Page:The Letters Of Queen Victoria, vol. 2 (1908).djvu/59

1845]  communication, and to express his grateful acknowledgments for it.

He must, in justice to his brother, assure your Majesty that he never has expressed, and probably never would express, a wish to Sir Robert Peel on the subject of preferment in the Church.

Sir Robert Peel might have hesitated to bring the name of one so nearly connected with him under the notice of your Majesty, but as his brother was highly distinguished in his academical career at Oxford, and is greatly respected for the discharge of every professional duty, Sir Robert Peel could not feel himself justified in offering an impediment to the fulfilment of your Majesty’s gracious intentions in his favour, if, when the vacancy shall have actually occurred in the Deanery of Worcester, no superior claim should be preferred.

Lord Stanley to Queen Victoria. Downing Street, 10th July 1845.

Lord Stanley, with his humble duty, submits to your Majesty a despatch just received from the Governor of South Australia, enclosing the letter of a settler in the province, Mr Walter Duffield, who is anxious to be allowed the honour of offering for your Majesty’s acceptance a case of the first wine which has been made in the colony.

Lord Stanley will not venture to answer for the quality of the vintage ; but as the wine has been sent over with a loyal and dutiful feeling, and the importer, as well as the colonists in general, might feel hurt by a refusal of his humble offering, he ventures to hope that he may be permitted to signify, through the Governor, your Majesty’s gracious acceptance of the first sample of a manufacture which, if successful, may add. greatly to the resources of this young but now thriving colony.

The above is humbly submitted by your Majesty’s most dutiful Servant and Subject,

Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians. Osborne, 29th July 1845.

,—Accept my best thanks for your very kind little note of the 26th. As Albert writes to you about the VOL. II