known to the world the ever-present, watchful, faithful, invaluable aid which she received 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 refrain from uttering what she has so long felt, and from proclaiming 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 Her Majesty, for many years accustomed to this loving aid, and now suddenly bereft of it, can with difficulty be imagined to the full extent 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 circumstances which preceded the draw

ing up of this Memorandum by the Prince, are 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 following are extracts from the minutes made by the Prince of those conversations, as far as they related to that proposal :

Windsor Castle, April 3, 1850.

I went yesterday to see the Duke of Wellington in his room after his arrival at the Castle,

* The circumstances narrated above, and the conduct of the Prince Consort upon them, were related by Earl Russell very succinctly and accurately in his speech in the House of Commons, Jan. 31, 1854.

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 Quartermaster-General, and he placed his answer to it in my hands. He then proceeded to say that he thought it necessary that we should cast our eyes a little before us. He was past 80 years, and would next month enter upon his 82nd. He was, thank God! very well and strong, and ready to do anything; but he could not last for ever, and in the natural course of events we must look to a change ere long. As long as he was there, he did the duty of all the offices himself. . . . . To form a new office by uniting the duties of Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General in the person 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 subdivide his office into an Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General's Department, and nothing would be gained.

However, the Duke saw the greatest advantage in having 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 command of the army.

He 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 Government Departments. For this contingency he was prepared to organize 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 attention they would require.

The Duke answered, that it would certainly require both time and attention, for nothing could be done without my 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 agree with that theory, by scrupulously taking, on every point, the 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 constitutional working of the theory, arising from the circumstance 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 selected. He repeated that he thought this the most desirable 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.