Source.—Letters of Queen Victoria, edited by A.C. Benson, M.A., and Viscount Esher, vol. iii., pp. 378, 379. (John Murray, 1907.)

Queen Victoria to the Earl of Derby.

Osborne,
August 2, 1858.

The Queen feels it her duty to address a few lines to Lord Derby on the subject of the reports made to Sir John Pakington on the subject of the French naval preparations, to which she has already verbally adverted when she saw Lord Derby last. These reports reveal a state of things of the greatest moment to this country. It will be the first time in her history that she will find herself in an absolute minority of ships on the sea! and this inferiority will be much greater in reality than even apparent, as our fleet will have to defend possessions and commerce all over the world, and has even in Europe a strategical line to hold, extending from Malta to Heligoland, whilst France keeps her fleet together and occupies the centre of that line in Europe.

The Queen thinks it irreconcilable with the duty which the Government owes to the country to be aware of this state of things without straining every nerve to remedy it. With regard to men in whom we are also totally deficient in case of an emergency, a Commission of Enquiry is sitting to devise a remedy; but with regard to our ships and dockyards we require action and immediate action. The plan proposed by the Surveyor to the Navy appears to the Queen excessively moderate and judicious, and she trusts that the Cabinet will not hesitate to empower its execution, bearing in mind that £200,000 spent now will probably do more work during the six or nine months for working before us than £2,000,000 would if voted in next year’s estimate, letting our arrears in the dockyards, already admitted to be very great, accumulate in the interval. Time is most precious under these circumstances!

It is true that this sum of money would be in excess of the estimates of last Session, but the Queen feels sure that on the faith of the reports made by the Admiralty the Government would find no difficulty in convincing Parliament that they have been good stewards of the public money in taking courageously the responsibility upon themselves to spend judiciously what is necessary, and that the country will be deeply grateful for the honesty with which they have served her.

The Queen wishes Lord Derby to communicate this letter to the Cabinet.