. means a _Knight_ of the Garter,
C.B. a _Companion_ of the Bath, M.P. a _Member_ of Parliament, M.D. a
_Doctor_ of Medicine, etc., etc., in all cases designating a
person. No one could be called a Victoria Cross. V.C. moreover means
Vice-Chancellor at present. D.V.C. (decorated with the Victoria Cross)
or B.V.C. (Bearer of the Victoria Cross) might do. The Queen thinks
the last the best.

[Footnote 21: The Victoria Cross had just been instituted by
Royal Warrant, and the Queen had, with her own hand, decorated
those who had won the distinction, in Hyde Park, on the 26th
of June.]

[Pageheading: REINFORCEMENTS FOR INDIA]

_Queen Victoria to Lord Panmure._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _29th June 1857_.

The Queen has to acknowledge the receipt of Lord Panmure's letter of
yesterday. She had long been of opinion that reinforcements waiting
to go to India ought not to be delayed. The moment is certainly a very
critical one, and the additional reinforcements now proposed will be
much wanted. The Queen entirely agrees with Lord Panmure that it will
be good policy to oblige the East India Company to keep permanently a
larger portion of the Royal Army in India than heretofore. The Empire
has nearly doubled itself within the last twenty years, and the
Queen's troops have been kept at the old establishment. They are the
body on whom the maintenance of that Empire depends, and the Company
ought not to sacrifice the highest interests to love of patronage.
The Queen hopes that the new reinforcements will be sent out in their
Brigade organisation, and not as detached regiments; good Commanding
Officers knowing their troops will be of the highest importance next
to the troops themselves.

The Queen must ask that the troops by whom we shall be diminished at
home by the transfer of so many regiments to the Company should be
forthwith replaced by an increase of the establishment up to the
number voted by Parliament, and for which the estimates have been
taken, else we denude ourselves altogether to a degree dangerous to
our own safety at home, and incapable of meeting a sudden emergency,
which, as the present example shows, may come upon us at any moment.
If we had not reduced in such a hurry this spring, we should now have
all the men wanted!

The Queen wishes Lord Panmure to communicate this letter to Lord
Palmerston. The accounts in to-day's papers from India are most
distressing.

_Queen Victoria to L