ich could befall us, and I thank you
beforehand for it. God's will be done! May He at least always
bless you, and preserve those you love from all evil and danger! In
affliction as in joy, I am, ever, my beloved Victoria, yours most
devotedly,

LOUISE.

_Queen Victoria to Sir Robert Peel._

CLAREMONT, _16th July 1842._

The Queen is anxious to draw Sir Robert Peel's attention to a
circumstance which she has already some months ago mentioned to him:
this is relative to Sir Edward Disbrowe.[48] The Queen knows that Sir
Robert Peel shares her opinion as to Sir Edward Disbrowe's abilities
not being of the first order, but this is not the only thing; what she
chiefly complains of is his decided unfairness towards Belgium, which
she thinks has always shown itself, and again most strongly in his
last despatches. The King of the Belgians has never dropped a word on
the subject, but the Queen really feels it her duty by her Uncle to
state this frankly to Sir Robert Peel, and to say that she thinks it
highly important that Sir Edward Disbrowe should be removed to some
other Mission. Of course she wishes that this should be done
quietly, but she thinks that with a man like the present King of the
Netherlands, who is continually intriguing in Belgium and making her
Uncle's position very painful, it is of the utmost importance that
our Minister there should be totally _unbiassed_--which Sir Edward
Disbrowe most decidedly is not. Could not Sir T. Cartwright be sent
there, and Sir Edward Disbrowe go to Stockholm? The Queen merely
suggests this; but, of course, as long as the man sent to the Hague is
sensible and _fair_, it is indifferent to her who goes there....

[Footnote 48: Then British Minister at the Hague.]

[Pageheading: GRIEF OF THE QUEEN]

_Queen Victoria to Viscount Melbourne._

CLAREMONT, _17th July 1842._

The Queen had intended to have written to Lord Melbourne some time
ago to have thanked him for his kind letter of the 5th, but she was
so occupied, first of all with the arrival of our brother and sister,
with our removal here, and lastly by the dreadful misfortune at Paris,
which has completely overpowered her, and made her quite ill--that
it prevented her from doing so. The Queen is sure that Lord Melbourne
will have warmly shared the universal horror and regret at the
untimely and fearfully sudden end of so amiable and distinguished a
Prince as poor Chartres (as we all called the Duke of