ing measures of more active
coercion against her"--she cannot sanction such a Declaration
except on terms which are so clear in themselves as to exclude all
misinterpretation.

[Pageheading: SINOPE]

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Clarendon._

(Undated.)

The Queen has received Lord Clarendon's letter of the 19th, and
enclosures. She approves the Draft to Vienna, and asks to have a copy
of it, together with the Despatch from Lord Westmorland to which it
refers.

She also approves of the Draft to Lord Cowley, with certain
exceptions, viz., on the second page our accordance with the views
of the French Government "upon the utterly unjustifiable course that
Russia has pursued," etc., is stated. If, as the Queen must read it,
this refers to the affair at Sinope,[36] it is a dangerous assertion,
as we have yet no authentic account of the circumstances of the case,
which would make it possible to judge what degree of justification
there might have been. The sentence should, at any rate, be qualified
by some expression such as "as far as we know," or "should present
accounts prove correct," etc.

The word "utterly" might under any circumstances be left out, as a
state of War is in itself a justification of a battle.

On page four the words "by sea" will have to be added to make the
statement precise and correct.

The concluding sentence, the Queen must consider as tantamount to
a declaration of war, which, under the guarded conditions however
attached to it, she feels she cannot refuse to sanction. It would, in
the Queen's opinion, be necessary, however, distinctly and fully to
acquaint the Russian Government with the step now agreed upon.

Lord Palmerston's mode of proceeding always had that advantage, that
it threatened steps which it was hoped would not become necessary,
whilst those hitherto taken, started on the principle of not
needlessly offending Russia by threats, obliging us at the same time
to take the very steps which we refused to threaten.

The Queen has to make one more and a most _serious_ observation. The
Fleet has orders now to prevent a recurrence of such disasters as that
of Sinope. This cannot mean that it should protect the Turkish Fleet
in acts of aggression upon the Russian territory, such as an attack on
Sebastopol, of which the papers speak. This point will have to be made
quite clear, both to Lord Stratford and the Turks.

The Queen would also wish to have copies of the Draft,