t
least the Whig party should be kept together, to which Lord Palmerston
assented. He (Lord Palmerston) then repeated his complaints against
that plot which had been got up in this country against him, and
urged on by foreigners, complained particularly of Lord Clarendon, Mr
Greville of the Privy Council, Mr Reeve, ditto, and their attacks upon
him in the _Times_, and of Mr Delane, the Editor of the _Times_,
of Guizot, Princess Lieven, etc., etc., etc. However, they had been
convinced that they could not upset him, and Mr Reeve had declared to
him that he had been making open and honourable (?!!) war upon him;
now he would make a lasting peace. With Russia and France he (Lord
Palmerston) had just been signing the Danish Protocol, showing that
they were on the best terms together.

Lord John felt he could not press the matter further under these
circumstances, but he seemed much provoked at the result of his
conversation. We expressed our surprise that he had not made Lord
Palmerston any offer of any kind. Lord John replied he had not been
sure what he could have offered him....

ALBERT.

[Pageheading: DUTIES OF THE FOREIGN SECRETARY]

_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell._[33]

OSBORNE, _12th August 1850._

With reference to the conversation about Lord Palmerston which the
Queen had with Lord John Russell the other day, and Lord Palmerston's
disavowal that he ever intended any disrespect to her by the various
neglects of which she has had so long and so often to complain, she
thinks it right, in order _to prevent any mistake_ for the _future_,
shortly to explain _what it is she expects from her Foreign
Secretary_. She requires: (1) That he will distinctly state what
he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as
distinctly to _what_ she has given her Royal sanction; (2) 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 sincerity 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
of