In the course of the same debate the Earl of
Ellenborough alluded plainly to the current rumours as to the disposition shown by Her Majesty to prefer the interests of Germany to those of Great Britain. "On all public questions relating to Germany Her Majesty's Ministers have as much difficulty in carrying out a purely English policy as was experienced in former times, as history teaches, by the Ministers of our first two Sovereigns of the House of Hanover." Earl Russell gave to this assertion a very lame reply, simply affirming that whatever Her Majesty's private affections there had been no occasion on which, when Her Majesty's advisers had deliberated, the Queen had not followed their counsels. The point is whether those counsels were not changed by Her Majesty's indisposition to receive any advice of another and more warlike kind. Earl Russell cannot be aware of the intense feeling existing upon this subject among the middle class or he would, in the interest of the monarchy, have been much more explicit.
