e Fleet, under Sir Charles Napier, had been
assembled at Spithead.]

[Pageheading: THE KING OF PRUSSIA]

[Pageheading: PRUSSIAN NEUTRALITY]

[Pageheading: WAR DECLARED]

_Queen Victoria to the King of Prussia._

[_Translation._]

OSBORNE, _17th March 1854._

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER,--General Count von der Groeben has brought me the
official letter of your Majesty, as well as the confidential one,[21]
and I send your kind messenger back, with these two answers to you. He
will be able to tell you, orally, what I can express only imperfectly
in writing, how deep my pain is, after our going so far, faithfully,
hand in hand, to see you, at this weighty moment, separating yourself
from us. My pain is still further increased by the fact that I cannot
even conceive the grounds which move your Majesty to take this step.

[Footnote 21: The Prussian Court considered itself under no
obligation to engage in the impending struggle, till its own
interests became directly involved; it would not (said Baron
Manteuffel, President of the Ministry, on the 18th of March)
take part, for the protection of the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire, "in a conflict, the full scope of which cannot yet be
apprehended, and the original subject matter of which does not
affect the interests of our fatherland."]

The most recent Russian proposals came as an answer to the _last_
attempt for an understanding which the Powers believed could be
arrived at honourably, and they have been rejected by the Vienna
Conference, not because they were not in accordance with the literal
wording of the programme, but because they were contrary to the
intention of it. Your Majesty's Ambassador has taken part in this
Conference and its decision, and when your Majesty now says: "The task
of Diplomacy ceases at the exact point where that of the Sovereigns
emphatically begins"; I am unable to assent to such a definition. For
what my Ambassador does, he does in my name, and I feel myself not
only bound in honour thereby, but also placed under an obligation
to take upon myself the _consequences_ which the step which he is
directed to take may lead to.

The dreadful and incalculable consequences of a War weigh upon my
heart not less than on your Majesty's. I also know that the Emperor of
Russia does not wish for it. He, none the less, demands from the Porte
things which all the Powers of Europe--among them, yourself--have
sole