give up at once. I should not struggle for life.'

The fatigue and exposure which he underwent on a visit to Sandhurst to
inspect the buildings for the Staff College and Royal Military Hospital,
there is no doubt, injured his delicate health. Next Sunday he was full of
rheumatic pains; he had already suffered greatly from rheumatism during
the previous fortnight. One of his last services to his country was to
write a memorandum in connection with the _Trent_ complications; which
suggestions were adopted by British ministers and forwarded to the United
States. He attended church on Sunday, 1st December, but looked very ill.
Dr Jenner was sent for, and for the next few days he grew worse, with
symptoms of gastric or low fever.

Another account says: 'The anxious Queen, still bowed down by the
remembrance of the recent death of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, went
through her state duties as one "in a dreadful dream." Sunday, the 8th,
saw the prince in a more dangerous condition. Of this day one of the
Queen's household, in a letter written shortly afterwards, says: "The last
Sunday Prince Albert passed on earth was a very blessed one for Princess
Alice to look back upon. He was very weak and very ill, and she spent the
afternoon alone with him while the others were at church. He begged to
have the sofa drawn to the window that he might see the sky and the clouds
sailing past. He then asked her to play to him, and she went through
several of his favourite hymns and chorales. After she had played some
time she looked round and saw him lying back, his hands folded as if in
prayer, and his eyes shut. He lay so long without moving that she thought
he had fallen asleep. Presently he looked up and smiled. She said, 'Were
you asleep, dear papa?' 'Oh no!' he answered; 'only I have such sweet
thoughts.' During his illness his hands were often folded in prayer; and
when he did not speak, his serene face showed that the 'sweet thoughts'