All in vain! the Czar was deeply moved, of
course, but would not give in, or give up.
On the 3d of March the Queen went to Parliament to receive the address of
both Houses in answer to her message which announced the opening of the
war. On this important occasion the young Prince of Wales took a place
for the first time with his mother and father on the throne. He looked
taller and graver than usual. His heart glowed with martial fire. His
voice, too, if he had been allowed to speak, would have been all for war.
A few days before this, the Queen, after seeing off the first division of
troops for the Baltic, had so felt the soldier-blood of her father
tingling in her veins, that she wrote: "I am very enthusiastic about my
dear army and navy, and I wish I had two sons in both now." But in later
years the widowed Queen is said to have been not eager to have any of her
sons, _his_ sons, peril their lives in battle.
Though the Prince of Wales now had assigned to him a more honorable place
on the British throne than the British Constitution permitted his father,
to occupy, he was still perfectly amenable to that father's authority.
An English gentleman lately told me of an instance of the wise exercise
of that authority.
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