Ebe eourt.

THE Queen held a Court and Privy Council, at Windsor Castle, on Satur- day, to receive the addresses of the London and Dublin Corporations.

The London address was conveyed to the Castle by a numerous depu- tation, the chiefs of which went in their state carriages; the City Marshals heading the procession. The deputation comprised the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, seven Aldermen, and one hundred and ten Common Councilmen, with the Recorder and other principal City officers. They alighted at the grand entrance, and were conducted to the Waterloo Chamber; where they were entertained at a sumptuous collation; the Queen's Pages waiting on the civic guests.

The presentation took place in the Throne-room; which had been fitted up for an investiture of the Garter. Her MAjesty and Prince Albert were conducted in state, by the Lord Steward and the Vice- Chamberlain. The Queen took her seat on the throne; Prince Albert stood on her t hand, with the Lord Steward, Sir Robert Peel, Sir James 1 of Dalhousie; on the left stood the Vice-Chamber- Wellington. Other Cabinet Ministers and officers of god on either side. The Lord Mayor of London and

the deputation were introduced by the Gentlemen Ushers; and the Recorder read this address- " Most Gracious Sovereign—We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lord Mayor Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council assembled, humbly approach your Royal person respectfully to represent to your Majesty, " That great, powerful, and wealthy as this nation is by far the largest vortion of your biajesl's subjects in beland, and a great portion of your Majesty a sub- jects in England, Scotland, and Wales, have long been reduced, for their principal food, to potatoes.

" That all classes, but especially the poor, have been and are great sufferers from this result of the national economy. " That the blight which has fallen upon the potato has subjected your Ma- jeaty's people to great anxiety and distress, and to the danger of famine.

" That their sufferings are attributable to erroneous legislation, which, by ex- cluding the importation of food, and restricting commerce, shuts out from the nation the bounty of Providence. We therefore humbly pray that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to use the means in your Majesty's power to open the ports of this kingdom for the free importation of food."

Having received the address, the Queen returned the following answer-

" The motives which have induced you to present this address are duly appre- ciated by me. The wants and sufferings of my people at all times command my warmest sympathy; and I deeply regret the failure in the present year of a 'full supply of an article of food on which so many of my subjects are accustomed to subsist- " I have directed Parliament to assemble on an early day; and I shall gladly sanction any measure which the wisdom of the Legislature may suggest as con- ducive to the alleviation of this temporary distress, and to the permanent welfare of all classes of my people." The Lord Mayor and the senior Alderman, with the mover and seconder of the address, were permitted to kiss the Queen's hand; and the deputa- tion retired.

The reception of the Dublin deputation, which reached the Castle a quarter of an hour later, was precisely similar. The deputation comprised the Lord Mayor, Mr. Thomas Reynolds, the Marshal of Dublin, Mr. C. P. Shannon, Town-Councillor, and six officers of the Corporation. The ad- dress subjoined was read by the Lord Mayor-

" May it please your Majesty—We, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of Dublin, approach your Majesty with feelings of loyalty and profound respect for your Majesty's person and throne; but, impelled by an imperative sense of duty, we cannot refrain longer from laying before your Majesty that which must cause much pain and anguish to a Monarch who feels acutely for the sufferings of her people.

" We assure your Majesty, that we would not address you on the destitution of our country, but that we are deeply impressed with the awful responsibility that would attach to us in the eyes of an all-ruling Providence if we were silent, and did not make known to your Majesty the melancholy situation to which the inha- bitants of Ireland may be reduced, and the danger that exists of a whole people under your Majesty's sway falling victims to the scourge of famine, and pesti- lence its usual concomitant, if measures shall not be promptly taken by your Majesty's Government, under the blessing of a merciful God, to avert from Ire- land such a calamity.

" We beg to inform your Majesty, that, from causes over which your people of Ireland have had no control, they have been reduced for many, very many years, to look to the potato crop as the only source whence to draw their daily suste- nance. To them, beyond the people of all other nations, was assigned, as their only food, the poorest food in the world; and of that, for the vast majority of them, their supply was scanty: but their wretchedness did not terminate even at this point—tor them there was still a step lower in the depths of misery. Their sup- ply of food was not only scanty and of the worst kind, but of late years they were compelled to eke out existence on the very worst species of that food. Alas ! food unfitted for the brute animal was and is the food of the vast majority of your sub- jects in Ireland. " May it please your Majesty, this state of destitution of your people, although known to us who live among and form a portion of them there, rests not on our evidence: Commissioners appointed by your Majesty, in their report now pub- lished to the world, have announced that the agricultural labourers of Ireland and their families are calculated to amount to more than' four millions of human beings, whose only food is the potato, whose only drink is water, whose houses are pervious to the rain, to whom a bed or a blanket is a luxury Unknown, and who are more wretched than any other people in Europe. " This statement is too true; but it is confined to one class alone—agricultural labourers. We are compelled to add, that this description of the destitution of four millions of your subjects, when it says they are more wretched than any other people in Europe, does not convey the whole truth: for there are, alas ! many more of your people, not included in the class designated by the Commissioners, who, it should be added, are on the verge of famine: and this is related of the inhabitants of a country which of late years may be justly termed the ' granary of England,' exporting annually from the midst of a starving population food of the best kind, in sufficient abundance for treble its own inhabitants.

" Such, may it please your Majesty to be informed, was the situation of the Irish people at the commencement of the late autumn. The wise Ruler of All was pleased to bless then our land with a harvest teeming with abdndance of the best food of man. Our people gathered it and saved it; but, alas ! when He was pleased thus to reward the labours of the husbandman, He, for his own wise par poses, blighted the potato crop, and destroyed at least one-third of their sole, their only support for one year; and this involves a state of utter destitution for four

onths of a great majority of your Irish people.

" May it please your Majesty, we have reflected on the awful truth: a vast number of fellow beings, created for the same wise purposes, destined for the same great end, are in danger of being without food for four months, and thus to fall the victims of famine and pestilence, if immediate measures are not resorted to to avert the calamity. However, in appealing, and thus submitting to your Majesty the danger advancing on your people, we know you have the will, and we con- fidently rely on it, to save them; and we know also that, placed at the head of the most powerful nation of the world, the power to save exists. But we ask not alms • we desire not the dolings out of charity from the affluent of one portion of the kingdom to the people of the other. We submit that, to avert a national calamity of this kind, great national undertakings of public'utility for national good should be resorted to; that the national treasury should be poured out to give employment to the people at remunerative wages, such as would enable them to pay for food at the high rate at which it may be bad, either arising from its better quality than that heretofore used, or the increase of the demand where the supply may be straitened from the loss of the crop. Such, we submit, are the leading measures to be promptly resorted to,—employment of the people on national works, wages commensurate with the cost of living, freedom for import of pro- visions; mercantile enterprise will supply the rest. " We submit to your Majesty, that our country affords a wide field for such national undertakings—in the cultivation of our waste lands, the drainage of our soil by the improvement of our numerous streams and rivers, the opening out of the remote parts of the island, by making roads throughout the country, and the erection of railways. We, in humbly laying before your Majesty the state of destitution to which your subjects in Ireland have been reduced—the awful and appalling calamity that advances on them, and suggesting the means by whirl{ its horrors may be alleviated if not altogether averted—are not unmindful that we live under a constitutional monarchy, and that these things cannot be granted without the concurrence of the Three Estates. We therefore hope that it may please your Majesty, in the exercise of your prerogative, to summon your Par- liament to meet you at an early day; and that you may he pleased to inform them of the miseries that await your loyal and devoted people of Ireland, and demand of them measures whereby your Majesty may indulge the dearest wish of your heart—to be enabled, under God, to save your people.

" In referring your Majesty to the erection of railroads as a mode of procuring immediate employment for the people, and consequent relief, we submit that, if the usual time expended in the investigation of such matters shall be employed before Committees of Parliament during the next session as formerly, from this source no relief can be expected, as the time will have passed before the promoters of such works would be authorized by law to commence their operations. We therefore submit to your Majesty, that you will be pleased to recommend in your address from the throne to Parliament, for the facility of legislating on local acts relating to Ireland, where the rules of the Legislature render previous inquiry before its Committees necessary, to pass a law enabling and directing Committees of Parliament to whom such previous inquiries shall be intrusted, to hold their sittings in Dublin, and exercise the same powers and authority for compelling the attendance of parties before them as when sitting at Westminater. Sach a law, may it please your Majesty, would in our judgments facilitate the despatch of business by the Legislature of both countries, and be a vast saving of expense to the people of Ireland when obliged to apply to the Legislature for local acts to encourage and protect enterprise and the investment of capital in the various im- provements which science has of late years pointed out to man. " We assure your Majesty, that we are second to none in loyal attachment to your person and throne; and if we have approached your Majesty with the sad recital of the wretchedness of your people in Ireland, we have been impelled to it by an imperative duty, as the representatives in Municipal Council of the inhabitants of the metropolis of that portion of your Majesty's dominions where, for many years, your subjects, although living in the midst of plenty, were

truly described, as the most wretched people in Europe, and the cup of whose nevertheless on the brink of ,famine,—sulaplects who have been described, and

misery is full and overflowing in the rapi advances of famine and pestilence on our land.

" May it therefore graciously please your Majesty, to cause your Parliament to be summoned at an early day, that such measures may be passed as may enable your Majesty, under an All-wisp Providence, to be the saviour of your Irish people from the scourge of famine; and that, having been the instrument in His hands to avert the threatened calamity from Ireland, you may for many, many years, go- vern a loyal, happy, and contented people." The Queen replied- " I have heard with pain the statement which you have thought it necessary to address to me respecting the extreme poverty of a portion of my Irish subjects, and the aggravation of their distress which you anticipate from a deficiency of food in the present year. "The welfare and prosperity of Ireland are objects of my constant care and earnest solicitude; and the failure of the last potato crop, and its apprehended eonsequences, have not escaped my attention. "I have directed precautions to be taken which may, I trust, alleviate the evils unavoidably attendant on this calamity; and I have summoned Parliament to meet on an early day. "1 look with confidence to the advice which I shall receive from the United Council of the realm; and I shall rejoice if measures can be devised which, under the blessing of Divine Providence, may relieve the wants of my Irish people— may improve their condition, and insure their future happiness and content- ment."

The Lord Mayor and Mr. Shannon kissed hands, and the deputation withdrew.

The Queen afterwards held an investiture of the Order of the Bath; and the Earl of Liverpool was made a Civil Knight Grand Cross.

Her Majesty and Prince Albert left the Castle for Claremont on Tuesday afternoon; the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal bearing them com- pany; and the younger children following, under the charge of the Dowager Lady Lyttelton. A numerous suite was in Attendance. The stay is not expected to extend beyond Tuesday next.

At Claremont, the same routine of rural life which prevails at Windsor Castle is followed by the Royal party. Prince Albert goes out daily to shoot.

The Dutchess of Kent has returned to her residence at Frogmore House.

The Earl of Liverpool left Windsor Castle on Monday; the other visiters, the Earl of Aberdeen, Viscount Melbourne, Viscount Jocelyn, Lord and Lady Beauvale, Colonel Berkeley Drummond, the Honourable and Reve- rend C. L. Courtenay, and the Honourable Misses Devereux and Napier, leaving it on Tuesday. • A piece of gold plate, manufactured for St. Bartholomew's Hospital in com- memoration of Prince Albert's becoming a Governor, was submitted to the inspection of the Prince last week; and commended.