It cannot be denied that the position of the Prince is somewhat anomalous, and has not been specially provided for by the Constitution; but the ties of Nature, and the dictates of common sense are more powerful than Constitutional fictions; and Lord Aberdeen can only say that he has always considered it an inestimable blessing that your Majesty should possess so able, so zealous, and so disinterested an adviser. It is true that your Ministers are alone responsible for the conduct of public affairs, and although there is no man in England whose opinion Lord Aberdeen would more highly respect and value, still if he had the misfortune of differing from His Royal Highness, he would not hesitate to act according to his own convictions, and a sense of what was due to your Majesty's service. The Prince has now been so long before the eyes of the whole country, his conduct so invariably devoted to the public good, and his life so perfectly inattackable, that Lord Aberdeen has not the slightest apprehension of any serious consequences arising from these contemptible exhibitions of malevolence and faction. Your Majesty will graciously pardon Lord Aberdeen for writing thus plainly; but there are occasions on which he almost forgets your Majesty's station, and only remembers those feelings which are common to all ranks of mankind. [Footnote 1: A section of the Press, favourable to Lord Palmerston, had insinuated that his resignation was due to "an influence behind the throne." Similar attacks were made by other journals, and not abandoned upon Lord Palmerston's re-admission to the Cabinet: the most extravagant charges of improper interference in State affairs were made against the Prince, and it was even rumoured that he had been impeached for high treason and committed to the Tower! The cartoons in _Punch_ usually present a faithful reflection of current popular opinion, and in one of them the Prince was depicted as skating, in defiance of warning, over dangerous ice.] [Pageheading: PERSIA] _Queen Victoria to the Earl of Clarendon._ WINDSOR CASTLE, _9th January 1854._ The Queen thanks Lord Clarendon for his letter just received with the enclosures. As the proposed answer to the Emperor contains perhaps necessarily only a repetition of what the Queen wrote in her former letter,[2] she inclines to the opinion that it will be best to defer any answer for the present--the more so, as a moment might possibly arrive when it would be of advantage to be able to write and to refer to the Emperor's last letter.