Prince Albert spent his last birthday, 26th August 1861, with his son in Ireland, and the Prince of Wales accompanied his parents and sisters to Killarney, where they had a very enthusiastic welcome. They travelled on the Prince Consort’s birthday. On the 29th Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, with their younger children, left Ireland, and writing to Baron Stockmar on 6th September the Prince Consort said: “The Prince of Wales has acquitted himself extremely well in the Camp, and looks forward with pleasure to his visit to the manœuvres on the Rhine.” CHAPTER V THE KING’S VISIT TO CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES [Illustration: THE TOUR IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES, 1860] During the Crimean war, Canada, stirred, as were all the British colonies, by the direful stress of the mother country, levied and equipped a regiment of infantry for service in the field with the regular British troops--an interesting precedent for what was to happen in the Boer war nearly half a century later. In return for their demonstration of loyalty, the Canadians dispatched a cordial invitation to Queen Victoria to visit her American possessions; but it was considered undesirable that Her Majesty should be exposed to the fatigues and the risks of so long a journey. Queen Victoria was then asked to appoint one of her sons Governor-General of the Dominion, but the extreme youth of all the Princes made that quite out of the question. Her Majesty, nevertheless, formally promised that when the Prince of Wales was old enough he should visit Canada in her stead. When the Prince was well on in his eighteenth year his parents decided that it was time for this promise to be fulfilled, the more so that it would enable the great railway bridge across the St. Lawrence at Montreal to be opened, and the foundation-stone of the Parliament buildings at Ottawa to be laid, by a Prince of the Blood. [Illustration: THE FIFTH DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, K.G.]