f Petersburg.

With regard to the letter of the Emperor of the French to your
Majesty, and the statements made to Lord Clarendon by the Count de
Persigny as to the difficulties of the Emperor's internal position
with respect to finance, and a general desire for peace throughout
the Nation, Viscount Palmerston expressed his opinion to the Cabinet
yesterday that all those representations were greatly exaggerated. He
is convinced that the Emperor of the French is perfectly master of his
own position, and that he can as to peace or war take the course which
he may determine to adopt.

The cabal of stock-jobbing politicians, by whom he is surrounded,
_must_ give way to him if he is firm. They have no standing place in
the confidence and respect of their fellow-countrymen, they represent
nothing but the Stock Exchange speculations in which they are engaged,
and the Emperor's throne would probably be stronger, rather than
weaker, if they were swept away, and better men put in their places.
And it is a very remarkable circumstance that at the very moment when
your Majesty and your Majesty's Government were being told that
the Emperor would be unable to go on with the war on account of the
difficulty of finding money, the French Government was putting forth
in the _Moniteur_ an official statement showing that they have a
reserve surplus of twenty-one millions sterling for defraying the
expenses of a campaign in the ensuing spring, without the necessity of
raising any fresh loan.

Viscount Palmerston fully concurs in the sentiment of regret expressed
by your Majesty to Lord Clarendon that the last action of the war in
which your Majesty's troops have been engaged, should, if peace be now
concluded, have been the repulse at the Redan; but however it may suit
national jealousy, which will always be found to exist on the other
side of the Channel, to dwell upon that check, yet your Majesty may
rely upon it that the Alma and Inkerman have left recollections which
will dwell in the memory of the living and not be forgotten in the
page of history; and although it would no doubt have been gratifying
to your Majesty and to the Nation that another summer should have
witnessed the destruction of Cronstadt by your Majesty's gallant Navy,
and the expulsion of the Russians from the countries south of the
Caucasus by your Majesty's brave Army, yet if peace _can_ now be
concluded on conditions honourable and secure, it would, as your
Majest