ent.]

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Derby._

_14th May 1858._

The Queen returns the extracts Lord Derby has sent to her. Lord
Ellenborough's despatch,[32] now before her for the first time, is
very good and just in principle. But the Queen would be much surprised
if it did not entirely coincide with the views of Lord Canning, at
least as far as he has hitherto expressed any in his letters. So are
also the sentiments written by Sir J. Lawrence; they contain almost
the very expressions frequently used by Lord Canning.

Sir J. Login,[33] who holds the same opinion, and has great Indian
experience, does not find any fault with the Proclamation, however
seemingly it may sound at variance with these opinions, and this on
account of the peculiar position of affairs in Oudh. It is a great
pity that Lord Ellenborough, with his knowledge, experience, activity,
and cleverness, should be so entirely unable to submit to general
rules of conduct. The Queen has been for some time much alarmed at his
writing letters of his own to all the most important Indian Chiefs
and Kings explaining his policy. All this renders the position of a
Governor-General almost untenable, and that of the Government at home
very hazardous.

[Footnote 32: This was a later despatch of Lord
Ellenborough's, also in reference to the pacification of Oudh,
and not shown to the Cabinet before it was sent.]

[Footnote 33: See _ante_, 23rd September, 1857, note 41.]

[Pageheading: LORD ABERDEEN CONSULTED]

[Pageheading: PREROGATIVE OF DISSOLUTION]

[Pageheading: STATE OF PARTIES]

_Memorandum by Sir Charles Phipps._

[_Undated._ ? _15th May 1858._]

Upon being admitted to Lord Aberdeen, I informed him that the Queen
and Prince were anxious to hear his opinion upon the present most
unfortunate state of affairs, but that, knowing how easily every event
was perverted in such times as the present, Her Majesty and His
Royal Highness had thought that it might have been subject to
misapprehension had he been known to have been at Buckingham Palace,
and that I had been therefore directed to call upon him, with a view
of obtaining his opinion and advice upon certain important points.

The first was the question of a Dissolution of Parliament in the
event of the Government being defeated upon the question which was at
present pending. I told him that I was permitted to communicate to him
in the strictest confidence, that in a la