ol. i. p. 487.]

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Aberdeen._

CLAREMONT, _13th January 1844._

The Queen has received Lord Aberdeen's letter of the 10th, and returns
him the papers which he sent her, with her best thanks. She does not
remember to have seen them before.

The Queen takes this opportunity to beg Lord Aberdeen to cause the
despatches to be sent a little sooner from the Foreign Office,
as drafts in particular have often come to the Queen a week or a
fortnight after they had actually been sent across the sea.

With respect to the Hanoverian Orders, Lord Aberdeen has not quite
understood what the Queen meant. It was Sir C. Thornton and others
to whom the Queen had refused permission to accept the favour, on a
former occasion, by which the King of Hanover was much affronted. The
Queen would not like to have herself additionally fettered by any new
regulation, but Lord Aberdeen will certainly concur with the Queen
that it would not be expedient to give to the King of Hanover a power
which the Queen herself does not possess, viz. that of granting orders
as favours, or for personal services; as the number of the different
classes of the Guelphic Order bestowed on Englishmen is innumerable,
it would actually invest the King with such a power, which,
considering how much such things are sought after, might be extremely
inconvenient.

The Queen will not give a final decision upon this case until she
returns to Windsor, where she has papers explanatory of the reasons
which caused her to decline the King of Hanover's application in 1838.

[Pageheading: A CARRIAGE ACCIDENT]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

CLAREMONT, _16th January 1844._

MY DEAREST UNCLE,--Many thanks for your kind letter of the 11th.
Louise can give you the details of the little upset I and Lady Douro
had, and which I did not think worth while to mention.[3] It was the
strangest thing possible to happen, and the most _unlikely_, for we
were going quite quietly, not at all in a narrow lane, with very quiet
ponies and my usual postillion; the fact was that the boy looked the
_wrong_ way, and therefore did not perceive the ditch which he so
cleverly got us into.

We leave dear Claremont, as usual, with the greatest regret; we are
so peaceable here; Windsor is beautiful and comfortable, but it is a
_palace_, and God knows _how willingly_ I would _always_ live with my
beloved Albert and our children in the quiet and