Lord Melbourne hopes that he shall be able to wait upon your Majesty on Saturday next, but he fears the weight of the full dress uniform. He begs to be remembered to His Royal Highness.
SIR,--I shall be very happy to avail myself of your Royal Highness's kind permission occasionally to write to your Royal Highness. However much I am enjoying the contrast between repose and official life, I may say--I hope without presumption, I am sure with perfect sincerity--that the total interruption of every sort of communication with your Royal Highness would be a very severe penalty.
It was only yesterday that I was separating from the rest of my correspondence all the letters which I had received from the Queen and your Royal Highness during the long period of five years, in order that I might ensure their exemption from the fate to which in these days all letters seem to be destined, and I could not review them without a mixed feeling of gratitude for the considerate indulgence and kindness of which they contained such decisive proofs, and of regret that such a source of constantly recurring interest and pleasure was dried up.
I can act in conformity with your Royal Highness's gracious wishes, and occasionally write to you, without saying a word of which the most jealous or sensitive successor in the confidence of the Queen could complain.... Your faithful and humble Servant,
The Queen has just seen Lord Bessborough, who presses very much for her going to Ireland; she thinks it right to put Lord John Russell in possession of her views on this subject.
It is a journey which must one day or other be undertaken, and which the Queen would be glad to have accomplished, because it must be disagreeable to her that people should speculate whether she _dare_ visit one part of her dominions. Much will depend on the proper moment, for, after those speculations, it ought to succeed if undertaken.
The Queen is anxious that when undertaken it should be a National thing, and the good which it is to do must be a permanent and not a transitory advantage to a particular Government, having the appearance of a party move.
As this is not a journey of pleasure like the Queen's former ones, but a State act, it will have to be done with a certain degree of State, and ought to be done handsomely. It cannot be expected that the main expense of it should fall upon the Civil List, nor would this be able to bear it.