your Royal
Highness the medal which has been awarded to me by the Society of Arts
and Manufactures. This medal, recalling the respected memory of your
august father, has a double value in my eyes, for His Royal Highness
Prince Albert, from the commencement of the enterprise of the Suez
Canal, received me with that kindly feeling which was to him habitual,
and which led him always to encourage everything which might be useful
to social progress, to the discoveries of science, and to the
development of commerce. He received me for the first time in 1858, in
his private study, where he invited me to explain to him all the details
relating to the construction of the Canal, and he followed with close
attention upon the map and on the working plan the course of the
projected scheme as worked out by the engineers. Since that time he
continued on several occasions to testify the interest which he felt in
the enterprise for which the period of commencing the works had arrived.
I thank your Royal Highness and the Society of Arts for having added
this important manifestation to all the evidences which I have had the
good fortune to receive from the Government of the Queen and from the
people of Great Britain. The words of your Royal Highness will remain
engraven in my heart. I have already had the good fortune of finding
myself with you, Monseigneur, when travelling in the desert, and there,
where a man, however highly he may be placed, shows himself as he is, I
have been able to appreciate the noble character, the lofty mind, and
the elevated sentiments of your Royal Highness, and I am happy to bear
this testimony in the presence of the distinguished men who surround us.
I shall ever be, as they are, the devoted partisan of your Royal
Highness. I pray you to present to Her Majesty the homage of my respect
and of my gratitude, and to assure her that the Company which I have the
honour to direct will be able to maintain the Suez Canal in a condition
which will satisfy all the requirements of the great commerce and of the
navigation of Great Britain."

It is always a pleasure to the Prince of Wales to give the Albert Medal
with his own hands, sometimes at Marlborough House, as to Sir Henry
Bessemer, and to M. Chevalier, the distinguished French Economist. When
the award was made to Mr. Doulton, the Prince went to Lambeth to make
the presentation, and said that he would have been glad to have received
Mr. Doulton at Marlborough Hous