uld be disposed (from not
feeling the necessity) to place any real confidence in the advice she
received from Peel.

[Footnote 114: No doubt Lord Melbourne said an "apple-pie"
opinion.]

[Footnote 115: At the opening of the Session Lord Ripon had
reprobated the late Government for resorting to temporary
expedients, and Lord Melbourne, on the second reading of the
Exchequer-bills Funding Bill, caustically but good-humouredly
replied to the attack.]

[Footnote 116: _Note by Baron Stockmar._--If he wishes to
carry this out consistently and quite honestly, what then is
the value of his advice, if it be only the copy of that of Sir
R. Peel?]

[Footnote 117: _Note by Baron Stockmar._--This means, in my
way of reading it: "The Queen, by her correspondence with
me, puts Peel into my hands, and there I mean to let him stay
unhurt, until time and extraneous circumstances--but more
especially the advantage that will accrue to me by my secret
correspondence with the Queen--shall enable me to plunge, in
all security, the dagger into his back."]

_The Earl of Liverpool to Baron Stockmar._[118]

FIFE HOUSE, _7th October 1841._

MY DEAR BARON,--Peel sent for me this morning to speak to me about
the contents of his letter to me. After some general conversation on
matters respecting the Royal Household, he said that he had had
much satisfaction in his intercourse lately with Her Majesty, and
specifically yesterday, and he asked me whether I had seen Her Majesty
or the Prince yesterday, and whether they were satisfied with him. I
told him that except in public I had not seen Her Majesty, and except
for a moment in your room I had not seen the Prince; but that as he
spoke to me on this matter, I must take the opportunity of saying a
word to him about _you_, from whom I had learnt yesterday that both
the Queen and Prince are extremely well pleased with him. That I
had known you very long, but that our great intimacy began when King
Leopold sent you over just previous to the Queen's accession; that we
had acted together on that occasion, and that our mutual esteem and
intimacy had increased; that your position was a very peculiar one,
and that you might be truly said to be a species of second parent to
the Queen and the Prince; that your only object was their welfare, and
your only ambition to be of service to them; that in this sense you
had communicate