stroyed at once.
It must be expected that under such a state of things, they will be
unquiet, and will try to obtain what they so eagerly desire and have
once possessed.

Lord Melbourne is much rejoiced to hear that your Majesty is in the
enjoyment of such good health. Your Majesty's observations upon your
own situation are in the highest degree just and prudent, and it is
a sign of a right mind and of good feelings to prize the blessings we
enjoy, and not to suffer them to be too much altered by circumstances,
which may not turn out exactly according to our wishes.

[Pageheading: THE UNITED STATES]

_The Earl of Aberdeen to Queen Victoria._

FOREIGN OFFICE, _24th December 1841._

Lord Aberdeen presents his most humble duty to your Majesty. He
ventures to request your Majesty's attention for a moment to the
character of your Majesty's present relations with the Government of
the United States. Your Majesty is aware that several questions of
great difficulty and importance have been long pending between the two
Governments.[161] Some of these have become more complicated than
they were ten years ago; and any of them might, at any moment, lead to
consequences of the most disastrous nature.

Instead of continuing negotiations, necessarily tedious and which
promise to be interminable, your Majesty's servants are humbly of
opinion that an effort ought to be made, by a Special Mission at
Washington, to bring all these differences promptly to an adjustment.
The public feeling in the United States at this time does not appear
to be unfavourable for such an attempt. Should it be undertaken by a
person whose rank, character, and abilities would ensure respect, and
whose knowledge of the subjects under discussion, and of the people of
the country, together with his conciliatory manners, would render him
generally acceptable, your Majesty might perhaps indulge the hope of a
successful result.

Lord Aberdeen humbly ventures to think that such a person may be found
in Lord Ashburton,[162] whom he submits for your Majesty's gracious
approbation.

[Footnote 161: The question of the North-West Boundary had
long been one source of dispute; another was the right the
British Government claimed of searching vessels suspected of
being engaged in the slave trade.]

[Footnote 162: Alexander, first Lord Ashburton, who had held
office in Peel's short Ministry, and married Miss Bingham of
Philadelp