Source:
royaltyhistory on eBay
Above: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Ireland, Empress of India, photographed by W & D Downey.
Above: George Peabody. Courtesy of The Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University.
(images courtesy of royaltyhistory)
The letter:
Windsor Castle.
March 28. 1866.
The Queen hears that Mr. Peabody intends shortly to return to here [illegible] & she would be sorry that he should have England without being assured by herself how deeply she appreciates the noble act of more than princely munificence by which he has sought to relieve the wants of the poorer Class of her subjects to resisting in London. It is an act as the Queen believes wholly without parallel, & wh. will carry its best reward in the consciousness of having contributed so largely to the assistance of those who were little help themselves. —
The Queen would not however have been satisfied without giving Mr. Peabody some public mark of her sense of his munificence, & she would gladly have conferred upon him either a Baronetcy or the [illegible] of the Order of the Bath, but that she understands Mr. Peabody to feel himself debarred from accepting such distinctions. It only remains therefore for the Queen to give Mr. Peabody this assurance of her personal feelings which she would further wish to mark by asking him to accept a Miniature Portrait of herself which she will desire to have printed for him & which when finished, can either be sent [illegible] to America or Greece to him on the return which she rejoices to hear he meditates, to the Country that owes him so much.
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