Your Majesty can, if you think fit, make this communication known to
the Minister who, as successor to Sir Robert Peel, may be honoured by
your Majesty's confidence.

On the first day of November last Sir Robert Peel advised his
colleagues, on account of the alarming accounts from Ireland and many
districts of Great Britain as to the failure of the potato crop from
disease, and for the purpose of guarding against contingencies which
in his opinion were not improbable, humbly to recommend to your
Majesty that the duties on the import of foreign grain should be
suspended for a limited period either by Order in Council, or by
Legislative Enactment, Parliament in either case being summoned
without delay.

Sir Robert Peel foresaw that this suspension, fully justified by the
tenor of the reports to which he has referred, would compel, during
the interval of suspension, the reconsideration of the Corn Laws.

If the opinions of his colleagues had been in concurrence with his
own, he was fully prepared to take the responsibility of suspension,
and of the necessary consequence of suspension, a comprehensive review
of the laws imposing restrictions on the import of foreign grain and
other articles of food, with a view to their gradual diminution and
ultimate removal. He was disposed to recommend that any new laws to be
enacted should contain within themselves the principle of gradual and
ultimate removal.

Sir Robert Peel is prepared to support in a private capacity measures
which may be in general conformity with those which he advised as a
Minister.

It would be unbecoming in Sir Robert Peel to make any reference to the
details of such measures.

Your Majesty has been good enough to inform him that it is your
intention to propose to Lord John Russell to undertake the formation
of a Government.

The principle on which Sir Robert Peel was prepared to recommend the
reconsideration of the laws affecting the import of the main articles
of food, was in general accordance with that referred to in the
concluding paragraph of Lord John Russell's letter to the electors of
the City of London.[32]

Sir Robert Peel wished to accompany the removal of restrictions on the
admission of such articles, with relief to the land from such charges
as are unduly onerous, and with such other provisions as in the terms
of Lord John Russell's letter "caution and even scrupulous forbearance
may suggest."

Sir Robert Peel will support measure