een
reduced to the lowest state of internal distress, before her Emperor
could have been brought to put his name to a Treaty of Peace finally
surrendering his sovereignty over those extensive countries; and
to have continued the war long enough for these purposes would have
required greater endurance than was possessed by your Majesty's
Allies, and might possibly have exhausted the good-will of your
Majesty's own subjects....

[Pageheading: THE TREATY OF PARIS]

_The Earl of Clarendon to Queen Victoria._

PARIS, _30th March 1856._

Lord Clarendon presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and humbly
begs to congratulate your Majesty upon the signature of peace this
afternoon. It is not to be doubted that another campaign must have
brought glory to your Majesty's arms, and would have enabled England
to impose different terms upon Russia, but setting aside the cost and
the horrors of war, in themselves evils of the greatest magnitude,
we cannot feel sure that victory might not have been purchased too
dearly--a continuation of the war would hardly have been possible
either with or without France--if we had dragged her on with us it
would have been most reluctantly on her part, her finances would have
suffered still more, she would have borne us ill-will, would have
acted feebly with us, and would on the first favourable occasion
have left us in the lurch. If we had continued the war single-handed,
France would feel that she had behaved shabbily to us, and would
_therefore_ have hated us all the more, and become our enemy sooner
than under any other circumstances; a coalition of Europe might then
have taken place against England, to which the United States would
but too gladly have adhered, and the consequence might have been most
serious.

Lord Clarendon would not make such an assertion lightly, but he feels
convinced that your Majesty may feel satisfied with the position now
occupied by England--six weeks ago it was a painful position here,
everybody was against us, our motives were suspected, and our policy
was denounced; but the universal feeling now is that we are the only
country able and ready, and willing, if necessary, to continue the
war; that we might have prevented peace, but that having announced
our readiness to make peace on honourable terms we have honestly and
unselfishly acted up to our word. It is well known, too, that the
conditions on which peace is made would have been different if Englan