The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-16 00:00:00

THE LATE PRINCE CONSOR7.

Mr. Murray has just published—" The Principal Speeches
and Addresses of his Royal Highness the Prince Consort
with an Introduction giving some Outline of his Character."
This volume contains something more than a collection
of speeches already known to the public. The Queen has
chosen this occasion to make known the secret details of
the correspondence which took place in 1850, when it was
rumoured that the prince was about to assume the position
of commander-in-chief. We have here a memorandum
written by the prince relating all the facts, and from this it
appears that it was the prince himself who withstood the
suggestions of the Duke of Wellington, who desired to
invest him with the great command. The words which in
the volume before us usher in the memorandum of the
prince are very remarkable, and will be read by the public
with even more interest than the memorandum itself :
" In allowing this memorandum of the prince to be pub-
lished, the Queen is also actuated by another motive in ad-
dition to those which have already been mentioned. It
affords her Majesty a fitting opportunity for expressing, ix
the most clear and simple manner, that for so many years
she has desired to express. During the prince's life the
Queen often longed to make known to the world the ever-
present, watchful, faithful, invaluable aid which she re-
ceived from the Prince Consort in the conduct of the public
business. Her Majesty could hardly endure even then to
be silent on this subject, and not to declare how much her
reign owed to him. And now the Queen can no longer re-
frain from uttering what she has so long felt, and from pro-
claiming the irreparable loss to the public service, as well
as to herself and to her family, which the prince's death
has occasioned. The position of hor Majesty, for aiany
years accustomed to this loving aid, and now suddenly
bereft of it, can with difficulty be imagined to the full ex-
tent of its heaviness and its sadness. Desolate and sombre,
as the Queen most deeply feels, lies the way before her ;—a
path, however, of duty and of labour, which, relying on the
loyal attachment and sympathy of her people, she will,
with God's blessing, strive to pursue ; but where she fears
her faltering steps will often show they lack the tender and
affectionate support which, on all occasions, her Majesty was
wont to receive from her beloved husband, the prince."
The occasion of this offer made by the Duke of Welling-
ton may have now'passed out of the public memory. It was
as follows :
On the death of Sir J. Macdonald, the adjutant-general,
in March, 1850, a suggestion was made to amalgamate the
two offices of adjutant and quartermaster general under
a single head, to be called chief of the staff. The Duke of
Wellington was, in consequence, summoned to Windsor,
and several conversations ensued, in the course of which
the duke proposed that arrangements should be made with
a view to the prince's ultimately succeeding himself as
commander-in• chief.
The prince's minutes of the conversation which passed
are not given in extenso, but the following are the extracts
now published :

Windsor Castle, April 3, 1850.
" I went yesterday to see the Duke of Wellington in his
room after his arrival at the Castle, our conversation soon
turning to the question of the vacant adjutant-generalship.
I asked the duke what he was prepared to recommend. He
said he had had a letter on the subject recommending the
union of the two offices of adjutant-general and quarter-
master-general, and he placed his answer to it
in my hands.
He then proceeded to say that he thought it necessary that
wo should cast our eyes a little before us. He was past 80
years, and would next mo nth enter upon his 82d. He was,
thank God I very well and strong, and ready to do any-
thing ; but he could not last for ever, and in the natural
course of ovents we must look to a change before long. As
long as he was there ho did the duty of all the offices him-
self. • . . . To form a new office by uniting the duties
of adjutant-general and quartermaster-general in the per-
son of a chief of the staff, as was the practice in some
foreign armies, would be to appoint two different persons to
do the same duty, which would never answer. The chief
of the staff would again have to sub-divide his office into an
adjutant-general and quartermaster-general's department,
and nothing would be gained.
" However, the duke saw the greatest advantage in hay.
jog a chief of the staff, if, after his death, that arrangement
should be made which he had always looked to, and which
he considered the best—viz.,that I should assume the com-
mand of the army.

lie was sure I could not do it without such a chief of
the staff, who would be responsible before the public, and
carry on the official communications with the other govern-
ment departments. For this contingency he was prepared
to organise the machinery now, and he would answer for
its success. . . .

" I answered to the duke that I should be very slow to
make up my mind to undertake so great a responsibility--
that I was not sure of my fitness for it on account of my
want of military experience, &c. (to which the duke replied
that with good honest intentions one could do a great deal,
and that he should not be the least afraid on that score)—
whether I could perform the duties consistently with my
other avocations, as I should not like to undertake what I
could not carry through, not knowing what time or atten-
tion they would require.
" The duke answered that it would certainly require both
time and attention, for nothing could be done without ray

knowledge, or without my order, but that the detail would
be worked out by the chief of the staff. He had thoroughly
considered that and would make it work. . . He always
stood up for the principle of the army being commanded by
the Sovereign, and he endeavoured to make the practice'
pointagree
the
with that theory by scrupulously taking on every
Queen's pleasure before he acted. But, were he
gone, he saw no security, unless I undertook the command
myself, and thus supplied what was deficient in the consti-
tutional working of the theory arising from the circum-
stance of the present Sovereign being a lady. Strictly
constitutionally I should certainly be responsible for my
acts, but before the world in general the chief of the staff
would bear the responsibility, and for that office the man of
the greatest-name and weight in the army ought to be se-
lected. He repeated that he thought this the most de-
sirable arrangement, and would at once work it out to the
best of his ability. . . I begged him to leave me time:
to consider the proposal.
"In the evening the Queen gave the Duke of Wellington
an audience, I being present. After having set out by say-
ing ho was most anxious to let the Queen know and feel all
he knew and felt about it—in fact, to think aloud—the
duke repeated what he had said to me in the morning, mi.
we discussed the question further. I said that there were
several points which still required to be considered. . .
The offer was so tempting for a young man that I felt
bound to look most closely to all the objectiDns to it in order
to come to a right decision. . . The Queen, as a lady„
was not able at all times to perform the many duties imposed.
upon her ; moreover, she had no private secretary who,
worked for her, as former Sovereigns had had. The only
person who helped her and who could assist her in the mul-
tiplicity of work which ought to be done by the Sovereigrt
was myself. I should be very sorry to undertake any duty
which would absorb my time and attention so much for one
department as to interfere with my general usefulness to
the Queen. , . . The Queen added that I already
worked harder than she liked to see and than she thought
was good for my health,* which I did not allow—answer-
ing that, on the contrary, business must naturally increase
with time, and ought to increase, if the Sovereign's duties
to the country were to be thoroughly performed ; but that I
was anxious no more should fall upon her than could be
helped.
" The duke seemed struck with this consideration and
said he had not overlooked it, but might not have given it
all the weight it deserved, and that he would reflect further
upon it.

" We agreed at last that this question could not be satis-
factorily solved:unless we knew the exact duties which had
to be performed, and the Queen charged the duke to draw
up a memorandum in which these should be detailed, and
his general opinion explained, so that we might found de-
cision on that paper. This the duke promised to do
" Windsor Castle, April 6, 1850.
"After a good deal of reflection on the Duke of Welling.

ton's proposal, I went to pay him a visit yesterday morning
in his room, and found him prepared with his memoran-
dum, which he handed me. After having read it, I said;
to him that I must consider my position as a whole,.
which was that of the consort and confidential adviser and
assistant of a femalo sovereign. Her interest and good
should stand foremost, and all other considerations
must be viewed in reference to this, and in subordina--

tion to it. The question then was simply whether
I should not weaken my means of attending to all
parts of the constitutional position alike—political, social,

and moral —if I devoted myself to a special branch, however
important that might be; and that I was afraid this would
be the consequence of my becoming commander-in-chief.
It was quite true that the Sovereign being a lady naturally
_ _

weakened her relation to the army, and that the ditty

rested upon me of supplying that deficiency, and would
do so still more when the protection which the duke.
afforded to the Crown should be unfortunately withdrawn.
But I doubted whether this might Rot be accomplished
without my becoming especially responsible for the com-
mand of the army. There was no branch of public busks /as
in which I was not now supporting the Queen, &c. . .

The duke replied he quite saw that my position ought to be,
looked at as a whole. He felt the extreme difficulty and
delicacy of it, and was kind enough to add that he approved
of, and the public did full justice to, the way in which I

bad hitherto maintainel it. 1 begged him to leave me a little
time for consideration, that I wanted to study his memor-
andum, and would finally write to him upon the subject."
Ultimately the prince formally declined the position in.
the following admirable letter :
" My dear duke,—The Queen and myself have thoroughly
considered your proposal to join the offices of adjutant-
general and quartermaster-general into one of a chief of
the staff, with a view to facilitate the future assumption of

the command of the army by myself. . . The question,
whether:it will be advisable that I should take the command
of the army or not has been most anxiously weighed by me,
and I have come to the conclusion that my decision
ought entirely and solely to be guided by the consideration
whether it would interfere with or assist my position of
consort of the Sovereign, and the performance of the duties
which this position imposes upon me.
" This position is a most peculiar and deliekAte one.

While a female sovereign has a great many disadvantages

,n comparison with a king, yet, if she is married, and her
husband understands and does his duty, her position, on

the other hand has many compensating advantages, and, in
the long run, will be found even to be stronger than thet of
a male sovereign. But this requires that the husband should
entirely sink his own individual existence in that of his wifer
that he should aim at no power by himself or for himself—
should shim all ostentation—assume no separate responsi-
bility before the public —but make his position entirely ra
part of hers—fill up every gap which as a woman she would
naturally leave in the exercise of her regal functions--con-

tinually and anxiously watch every part of the public busi-
ness, in order to be able to advise and assist her at any mo-
ment in any of the multifarious and difficult questions or
duties brought before her, sometimes international, some-
times po'itical, or social or personal. As the natural head
of her family, superintendent of her household, manager of
her private affairs, sole confidential adviser in politics, and
only assistant in her communications with the officers of the
government, he is, besides the husband of the Queen, the
tutor of the royal children, the private secretary of the So-
vereign, and her permanent minister,
" How far would it be consistent with this position to
undertake the management and administration of a most
important branch of the public service, and the individual:
responsibility attaching to it—becoming an executive officer
of the crown, receiving the Queen's commands through her
secretaries of state, &c 4 I feel sure that, having under-
, taken the responsibility, I should not be satisfied to leavw
the business and real work in the hands of another (the-
chief of the staff), and should feel it my duty to look to
them myself. But while I should in this manner perform
duties which, I am sure, every able general officer who has
gained experience in the field would be able to perform bet--
ter than myself, who have not had the advantage of such
experience, most important duties connected with the wel-
fare of the Sovereign would be left unperformed, which no-
body could perform but myself. I am afraid, therefore,
that I must discard the tempting idea of being placed in
command of the British army."

* The anxiety of the Queen lest the prince should injure
his health by his excessive attention to public busters na-
turally continued to increase. In 1860, when the Society
of Arts renewed the proposal for holding a second Inierne-
tional Exhibition, the Queen wrote to Lord Granville, wth-
out the knowledge of the prince, expressing her earneOt
hope that he (Lord eranville) would do all that in him lay
to prevent the resonsibility and labour of conducting the
undertaking being thrown in any way on his royal high-
ness. The Queen felt deeply the necessity for averting any
addition to the heavy work already entailed on the prince
by the assistance and support (ecery day more needful to
her) which he gave her in the transaotion of all public busi-
ness; and her Majesty was convinced that he could not
again undertake the labour he had gone through in conduct-
ing the first Exhibition to its successful term:illation with-
out injury to that health which was not only mast precious
to herself and his family, but to the country, an
eTe4 to
the world.

A FRIEND IN IN EED.—In one of the hospitals at
Alexandria we saw a young fellow near an open window
lustily singing, "I'm a bold soldier boy." "And what is•
the matter with you?" " Blind, sir, blind as a bat." Poor
Joe Parsons was in front at Antietam Creek, and a ball
passed directly through his eyes, across his face, destroying
his sight for ever. But he was as happy as a lark. " I
might ha' been worse, yer see. I was hit," he said, "and
it knocked me down. I lay there all night, and the next
day the fight was renewed. I could stand the pain, yer see,
but the balls was flying all round, and I wanted to get
away. I couldn't see nothin', though. At last I heard a.
feller groanin' beyond me. Hello l' says Hello, your-
self,' says he. Who be yer ?' says a Rebel ?' "You're
a Yankee,' says he, So I am,' says I. What's the mat-
ter with you My leg's smashed,' says he. Can't yer
Yes.' 'Won,' says I, you're
walk ?" No.' Can yer see?'
a-- Rebel, but will you do me a little favour?' will,'
says he, of I ken.' Then I says, ' Well, ole butternut, I
can't see nothin'. My eyes is knocked out, but I ken walk.
Come over yere. Let's git out o' this. You pint the way,
an' I'll tote yer off the field on my back.' Bully for you,'
says he. And so we managed to git together. We shook
hands on it. I took a wink outer his canteen, and he got
on to my shoulders. I did the walkia' for both, an' he did
the navigatin'. An' of he didn't make me carry him
straight into a rebel colonel's tent, a mile away, I'm aliar
llows'ever, the colonel came up, an' says he, ' Whar d'yer
come from ? Who be yer I told him. He said I was
done for, and couldn't do no more shoot'n ; an' he sent me
over to our lines. So I came down here with the 14:?eurned_e,d,
boys, where we're doin' pretty well, all things coonrsfellowd
"But you will never see the light again, y
in the eye—an'
can't help it, you
the. old man said of
faubolt;asosildier boy. "—Pkila-
I did
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Im,my a
TRADE OF THE wO-
- Enquirer.
ng
the month of Nova
d considerable increase as compared with the cor-
responding Pei 299 tons of coke, and 1,p0rt5325 tons of patent
tons of iron, •
l were exported from Cardiff, being an increase of nearly
Ifl7ooo tons of coal as compared with the corresponding
month of 1861. 437 vessels left the pert of Swansea during
the month with an aggregate registered tonnage of 52,113
tons, being a slight increase on 1861. Llanelly and Briton
Ferry also show an increase on 1861,