Again many notes and visits of congratulation and mutual rejoicing yesterday.  God grant that this triumph of the good cause may have some effect on unhappy, misguided Ireland; there is the weight that almost crushes John, who opens Lord Clarendon’s daily letters with an uneasiness not to be told.

    Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell

    OSBORNE, April 14, 1848

The Queen has received Lord John Russell’s letter of yesterday evening.  She approves that a form of prayer for the present time of tumult and trouble be ordered.  She concludes it is for peace and quiet GENERALLY, which indeed we may well pray for.  A thanksgiving for the failure of any attempts like the proposed one last Monday, the Queen would not have thought judicious, as being painful and unlike thanksgiving for preservation from foreign war.

Our accounts from Germany yesterday, from different quarters, were very distressing and alarming.  So much fear of a total subversion of all existing things.  But we must not lose courage or hope.

In the midst of these troubles and forebodings, on the day that the Queen wrote the above letter to Lord John, their second son, George William Gilbert, was born.

Lady John was touched by the following letter from Dr. James Simpson (the eminent physician, later Sir James Simpson), under whose medical care she had been in Edinburgh some years before.

    EDINBURGH, March, 1848

    I heard from two or three different sources that your Ladyship was
    to be blessed by an addition to your family....

I once made a pledge, that I would gladly leave all to watch and guard over your safety if you desired me.  I have not forgotten the pledge, and am ready to redeem it—­but not for fee or recompense, only for the love and pleasure of being near you at a time I could possibly show my gratitude by watching over your valued health and life....  With almost all my medical brethren here I use chloroform in all cases.  None of us, I believe, could now feel justified in not relieving pain, when God has bestowed upon us the means of relieving it.

    May 16, 1848

With a thankful heart I begin my diary again.  Another child has been added to our blessings—­another dear little boy.  John was with me.  Oh! his happiness when all was safely over.  This child has done much already to restore his health and strength.  Summer weather and the success of all his political measures for the last anxious months have also done much.

But the Irish troubles were by no means over; on July 21st Lord John introduced a Bill for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland.  His case rested on Lord Clarendon’s evidence that a rebellion was on the point of breaking out, and circumstances seem to have justified this precautionary measure.  The Bill was passed without opposition and with the support of all the prominent men in Parliament.