MY DEAR PALMERSTON,—I must once more press upon you my views
concerning an interview with Kossuth. I wrote to you some time ago that
I hoped you would not see him. I wrote to you afterwards from Windsor
Castle that I thought your seeing him would be improper and unnecessary.
I wrote to you again yesterday to say that I thought that, if upon
his first arrival he had asked to see you to express through you his
thanks to the Queen’s Government for the efforts made by them for his
safety and liberation, and you had at once seen him, it might have been
thought a natural proceeding. But that, after his denunciations of
two Sovereigns with whom the Queen is on terms of peace and amity, an
interview with you would have a very different complexion.
The more I think on the matter, the more I am confirmed in this view.
It might have been right—although we did not think so—to interfere
in the war waged by Russia in Hungary. But it cannot be right that
any member of the Administration should give an implied sanction to
an agitation, commenced by a foreign refugee, against Sovereigns in
alliance with her Majesty.
I must therefore positively request that you will not receive Kossuth,
and that, if you have appointed him to come to you, you will inform him
that any communication must be in writing, and that you must decline to
see him.
Yours faithfully,
J. RUSSELL.