness
of judgment, and clearness of understanding, must always lead him to
distrust the value of his own conclusions when they differ from those
to which your Majesty has arrived. But the question about Mr Layard
turned mainly upon considerations connected with the conduct of public
business of your Majesty's Government in the House of Commons.

Viscount Palmerston sits in that House four days in every week during
the Session of Parliament, from half-past four in the afternoon to any
hour however late after midnight at which the House may adjourn. It
is his duty carefully to watch the proceedings of the House, and to
observe and measure the fluctuating bearings of Party and of sectional
associations on the present position of the Government, and on its
chances for the future; and he is thus led to form conclusions as to
persons and parties which may not equally strike, or with equal force,
those who from without and from higher regions may see general results
without being eye- and ear-witnesses of the many small and successive
details out of which those results are built up.

It was thus that Viscount Palmerston was led to a strong conviction
that the proposed appointment of Mr Layard would be a great advantage
to your Majesty's Government as regards the conduct of business in
the House of Commons, and the position of your Majesty's Government
in that House; and he is satisfied that he will be able to prevent
Mr Layard in any subsidiary part which he may have to take in any
discussion on foreign questions, from departing from the line
which may be traced out for him by Lord John Russell and Viscount
Palmerston....

[Pageheading: THE KING OF SWEDEN]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

OSBORNE, _13th August 1861_.

MY BELOVED UNCLE,--Since Saturday we have great