RETURN to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons, dated July 20, 1847;-for Copy of the Letter from the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Sir, Viscount Palmerston to Mr. Pakenham. Foreign Office, March 31, 1847. I HAVE received your despatch of the 12th ultimo, stating that measures have been taken for the purpose of raising a subscription in the United States for the relief of the Destitute Irish Poor, and I have to instruct you to take every opportunity of saying how grateful Her Majesty's Government and the British nation at large feel for this kind and honourable manifestation of sympathy by the citizens of the United States for the sufferings of the Irish people. It might indeed have been expected that a generous and high-minded nation would deeply commiserate the sufferings which an awful visitation of Providence has inflicted upon so large a population descended from the same ancestors as themselves; but the active and energetic assistance which the people of the United States are thus affording to the poor Irish, while it reflects the highest honour upon our transatlantic brethren, must tend to draw closer, and to render stronger and more lasting those ties of friendship and mutual esteem which Her Majesty's Government trust will long continue to exist between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon Family, separated indeed from each other by geographical position, but united together by common interests, to which every succeeding year must add increasing extension and force. |