At the end of August the Queen determined to visit Dublin on her way to Balmoral; and on the 29th she and her family landed at Kingstown Harbour.[132] Thence they proceeded to the Irish capital, where in their progress to the Vice-regal Lodge they met with an enthusiastic reception that recalled pleasant memories of their last tour. In the evening the city was illuminated in honour of its Royal guests. On the 30th they visited the Exhibition of Irish Industry, which had been organised at the sole expense of Mr. Dargan, a public-spirited citizen, whose simple, manly bearing so charmed the Queen that she says in one of her letters, “I would have made him a baronet but he was anxious it should not be done.” Nor was she less delighted with the products of native industry, which she inspected most carefully, and which she says convinced her that the display would be of vast use in encouraging the spirit of the people, by showing them what excellent work they could turn out by their own efforts. Though the Queen met with wretched weather, yet she records her delight with her visit--“a pleasant, gay, interesting time” she calls it--and speaks gratefully of the extreme kindness shown to her by all classes of the people. On the 3rd of September she left Kingstown, and on the 6th was enjoying the bracing air of Balmoral once more. It was here, on the evening of the 12th, that she heard that the Vienna Note was rejected by the Turks, and that the Eastern question was again simmering in the fatal cauldron of diplomatic incapacity. From that day her Majesty’s great aim was to work, like Lord Aberdeen, for peace; but there was an end to holiday repose at Balmoral. Foreign affairs became more and more unsettled, and on the 6th of October Stockmar was implored to come over and give the Queen and her husband the benefit of his advice. Sir James Graham was staying with them at the time, and his depressed spirits reacted on the Royal family. To refuse to protect the Sultan the Queen saw would so rouse public opinion that the Coalition Ministry, which she was so anxious to support, must fall. To declare war on Russia, Prince Albert assured her, would with equal certainty ultimately destroy that Ministry. One thing only was clear to them. Aberdeen must abandon all idea of resigning in favour of Lord John Russell, and, despite age and infirmity, must remain at the head of affairs till the war-cloud passed away. On the 14th of October the Queen accordingly returned to Osborne, painfully anxious lest the concessions which Lord Aberdeen had made to Palmerston and Russell as leaders of the War Party, and on which she commented caustically in her letter of the 11th of October to the Prime Minister, would bring the country still nearer to war. What were we to go to war for? That was the question which troubled the Queen. She could understand that in some dire extremity it might be right to exact the most terrible of sacrifices