The reason alleged for the determination of Members to vote for Mr Roebuck's Committee is the general desire throughout the Country that an enquiry should be instituted to ascertain the causes of the sufferings of your Majesty's troops in the Crimea.
_Queen Victoria to the King of Prussia._ [_Translation._]
DEAREST BROTHER,--I must not let Lord John Russell visit Berlin without personally recommending him to your Majesty--an honour which he deserves in a high degree, as a statesman of wide outlook, well-informed, and moderate. At the same time I may be allowed to repeat my conviction, which I have expressed several times already, that it appears to me impossible to obtain peace so long as Prussia continues indisposed to maintain, in case of necessity by force of arms, the principles publicly expressed in concert with the belligerent Powers and Austria.
Much blood, very much blood, has already been shed. Honour and justice force the belligerent Powers to make every sacrifice in continually defending those principles to the utmost. Whether diplomacy will succeed in saving Prussia from taking an active share in this defence--that remains the secret of the future, which the King of kings alone possesses!
Albert presents his homage to your Majesty, and I beg to be most cordially remembered, and remain as ever, my dear Brother, your Majesty's faithful Servant and Friend,
I have just seen Mr Gladstone, who received my box so late that I did not wish to detain him more than a few minutes, as the Cabinet was waiting for him. I told him, however, the substance of Lord Palmerston's letter, and of the Queen's answer, the wisdom of which, he said, nobody could doubt for a moment, and added that the choice lying only between many evils, I hoped he and his friends would not strive to obtain an absolute good, and thereby lose the Queen the services of an efficient Government. He begged that I should rest assured that the first and primary consideration which would guide their determination would be the position of the Crown in these critical circumstances. He had had no opportunity of consulting these last days either Mr S. Herbert or Sir James Graham. But for himself he felt the greatest difficulty in letting the House of Commons succeed in what he must consider a most unconstitutional, most presumptuous, and most dangerous course, after which it would be impossible for the Executive ever to oppose again the most absurd and preposterous demands for enquiry.[37]