uvelle de la possibilite de l'abandon de votre voyage
en Crimee m'a bien tranquillisee parce qu'il y avait bien des causes
d'alarmes en vous voyant partir si loin et expose a tant de dangers.
Mais bien que l'absence de votre Majeste en Crimee soit toujours
une grande perte pour les operations vigoureuses dont nous sommes
convenus, j'espere que leur execution n'en sera pas moins vivement
poussee par nos deux Gouvernements.

Le Prince me charge de vous offrir ses plus affectueux hommages et
nos enfants qui sont bien flattes de votre gracieux souvenir, et qui
parlent beaucoup de votre visite, se mettent a vos pieds.

Avec tous les sentiments de sincere amitie et de haute estime, je me
dis, Sire et cher Frere, de V.M.I. la bien bonne S[oe]ur,

VICTORIA R.

[Pageheading: RUSSIA AND THE BLACK SEA]

[Pageheading: AUSTRIAN PROPOSALS]

_Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria._[55]

PICCADILLY, _26th April 1855_.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs
to state that the Members of the Cabinet who met yesterday evening at
the Chancellor's were of opinion that the Austrian proposal adopted by
M. Drouyn de Lhuys, even with his pretended modification, could not
be described more accurately than in the concise terms of H.R.H.
the Prince Albert, namely, that instead of making to cease the
preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea, it would perpetuate and
legalise that preponderance, and that instead of establishing a secure
and permanent Peace, it would only establish a prospective case for
war. Such a proposal therefore your Majesty's Advisers could not
recommend your Majesty to adopt; but as the step to be taken seems
rather to be to make such a proposal to Austria than to answer such
a proposal which Austria has not formally made, and as M. Drouyn's
telegraphic despatch stated that he thought that Lord John Russell
would recommend such an arrangement to his colleagues, the Cabinet
were of opinion that the best course would be simply to take no
step at all until Lord John Russell's return, which may be expected
to-morrow or next day, especially as Lord Clarendon had already, by
telegraphic message of yesterday, intimated to the French Government
that such an arrangement as that proposed by M. Drouyn, and which
would sanction a Russian Fleet in the Black Sea to any amount short by
one ship of the number existing in 1853, could not be agreed to by
the British Government. Such an arrangeme