ussell._

Balmoral, _5th September 1859_.

Lord John Russell will not be surprised if the despatches of Lord
Cowley and drafts by Lord John in answer to them, which the Queen
returns to him, have given her much pain. Here we have the very
interference with advice to which the Queen had objected when
officially brought before her for her sanction, to which the Cabinet
objected, and which Lord John Russell agreed to withdraw, carried
on by direct communication of the Prime Minister through the French
Ambassador with the Emperor; and we have the very effect produced
which the Queen dreaded, viz. the French Minister insinuating that
we called upon his master to do that which he would consider so
dishonourable that he would rather resign than be a party to it! What
is the use of the Queen's open and, she fears, sometimes wearisome
correspondence, with her Ministers, what the use of long deliberations
of the Cabinet, if the very policy can be carried out by indirect
means which is set aside officially, and what protection has the Queen
against this practice? Lord John Russell's distinction also between
his own official and private opinion or advice given to a Foreign
Minister is a most dangerous, and, the Queen thinks, untenable theory,
open to the same objections, for what he states will have the weight
of the official character of the Foreign Secretary, whether stated
as his private or his public opinion. His advice to the Marquis
d'Azeglio[73] is moreover quite open to the inference drawn by Count
Walewski, that it is an encouragement to _Sardinia_, to Military
intervention in and occupation of the Duchies, and Lord John Russell's
answer hardly meets this point if left as it stands at present;
for "the _name_ of the King of Sardinia,... _the chief of a
well-disciplined army_," will have little influence unless he is
prepared to use that army.

The Queen must ask Lord John to instruct Lord Cowley to state to Count
Walewski that no opinions expressed on Foreign Policy are those of
"Her Majesty's Government" but those which are given in the official
and regular way, and that Her Majesty's Government never thought of
advising the French Government to break the solemn engagements into
which the Emperor Napoleon entered towards the Emperor of Austria at
Villafranca.

The Queen asks Lord John to communicate this letter to Lord
Palmerston.

[Footnote 73: Massimo d'Azeglio, Sardinian Commissioner in the
Romagna. He