ow how to answer, since she so thoroughly agreed with them?
She addressed herself to the Prime Minister. "No remonstrance has any
effect with Lord Palmerston," she said. "Lord Palmerston," she told him
on another occasion, "has as usual pretended not to have had time to
submit the draft to the Queen before he had sent it off." She summoned
Lord John to her presence, poured out her indignation, and afterwards,
on the advice of Albert, noted down what had passed in a memorandum: "I
said that I thought that Lord Palmerston often endangered the honour of
England by taking a very prejudiced and one-sided view of a question;
that his writings were always as bitter as gall and did great harm,
which Lord John entirely assented to, and that I often felt quite ill
from anxiety." Then she turned to her uncle. "The state of Germany,"
she wrote in a comprehensive and despairing review of the European
situation, "is dreadful, and one does feel quite ashamed about that once
really so peaceful and happy country. That there are still good people
there I am sure, but they allow themselves to be worked upon in a
frightful and shameful way. In France a crisis seems at hand. WHAT a
very bad figure we cut in this mediation! Really it is quite immoral,
with Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw off her
allegiance at any moment, for us to force Austria to give up her lawful
possessions. What shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc., begin to trouble
us? It hurts me terribly." But what did Lord Palmerston care?

Lord John's position grew more and more irksome. He did not approve of
his colleague's treatment of the Queen. When he begged him to be more
careful, he was met with the reply that 28,000 despatches passed through
the Foreign Office in a single year, that, if every one of these were
to be subjected to the royal criticism, the delay would be most serious,
that, as it was, the waste of time and the worry involved in submitting
drafts to the meticulous examination of Prince Albert was almost too
much for an overworked Minister, and that, as a matter of fact, the
postponement of important decisions owing to this cause had already
produced very unpleasant diplomatic consequences. These excuses would
have impressed Lord John more favourably if he had not himself had to
suffer from a similar neglect. As often as not Palmerston failed to
communicate even to him the most important despatches. The Foreign
Secretary was becoming an almost in