| Collection | Victorian Papers, Main Series |
| Description | As to 3rd Viscount Palmerston's disavowal of intended disrespect, Queen Victoria has had so often to complain that she thinks it right to explain what she expects from her Foreign Minister: - "The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving her royal sanction. Secondly, having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in sincrity towards the crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the foreign ministers, before important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time; and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off". This letter to be shown to Palmerston. |