greatly to the alarm of her Majesty. At last a way out of all their difficulties was opened up. It was proposed to establish a guarantee fund to meet any deficit that might be incurred, and on the 12th of June it was started by a subscription of £50,000 from Messrs. Peto, the contractors. In a few days the subscriptions sufficed to solve the financial problem. Ultimately, to the surprise of those who had scoffed at the Prince’s sanguine anticipations, not only were the guarantors freed from all responsibility, but when the Exhibition accounts were closed, the Commissioners found themselves with a balance of a quarter of a million in hand. The work was accordingly begun without further delay. But no sooner had one source of vexation vanished than another was opened. In August the Queen, mortified at further displays of wayward recklessness on Lord Palmerston’s part, and failing to inspire the Prime Minister with enough courage to rebuke him, at last determined to take the matter in hand herself. Although Palmerston was then at the height of his popularity, owing to the triumph of his _civis Romanum sum_ doctrine in the Don Pacifico debate, her Majesty penned a Memorandum to Lord John Russell, which has become historic. It is dated the 16th of August, and was written at Osborne. In it she accepts Lord Palmerston’s disavowal of an intention to offer her any disrespect by his past neglect, but, to prevent fresh mistakes, she deems it as well to say that in future she requires-- “(1) That he (the Foreign Secretary) will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what she has given her Royal sanction. (2) Having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failure in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her Constitutional right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the Foreign Ministers before important decisions are taken based on that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time, and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off.” Lord John Russell sent this Memorandum to Palmerston, who lightly pleaded pressure of business in palliation of his past faults, but promised to behave better in time to come. Had he been a man of high spirit or sensitive feelings, he would have resigned when the Queen’s Memorandum was sent to him. High spirit, however, was not to be expected from the Minister that sent a British fleet to coerce Greece, though he dared not utter a word of protest against the Russian invasion of Hungary,[24] or who, whilst he could be swift to resent an impertinence from a decrepit Power like Spain, accepted with the utmost meekness a rebuke from Russia in reference to