_April_ 12, 1848

Yesterday was chiefly spent in receiving visits and congratulations
without end, and very welcome they were. John and I had also a good
long walk to freshen him up for a hard day in the House of
Commons....

_April_ 13, 1848

Again many notes and visits of congratulation and mutual rejoicing
yesterday. God grant that this triumph of the good cause may have
some effect on unhappy, misguided Ireland; there is the weight that
almost crushes John, who opens Lord Clarendon's daily letters with
an uneasiness not to be told.

_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell_

OSBORNE, _April_ 14, 1848

The Queen has received Lord John Russell's letter of yesterday
evening. She approves that a form of prayer for the present time of
tumult and trouble be ordered. She concludes it is for _peace_
and _quiet_ GENERALLY, which indeed we _may well_ pray
for. A thanksgiving for the failure of any attempts like the
proposed one last Monday, the Queen would not have thought
judicious, as being painful and unlike thanksgiving for
preservation from _foreign war_.

Our accounts from Germany yesterday, from different quarters, were
very distressing and alarming. So much fear of a _total_
subversion of _all_ existing things. But we must not lose
courage or hope.

In the midst of these troubles and forebodings, on the day that the Queen
wrote the above letter to Lord John, their second son, George William
Gilbert, was born.

Lady John was touched by the following letter from Dr. James Simpson (the
eminent physician, later Sir James Simpson), under whose medical care she
had been in Edinburgh some years before.

EDINBURGH, _March_, 1848

I heard from two or three different sources that your Ladyship was
to be blessed by an addition to your family....

I _once_ made a pledge, that I would gladly leave all to watch
and guard over your safety if you desired me. I have not forgotten
the pledge, and am ready to redeem it--but not for fee or
recompense, only for the love and pleasure of being near you at a
time I could possibly show my gratitude by watching over your
valued health and life.... With almost all my medical brethren here
I use chloroform in all cases. None of us, I believe, could now
feel justified in _not_ relieving pain, when God has bestowed
upon us the means of re