Her Majesty is desirous of expressing her gratitude for the noble exertions of the troops in a conflict which is unsurpassed in the annals of war for persevering valour and chivalrous devotion. The strength and fury of the attacks, repeatedly renewed by fresh columns with a desperation which appeared to be irresistible, were spent in vain against the unbroken lines, and the matchless intrepidity of the men they had to encounter. Such attacks could only be repulsed by that cool courage, under circumstances the most adverse, and that confidence of victory, which have ever animated the British Army. The banks of the Alma proved that no advantages of position can withstand the impetuous assault of the Army under your command. The heights of Inkermann have now shown that the dense columns of an entire army are unable to force the ranks of less than one-fourth their numbers in the hand-to-hand encounters with the bayonet which characterized this bloody day. Her Majesty has observed with the liveliest feeling of gratification the manner in which the troops of her ally, the Emperor of the French, came to the aid of the divisions of the British Army engaged in this numerically unequal contest. The Queen is deeply sensible of the cordial co-operation of the French Commander-in-Chief, General Canrobert, and the gallant conduct of that distinguished officer, General Bosquet; and Her Majesty recognizes in the cheers with which the men of both nations encouraged each other in their united charge, proofs of the esteem and admiration mutually engendered by the campaign and the deeds of heroism it has produced. The Queen desires that your lordship will receive her thanks for your conduct throughout this noble and successful struggle, and that you will take measures for making known her no less warm approval of the services of all the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, who have so gloriously won, by their blood freely shed, fresh honours for the Army of a country which sympathises as deeply with their privations and exertions as it glories in their victories and exults in their fame. _Let not any private soldier in those ranks believe that his conduct is unheeded. The Queen thanks him. His country honours him._