y be decided by a _most minute, impartial,
and anxious scrutiny_. She indignantly rejects the notion to leave
this decision to Mr Southern.... Lord John's statement contains,
however, nothing but the echo of his reports.

Lord John will upon reflection admit that to say "that recent events
exhibit a spirit of tyranny and cruelty in the Portuguese Government
_without a parallel_ in any part of Europe," there, where not _one_
execution has taken place, is rather a strong expression.

That the cruelties and miseries inseparable from a Civil War are to
be deplored, there can be no doubt of, and it is in order to stop a
further continuance and perhaps aggravation of these horrors, that
the Queen is so anxious to see the struggle brought to an early
termination.

The Queen hopes to see Lord John to-morrow at three o'clock, when she
hopes that he will be able to submit a definitive step.

[Page Heading: ENGLAND AND PORTUGAL]

_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell._

_14th March 1847._

The Queen wishes again to call Lord John Russell's serious attention
to the state of Spain and Portugal, and to the policy which has been
pursued with regard to them, and the result of this policy. In Spain
we have taken up the cause of the Progressistas, and what has been the
consequence? They desert us.

We have no longer the slightest influence in that country; France has
it all her own way, and we shall see the Cortes confirm the succession
of the Infanta and her children without being able to prevent it. Of
the Progressistas, on whom Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, and others
always placed their hopes, Mr Bulwer says _now_: "The fact is, that
though they are the party least servile to France, they are the most
impracticable party, and belonging to a lower class of society, who
have not the same feelings of honourable and gentlemanlike conduct
which sometimes guide a portion, though a very small one, of their
opponents."

In Spain therefore it is, the Queen fears, _too late_; but let us not
throw away this lesson, and, if it is still possible, not also lose
Portugal. Our influence there is fast going, and Sir H. Seymour[1]
confirms what _every one_ but Mr Southern has stated for the last
two months, viz. that we are believed to be favourable to the rebels;
consequently, that no advice of ours will be listened to. Sir H.
Seymour further says: "I should have been glad to have gained a little
time, and not at the outset of