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The New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian, Wednesday, March 19, 1862

Important news. Death of Prince Albert

Important news. Death of Prince Albert.

(A portion of the following appeared in our Extra of Monday last.)

Spectator Office, Monday, 11 a.m.

By the brig Louis and Miriam, which arrived yesterday from Sydney after a passage of nine days, we have received English news to the 26th of December, and intelligence from America to the 16th of January. The English mail had not arrived at Sydney; and it is probable that the Salsette was being detained at Suez for the important news (peace or war) which will result from the decision of the American Government being communicated to that of Britain. We hasten to lay before our readers the following extracts from the Sydney papers:—

(From the second edition of Thursday’s Herald, February 27.)

We have been favoured by W.M. Arnold, Esq., the Minister for Works, with the following telegram, just received from Melbourne:—

By the barque Thomas Brown, which arrived this morning at 8 a.m., we have news from England to Dec. 26.

H.R.H. Prince Albert died on the 14th of December, at Windsor, of typhus fever.

(From the Herald’s Melbourne correspondent by telegram.)

Thursday, 10 a.m.

The December Mauritius’ mail arrived, via Marseilles and Southampton, on the 5th and 11th February, most punctually.

The year has closed upon us in gloom and sorrow. The Prince Consort is dead, and the nation is gathering up all its energies for a tremendous struggle and bloody war with North America, should the misguided Cabinet of Washington, mob-swayed and insolent, not repent of its outrage in time.

I will first detail the great melancholy loss of England. On Monday, the 23rd inst., at 12 o'clock, the mortal remains of the Prince Consort were laid in the resting place of the tomb. With that good sense which is characteristic of her Majesty, and by the express wish of the illustrious Prince himself, the funeral was ordered to be as private as possible under the circumstances.

It is now certain that the Prince died of typhus fever, identical with that of his cousin’s, the King of Portugal, and his younger brother, whose sudden death made a great impression on his mind. Where or how this typhoid was caught, it is hard to say. Though the castle of Windsor is well drained itself, the town of Windsor is notoriously badly drained. The Prince of Leingingen, the Duke of Cambridge, and Lord Palmerston were, from illness, unable to attend the funeral.

The Sydney Morning Herald adds:—The mournful intelligence of the death of the Prince Consort will fill many hearts with sorrow. Cut off in the midst of life, in the height of human prosperity, possessed of all that could delight and satisfy the highest aspirations, he has been taken away by the violence of one of those diseases which rarely enters the precincts of a palace. How unsullied a reputation has he left behind him! From his first appearance in the British nation his name has been associated with every institution which could elevate the social condition of the poor, extend the boundaries of science, or promote the welfare of mankind.

If a momentary misunderstanding cast the slightest shadow over his name, it never extended beyond official differences of the most temporary nature. As the husband of the Queen and the father of her children, Prince Albert presented a pure example of domestic virtue. Relieved by the peculiarities of our Constitution from the care of the State, he consecrated his time to the culture of the minds of those who in England, or in other parts of the world, would bear their weight or influence on the morals of empires. The loss of the Royal Family, in the removal of its domestic head, will be realised in every British dwelling with the intensity of a great kindred sorrow. It is told of the Queen that on many occasions she has thrown aside her Royal State to give her sympathy, as a wife and mother, to the widow and orphans. That she has confined this manifestation of human tenderness to no class, but felt and manifested her feeling for the humblest dependants in the great straits and agonies of life. It will be the earnest prayer of all our readers, that God, whose office, as the Father of the fatherless and the husband of the widow, is as necessary often, amidst the perils of a palace as in the cottage of the poor, may preserve the mind of the Queen from the pressure of insupportable grief, and compensate, by public and private consolation, the immense bereavement which has befallen her.