'Russia, having withdrawn that adhesion (to the Treaty of Vienna), and those arrangements being through her act no longer in force, the payments from this country on account of the loan should be henceforth suspended.'

Now, that is entirely a different question. The arrangements at the time of the Treaty of Vienna involved an union of Belgium with Holland; and there being a debt in Holland which was payable, and the interest of which was payable by Russia, Great Britain took upon herself the payment of the interest of that debt, in consideration of Russia being a party to that arrangement. When, after that, these two countries were separated, Russia no longer attempted to maintain that arrangement; and, therefore, by the letter of the treaty, England might then have said, 'You no longer maintain the union of Belgium with Holland; and therefore as you do not comply with the letter of that treaty, we are free from the discharge of the interest of that debt.' But although this would have been in perfect and entire conformity with the letter of the treaty, it would have been most inconsistent with the justice of the case; because the Power that had favoured the separation, and which, from the moment the insurrection in Belgium was successful, favoured, recognized, and aided that separation, was especially England; and for England to come forward and say, 'You did not maintain the union between Holland and Belgium, an union which we did not wish, which we wanted to see dissolved, we declare ourselves free from the payment of that debt'—to have said so would have been such an evasion of an engagement, that I certainly could not have taken any part in adopting it. But it was not evaded. England being free from the letter of the engagement, made a new engagement with Russia; and in that engagement she agreed to continue the payment of the interest of that debt. The actual ground for continuing the payment of that interest was, that Russia did abide by the general arrangement of the Treaty of Vienna; and that it was only in consequence of the acts of England herself that she did not maintain the union between Holland and Belgium. But undoubtedly the words were introduced into that convention which were a security to Russia for payment of

'her old Dutch debt, in consideration of the general arrangements of the Congress of Vienna, to which she had given her adhesion —arrangements which remain in full force.'

Now, these words were certainly used. They were introduced at the request of the representatives of Russia in this country. They were put in, in order to show that, whilst Russia had departed in one principal respect from this arrangement, yet she was not to be accused of any violation of the general treaty, of any bad faith in the matter, because she had only done so at the request of England. But still, as I think, the original arrangement and the general reason of the arrangement remain in full force; and what was that original arrangement? It was, that Russia had agreed with England with respect to the territorial disposition of Holland and Belgium. There was no question at that time of any other arrangement, or of the Treaty of Vienna being violated or disturbed. Russia desired these words to be inserted in the treaty. So far as England was concerned, she did not wish those words to be inserted. It was not the expression of any desire of hers that they were so; but it seemed to be a matter of good faith, that as Russia still maintained the original arrangement, therefore it was right to continue to pay the interest of the debt. Now, I say with respect to the spirit of the agreement, that I do not think it would be just to take advantage of the insertion of these words, and that Russia having, so far as Belgium and Holland are concerned, faithfully preserved those stipulations, having never attempted either to disturb this arrangement, and still less refused her aid to England with regard to any question respecting them, I do not think, in point of fair dealing, we should be justified in refusing to pay the interest of the debt. I do think, however, that according to these words, we might now, as we formerly might have done, refuse to pay this interest. We might say to Russia: 'You have permitted these words to be inserted—they were inserted with your sanction; and, as they were inserted with your sanction, we will take advantage of these words, and we will refuse any longer to pay the sum.' That would be conformable to one interpretation of the treaty. Those whom we consulted, who were the highest authorities that we could consult with regard to the interpretation of Acts of Parliament bearing upon treaties—the legal authorities who are usually consulted on those subjects—have told us, that they think, according to the spirit of the arrangement, according to the spirit of the convention, the money ought still to be paid. It is at most, state it as favourably as you can for the hon. gentleman's motion, a doubtful point, upon which, if you wish to take advantage, you might claim that advantage from words inserted in the convention. According to my opinion, you would be acting against the spirit of the treaty in order to take advantage of a plea which, I think, in a court of law, might perhaps be urged in order to get rid of a contract, but which as between nations, ought not to be used. I think, in so considering this question, we should lower our position. I think we should deprive ourselves of that advantage which we now have if we were to reduce this to a transaction of pounds, shillings, and pence. I consider that in late transactions in Europe, although, on more than one occasion, and by different Powers, our wishes have not been complied with, our desires have not been listened to, our protests may have been disregarded, yet there does remain with us a moral strength nothing can take away. There is no treaty the stipulations of which it can be imputed to England that she has violated, evaded, or set at naught. We are ready, in the face of Europe, however inconvenient some of those stipulations may be, to hold ourselves bound, by all our engagements, to keep the fame, and the name, and the honour of the Crown of England unsullied, and to guard that unsullied honour as a jewel which we will not have tarnished. With that sentiment, Sir, if I should ask my noble friend to go to the Court of Russia, and say, 'To be sure you have violated a treaty—to be sure you have extinguished an independent state. We have allowed this to be done. You shall hear no threat of war. We will not arm for the purpose. We will admit that the state of Cracow is extinguished. We will admit that her inhabitants are reduced to subjection. The names of freedom and of independence to them are lost for ever. But this we will do. There is a claim of some thousand pounds which we can make against you, which we now pay, and which we will now throw upon your shoulders; and in that way we will revenge ourselves for your violation of treaties'—we should be taking a part, we should be using language which is not becoming the position England has hitherto held; which is not becoming the position I wish her in future to hold against the world. Having thus stated as shortly as I could the views I entertain upon the subject, I ask you not to come in this House of Commons, which does not usually interfere with the foreign relations of this country, to any idle resolution upon which you don't intend to act; and I ask you, in the next place, not to lower this question to a mere question of money value, not to go and demand how much this Russian-Dutch stock may be worth in the market, but to preserve that which, as I think, is of inestimable value; I wish you to allow, as this House has hitherto allowed, by its silent acquiescence, the protest which the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has delivered, to remain in full force, as a declaration upon our part—a declaration which will have its value, depend upon it, in regard to future transactions—that we do not abstain from the observance of treaties which we believe to have been violated; and let us be able to say that we have sought no interest of England in this matter. We have not looked to any interest, either large or petty, in regard to ourselves; we have regarded the great interests of Europe; we have desired that the settlement which put an end to a century of bloodshed should remain in full force and vigour. We have declared that sentiment to the world, and we trust that the reprobation with which this transaction has been met, will, in future, lead all Powers, whoever they may be, who may be induced to violate treaties, to consider that they will meet with the disinterested protest of England, so that her character shall stand before the world untarnished by any act of her own.



VISCOUNT PALMERSTON MARCH 1, 1848 THE POLISH QUESTION

Let us take the whole Polish question at once, for that is really what the hon. member means by this part of the motion. I am not aware of any commercial rights enjoyed by Great Britain which have been much affected in Poland by any changes that have taken place. Nor do I recollect any commercial rights which have been affected, except those of individuals, which might in some degree have been so by changes in the tariff. The charge made by the hon. member is in effect this—that when the Polish revolution broke out in 1835, England, in conjunction with France, should have taken up arms in favour of the Poles, but she did not do so; that she abandoned France in her attempt, and thus deprived the Poles of their independence; and finally—and here the hon. member made an assertion I was astonished to hear—that we prevented Austria uniting with France and England for the same object. [Mr. Anstey: I said, Austria was ready to have joined with us if we had acted differently.] Well, then, the hon. member says we balked the readiness of Austria to interpose in favour of the Poles, when we had many reasons to adopt a different course. This question has been so often discussed that I can only repeat what I have said in former Parliaments. It is well known that when we came into office in 1830, Europe was in a state which, in the opinion of any impartial man, and of the best political judges, threatened to break out into a general war. I remember being told by a right hon. gentleman, in the course of a private conversation in the House, that 'if an angel came down from heaven to write my dispatches, I could not prevent Europe from a war in six months'. Well, Sir, not months, but years, rolled by, and no war took place. It was the anxious desire of the Government of Earl Grey to prevent war; and the maintenance of peace was one of the objects at which they expressly aimed, and succeeded. What were the dangers which threatened the peace of Europe? There had just been a great revolution in France, there had been another in Belgium, and these had been followed by a great rising of the Poles against the sway of Russia. In these struggles there was a conflict of principle as well as one of political relations. There was the popular principle in France, in Belgium, and in Poland, to be resisted by the monarchical principle of Austria, of Russia, and of Prussia. The danger apprehended in 1831 was, that these three Powers should attempt by a hostile attack to control France in the exercise of her judgement with respect to who should be her sovereign, or what should be her constitution. The British Government, under the Duke of Wellington, with the most laudable regard for the public interests, not only of England but of Europe, hastened to acknowledge the new Sovereign of France, and to withdraw their country from the ranks of any confederacy against her; and this conduct laid the foundation of that peace which it was our duty to maintain and cultivate. The great anxiety of England was that peace should be maintained. There was no doubt great sympathy with the Poles in their contest against Russia; and it was thought there was a chance of their succeeding in their attempt. The result, however, was different; but then it was said by the hon. member, 'Oh, it is the fault of England that she did not establish the independence of Poland. If she had joined with France and Austria (which now for the first time I am told was anxious to favour the cause of Poland), the Poles would have been in full enjoyment of their constitutional freedom.' The hon. gentleman actually said that Austria, in 1831, was in favour of the Poles, who were closely pressed by the Russians and Prussians, who had already got possession of Militsch, and felt, if the kingdom of Poland were independent, the chances were that she (Militsch) would rise also to assert her liberties. This statement is excessively extraordinary. I am quite surprised even that the hon. member for Youghal should have made it. I will tell him what was passing in his mind when, he said so, and what led him to make this statement; for I am at least desirous of giving a rational solution to it as far as I can, under his correction. The fact of which he was probably thinking was this: In 1814, when the issue of the war between Napoleon and the other Powers of Europe was doubtful, a treaty, of which part has been made public, was signed at Reichenbach between Austria, Russia, and Prussia, for the entire partition of Poland between them, in the event of their success against France. The effect of this treaty would have been to extinguish the name of Poland as a separate and independent element of European geography. In 1813, after Napoleon had been repulsed from Russia, and the war had retired to the westward of Germany and of Europe, where shortly after it was brought to a close, discussions took place at Vienna as to what should be done with Poland. Austria called for the execution of the compact, and, with England, demanded that either the Treaty of Reichenbach should be completely carried out, and Poland divided equally into three parts for each of the contracting parties, or that she should be reconstructed and made anew into a substantive state between the three Powers. Russia was of a different opinion, and contended not for the execution of the Treaty of Reichenbach, but for the arrangement which was subsequently carried into effect, namely, that the greater part of Poland was to be made into a kingdom and annexed to her Crown, and that the remaining parts should be divided between the two other states. After a great deal of discussion the Treaty of Reichenbach was set aside, and the arrangements of the Treaty of Vienna were made. I suppose this is what led the hon. member to his statement that Austria would join with us, because in 1814 she was favourable to the re-establishment of Poland as a separate kingdom, as one alternative in contradiction to her partition; for any other ground than this I cannot conceive for his assertion. If Austria were favourable to the Polish insurrection subsequently, I can only say that it is a fact as unknown to me as was the existence of the four days of danger, and I am inclined to place both assertions on the same foundation. The interest of Austria was in fact quite different; and it was owing to her feeling respecting Poland, that the Russians ultimately succeeded in crushing the insurrection. But then, says the hon. and learned member, you should have accepted the offers of France. I have often argued the question before, and what, I said before I say again. If France had gone to the extent, of proposing to England to join, with her against Russia, this would have been nothing more nor less than the offer of a war in Europe, which, as our great object was to keep down such a war, we should never have thought of accepting. It would have been a war without the chance of anything but a war, for let us look to the position of the kingdom of Poland—let us consider that it was surrounded by Austria, by Russia, and by Prussia, that there was a large Russian army actually in Poland, and that there was a Prussian army on her frontiers—and we shall at once see that at the very first intimation that England was about to take up arms with France for the independence of Poland, the three armies would have fallen on the Poles, the insurrection would have been crushed, the spark of Polish independence extinguished; and all this having been done, the three Powers would have marched their armies to the Rhine, and said: 'We shall now make France and England answer for their conduct.' This course would have been sure to involve the country in a Continental war, for a purpose which would be defeated before the war could be terminated. But, says the hon. member, you have very powerful allies, who would have assisted you. France is a large military power, capable of great efforts. Then you have Sweden, too, burning with desire to break a lance with Russia, on the question of Polish independence. What man in his sober senses, even if Sweden made such a proposition, and were ready to join us against Russia, would not have said, 'For God's sake, remain quiet and do nothing?' [Mr. Anstey: I said, that Sweden was arming her fleet, with the intention of making a demonstration against the Russian provinces in the Baltic; but the noble Lord remonstrated with Sweden for doing so, and induced her to disarm.] Well, there is not much difference between us. I do not think a demonstration by a Swedish fleet on the shores of the Baltic would have been long maintained without a corresponding demonstration of the Russian fleet in Cronstadt, and it is pretty clear which of them would go to the wall; and then we should have had to defend Sweden against Russian attack; and unless we had been prepared to send a large army to her aid, we should have sacrificed her to no purpose. I say, Sir, the man with the interests of Russia most dearly at his heart, could have done nothing better for Russia than stimulate Sweden into a dispute with Russia, by inducing her to make an armed demonstration on her shores, and thus to draw down upon her the vengeance and overwhelming power of that empire. If Sweden had been ready to make such a demonstration with her gunboats on the coast of Russia, and had asked us for our advice, the best thing we could have said would have been, 'Don't do anything half so foolish; we are not prepared to send an army and a fleet to defend you, and don't give Russia a cause to attack you.' But there was another empire burning with desire to join us against Russia. Turkey, we were told by the hon. and learned member, with 200,000 cavalry, was ready to carry demonstration to the very walls of St. Petersburg—perhaps to carry off the Emperor himself from his throne. What was the state of Turkey then? In 1831 she had engaged in a war with Russia, in which, after two campaigns, her arms were repulsed and driven back into their own empire, so that she was compelled at Adrianople to accept conditions of peace, hard in their nature, and demanding a sacrifice of an important part of her territory, but to which she was advised in friendly counsel by the British Ambassador to submit, for fear of having to endure still worse. We are told that, two or three years after this great disaster, Turkey was of such amazing enterprise and courage, and was furnished with such a wonderful quantity of cavalry, that she was prepared to send 200,000 horse (which she never had in all her life) over the frontiers of Russia, and sweep her territory. Now this is, of all the wild dreams that ever crossed the mind of man, one of the most unlikely and extraordinary. But supposing all this had been true, and that Turkey really was prepared to do all the hon. and learned gentleman said she was, I should have given her just the same advice that I should have offered Sweden under the same circumstances, and should have said, 'Have you not been beaten enough? Are you mad? Do you want the Russians to get Constantinople instead of Adrianople? Will nothing satisfy you? We cannot come and defend you against your powerful neighbour. She is on your frontiers, and do not give her any just cause for attacking you.' Then the hon. and learned gentleman told us of the Shah of Persia, how the gunboats of Sweden, the troops of Austria, the fine cavalry of Turkey, the magnificent legions of Persia, were ready all to pour in upon Russia in revenge for the injuries which the inhabitants of the Baltic coasts inflicted upon Europe in former centuries, and would have stripped Russia of her finest provinces. Now, what had happened to Persia? In 1827, she had very foolishly and thoughtlessly, against advice, rushed into a conflict with Russia, and had seen herself reduced to make a treaty, not only surrendering important provinces, but giving Russia the advantage of hoisting her flag in the Caspian. She had gone to war with a powerful antagonist, and been compelled to submit to humiliating concessions. Can you suppose that Persia, in that state of things, would have been ready to march against Russia for the sake of assisting Poland? In the disastrous struggle which ensued, Poland was overthrown; the suspension of its constitution followed, and the substitution of what was called the 'organic statute'. The Russian Government pronounced that civil war had abrogated it, and they re-entered Poland as conquerors. I am not asserting the justice of that, but the contrary; we always maintained a different view. I need not remind the House how deep a sympathy the sufferings of Poland excited in this country. Many things have passed in Poland since that time which the British Government greatly regrets, and in respect to which the rights laid down by treaty have been violated. But when we are asked why the British Government have not enforced treaty rights in every case, my answer is, that the only method of enforcing them would have been by methods of hostility; and that I do not think those questions were questions of sufficient magnitude in their bearing on the interests of England, to justify any Government in calling on the people of this country to encounter the burdens and hazards of war for the purpose of maintaining those opinions. Then comes the question of Cracow. I deny the justice of the reproach which the hon. member has directed against me on that head, of an infraction of the just requirements of good faith. It is perfectly true, that in a discussion in this House we stated our intention of sending a Consul to Cracow; but we were not at that time aware of all the objections entertained to that step by other Powers who had an interest in the question, and who possessed great influence in Cracow. Communications and correspondence took place, not only with them, but with the Cracovian authorities, and we were plainly told, that if our Consul went to Cracow he would not be received. What were we to do under those circumstances? The Government of Cracow, though nominally independent, was practically under the control and protection of the three protecting Powers; and whatever they ordered that Government to do, it was plain they would do. It therefore became the Government to consider whether there really was any cause for the presence of a British Consul at Cracow, which was of sufficient importance to make it worth while to insist on his presence, at the risk of not obtaining the end. We should then have been exposed to an affront from the miserable little Government at Cracow, not acting on its own responsibility, towards whom nothing could have been directed in vindication of the honour of the British Crown; and our only course would have been a rupture with the three Powers, after we had been warned of the rejection of our Consul. Well, then, considering the importance attached in this country, not merely to peace, but to a really good understanding with foreign Powers, wherever there are great interests and powerful motives to amity which would be violated by hostilities, I thought the best course would be to abandon the intention we had entertained, and which we had announced in the discussion in this House. It does not follow, when a Minister announces in Parliament an intention to perform a public act, that it is to be considered like a promise made to an individual, or by one private man to another, and that it is to be made a reproach to him if the intention be not carried out. We are here responsible to the country for the advice we give the Crown. We are responsible for all the consequences which that advice may bring on the country. We are not dealing with our own affairs; it is not a question of what we may do with our private property; but when a Minister finds he cannot do a particular act without compromising the interests of the country, and that these will suffer from his executing his intention, it is his duty to give up that intention, and to consult the interests of the country in preference to every other consideration. That is the history of the Consul who was to have been at Cracow. We have been asked to produce the correspondence relating to the transaction; and I do not know that there would be any particular objection to doing so. It consists of angry notes on one side and the other, and I cannot think we should be promoting a good understanding with, the three Powers by producing it; but as far as concerns its being a record of anything I have done, or have not done, I have no objection. The hon. member asks for all the correspondence which may have passed from the year 1835 downwards on the subject of the Russian fleet in commission in the Baltic. I do not recollect that any particular communications took place on this subject between the British Government on the one hand, and those of Russia or France on the other. Of course, it is utterly impossible for a Power which, like England, depends mainly for its security on its naval defence, not to watch with attentive anxiety the armaments or the state of naval preparation which from time to time may exist in other great countries. Therefore our attention may, no doubt, have been more or less directed, especially when questions of great difficulty and delicacy have been pending between Russia and England, and a state of mutual distrust to some extent existed, towards the naval footing of Russia both in the Baltic and Black Sea. Of course, also, though I do not particularly recollect the circumstance as having happened in 1835 or 1836, the immense amount of naval preparation in France must always form an element in the consideration of the Government of this country, in taking into account the means which England must possess to maintain its station amongst the empires of the world. I have now gone through, as far as memory and time permitted, the principal topics on which he touched. It was only last night I was able to put together the observations I have ventured to offer to the House. I have taken them in the order he stated them in the motion of which he gave notice. Upon the general character of my public conduct I can only repeat what I said when last I had the honour to address this House. I can only say, if any one in this House should think fit to make an inquiry into the whole of my political conduct, both as recorded in official documents, or in private letters and correspondence, there is nothing which I would not most willingly submit to the inspection of any reasonable man in this House. I will add, that I am conscious of some of those offences which have been charged against me by the hon. and learned member. I am conscious that, during the time for which I have had the honour to direct the foreign relations of this country I have devoted to them all the energies which I possess. Other men might have acted, no doubt, with more ability—none could have acted with a more entire devotion both of their time and faculties. The principle on which I have thought the foreign affairs of this country ought to be conducted is, the principle of maintaining peace and friendly understanding with all nations, so long as it was possible to do so consistently with a due regard to the interests, the honour, and the dignity of this country. My endeavours have been to preserve peace. All the Governments of which I have had the honour to be a member have succeeded in accomplishing that object. The main charges brought against me are, that I did not involve this country in perpetual quarrels from one end of the globe to the other. There is no country that has been named, from the United States to the empire of China, with respect to which part of the hon. member's charge has not been, that we have refrained from taking steps that might have plunged us into conflict with one or more of these Powers. On these occasions we have been supported by the opinion and approbation of Parliament and the public. We have endeavoured to extend the commercial relations of the country, or to place them where extension was not required, on a firmer basis, and upon a footing of greater security. Surely in that respect we have not judged amiss, nor deserved the censure of the country; on the contrary, I think we have done good service. I hold with respect to alliances, that England is a Power sufficiently strong, sufficiently powerful, to steer her own course, and not to tie herself as an unnecessary appendage to the policy of any other Government. I hold that the real policy of England—apart from questions which involve her own particular interests, political or commercial—is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done. Sir, in pursuing that course, and in pursuing the more limited direction of our own particular interests, my conviction is, that as long as England keeps herself in the right, as long as she wishes to permit no injustice, as long as she wishes to countenance no wrong, as long as she labours at legislative interests of her own, and as long as she sympathizes with right and justice, she never will find herself altogether alone. She is sure to find some other state, of sufficient power, influence, and weight, to support and aid her in the course she may think fit to pursue. Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. When we find other countries marching in the same course, and pursuing the same objects as ourselves, we consider them as our friends, and we think for the moment that we are on the most cordial footing; when we find other countries that take a different view, and thwart us in the object we pursue, it is our duty to make allowance for the different manner in which they may follow out the same objects. It is our duty not to pass too harsh a judgement upon others, because they do not exactly see things in the same light as we see; and it is our duty not lightly to engage this country in the frightful responsibilities of war, because from time to time we may find this or that Power disinclined to concur with us in matters where their opinion and ours may fairly differ. That has been, so far as my faculties have allowed me to act upon it, the guiding principle of my conduct. And if I might be allowed to express in one sentence the principle which I think ought to guide an English Minister, I would adopt the expression of Canning, and say that with every British Minister the interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of his policy.



HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM

JULY 20, 1849

ITALIAN AFFAIRS

Whoever, my Lords, would undertake the discussion of any difficult and delicate question touching the foreign policy of the country, ought, above all things, to free himself from every feeling of hatred or of anger, and from all personal and from all national prejudices, which might tend to disturb the equanimity of his judgement. For, when the mind labours under any such feelings, expressions are apt to be used which, whether they are well understood or ill understood, give umbrage elsewhere, and endanger the peace as well as the policy, in a word, all the highest interests of the country. I present myself to your Lordships to handle the important subject of which I have given notice, under the deep impression of sentiments such as these; and it will be no fault of mine if I am betrayed into any discussion, or even into any passing remark, which shall give offence in any quarter, at home or abroad, and shall thus endanger what is most essential to the interests of the country, a good understanding with, and a friendly feeling towards, foreign nations. It gives me great satisfaction, seeing that I have to express a difference of opinion from my noble friends opposite, and to blame the measures which they have adopted,—it gives me great satisfaction, I say, to commence what I am about to state, by declaring my entire approval of such sentiments as I am about to cite, in language far better than my own, used by them when they instructed our envoy at the Court of the Two Sicilies to give the 'strongest assurance of the earnest desire of the British Government to draw, if possible, still closer the bonds of friendship which had so long united the crowns of Great Britain and the Two Sicilies'. It is therefore grateful, most grateful to me—whilst I join in their sentiments, which are better expressed than I could have expressed them, but not more warmly expressed than I would have expressed them—that, in the remarks which I am about to make, and which are wrung from me by the accusations brought against the Ministers, the authorities, and the troops of Naples, I shall, in the true sense of the passage I have just quoted, have to defend those Ministers, those authorities, and those troops from attacks which have been made upon them by the authors of that passage injuriously, inconsiderately, and unjustly.

The dispatch to which I have just alluded, is dated December 16, 1847. But, somehow or other, events happened soon after which make it hardly possible to suppose that the same hand which wrote that dispatch, could have written the subsequent instructions, or that the same agents who had to obey the former instructions, and to represent the feelings of old attachment, of which it was impossible to draw the bonds closer, could have been instructed so soon afterwards as January 18, 1848, to take a course entirely and diametrically opposite.

It would give me great satisfaction if, having thus accidentally touched upon the transactions of Southern Italy, I could proceed at once thither in the progress on which I am now asking your Lordships to accompany me. But I find, my Lords, from what has been taking place within the last few weeks, how reluctant so ever I may be to discuss the events of the northern divisions of Italy, and recur to questions often agitated here, and by none of your Lordships more ably than by the noble Earl near me (Lord Aberdeen), that I must allude to the conduct of his late Sardinian Majesty, to the still unfinished negotiations between Sardinia and Austria, to the still unremoved fleets of Sardinia in the Adriatic, to the beleaguering of Austria in her Venetian dominions, and to the prevention of her employing her undivided resources in crushing the rebellion in the eastern parts of her empire; and that I cannot examine the whole foreign policy of this country without adverting to the events which have happened in Northern Italy. It was at the beginning of the present session of Parliament that I had occasion to foretell before your Lordships the speedy discomfiture of the then monarch of Sardinia by the victorious troops of Marshal Radetzky. After a temporary success the year before, his Sardinian Majesty had been repulsed, had been compelled to repass the Ticino, had been driven to seek protection within the walls of his own capital, and had only not been pursued within those walls because his opponents had mercifully abstained from urging their victory to the utmost, and had preferred the redemption of their pledge of maintaining the Treaties of Vienna and the settlement of territory made under them, to the enlargement of their dominions and to the exaction of security against any repetition of the offence which they had so signally chastised. The firmest friend of Sardinia,—the stoutest champion of that distribution of territory to which I have referred,—my noble friend himself near the wool-sack (the Duke of Wellington), who completed by his skill in negotiation the still more glorious triumph of his arms in the field, not one of these parties could have objected to the Austrians crossing the Ticino, exacting vengeance from Sardinia, and taking from its monarch, according to all the laws of war, according to the strict law of nations, ample security against the repetition of a similar transgression. Marshal Radetzky, however, acted a merciful part, and was wiser in so doing than if he had justifiably acted with greater severity. He and his imperial master showed that they were above all sordid, all selfish feeling. I only lament that the marshal stopped so short of that which he had a right to do. An acre of land I would not have taken to increase the dominions of one sovereign, or to diminish the territory of the other; but I would have shown the monarch of Sardinia, I would have shown the world, that it was not from fear, but from magnanimity, that I had resolved to stop short of the full rights of victory. Then it was said, 'Oh, but now we shall have peace.' Mediation was talked of, and mediation was offered—the mediation of Great Britain, of the success of which I never entertained any hopes. That any great benefit would arise from such a proceeding, I thought just as unlikely as that in private life, when two individuals have quarrelled about a disputed right, had gone to law to ascertain which had the better title, and one of them had gained a verdict and had entered up judgement, this winning party would accept an offer to refer all the matters in dispute to arbitration, just before execution issued. In such a case the matter in dispute is at an end, and though the party who has lost the cause may have no objection to such a reference, it will never be so with the party who has gained it. I therefore told my friend, Sir H. Ellis, who was appointed to superintend the proceedings of our mediation, that as the matter in dispute between Austria and Sardinia was at an end, I did not anticipate that with all his skill he would have any success as a negotiator in this strange arbitration. 'Oh,' I was told, 'Austria will abide by it.' Yes, I know that Austria certainly would, if she submitted to the mediation and perhaps Sardinia also; but little did I know Sardinian counsels when I said so.

I stated, however, that very same night, to your Lordships in this House, that it was my deliberate belief, that before the end of a few weeks there would be an end of the Sardinian monarchy. On that occasion I was, indeed, a true prophet. Almost while I was speaking, the King of Sardinia broke the armistice, again attacked the Austrians, was again defeated, and then abdicated his crown. That monarch was much to be blamed for the former part of his conduct, but was much to be pitied for its close; he was driven on by the fear of a mob—the most paltry and the most perilous of all fears. He was urged on to his ruin by the worst of all advisers, those fears. He threw himself into the hands of the Red Republican party of Paris and of Turin, and, worse than all, of Genoa; and he has paid, in consequence, the penalty of giving ear to evil counsellors. Then there was more of negotiation, although one would have thought that, when Radetzky stopped in the full career of victory, there would have been an end of all resistance on the part of Sardinia. The negotiation which then began has been continued from day to day up to the present hour, and, if common fame can be trusted, there is less chance now of that negotiation leading to the pacification of Northern Italy than there was three or four months ago. I deeply lament this, my Lords. Every friend of the true policy of England, and every friend of the peace of Europe, must lament it. I hear it said, our Foreign Office lends its aid to the delay of peaceful measures in Turin; and I hear it with wonder, considering what has passed within the last two years. But I am afraid that there are some natures far too sanguine—some whom no failure can cure of the most extravagant hopes—who, while they are sinking, cling to the feeblest straw, and derive hope from the slightest change, and who, because things are not just as they were twenty-four hours before, expect that better times are coming, and hope even against hope itself. I think that what has recently taken place in Hungary, in Croatia, and in Transylvania, has been the foundation of the hopes recently entertained by the friends of Sardinia, and that some parties in England, but still more in Turin, have conceived expectations that Austria, if these negotiations are allowed to drag their slow length along, will be frustrated in her designs of—what? Aggrandizement? Oh, no. If that were all, the difficulty might easily be removed. For look, my Lords, how the matter stands. Here is craving ambition on the one side, against a steady adherence to a pacific policy on the other; here is a desire to enlarge dominion against the solemn faith of treaties on the one part, and a resolution not to swerve a hair's breadth from that faith on the other, even when tempted by aggression the most unjust, and crowned by success the most absolute and complete. Here is good faith unsurpassed, almost unexampled moderation in victory, met by incurable thirst of aggrandizement, and reckless love of change under the most grievous disaster.

Thus stand the rival powers of Sardinia and Austria opposed to each other. I hope that I view these matters more gloomily than the real state of things warrants; but I certainly feel not a little uneasy when I reflect on the great length to which these negotiations have been sedulously spun out. And here, my Lords, I must observe, that this brings me, among many of the views which I now, anticipating somewhat, have taken of the present state of the Powers, to the conviction that the various matters now in dispute can only be settled by some general congress. This would at once close the Turin Conference. I have before mentioned to your Lordships that the favour which the Government of England has shown to Sardinia, and the prejudice against Austria, has exhibited itself—indeed, I may say, has broken out very conspicuously, in two portions of these transactions. First, it was displayed in the general difference of the language used to Austria and to Sardinia. To Austria we have held out everything short of threat—we have addressed her in language gentle indeed in outward appearance, but amounting in substance to downright menace. 'You had better not go', we said, 'into Italy—you had better not invade any ally of ours—you had better not think of going to Turin or to Rome, for if you do, we shall consider it a matter deserving of grave consideration.' That was not the language in which we addressed the other party. To Austria we were suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. But Sardinia was gently and amicably told, 'If you do so act, it will be very much against your true interests. It will be wiser not to do anything of the kind. Pray don't for your own sake.' But no threat, nor anything like a threat. Sardinia was not told, as Austria was, that it would be matter of great importance if she budged a foot out of her own dominions. And all this diversity of treatment, all this reprimand of Austria, was designed to be made known, and to gain credit and popularity with the republican rabble. For then came that proceeding—so ludicrous at once, and so mean, that I have never read anything like it in the whole course of history. While we were anxiously advertising to all Europe, and more especially to the rebels at Milan, and to the red republicans in Paris, that we had held out to Austria this menace, we had at the very time in our pockets an answer from Prince Metternich to our menacing dispatch, saying, 'What is the matter with you? It is not yet the month of November, when the malady of your gloomy climate prevails, but it is the cheerful month of September. What ails you? Are you distracted in your brain to talk of our going to Turin? We have no more thought of going to Turin or Naples than we have of going to the moon. On the contrary, if any one presumes to disturb the security of any country, above all to threaten Sardinia, we will stand by you to defend Sardinia, and to maintain inviolate with all our forces and all our resources all the arrangements of the Treaties of Vienna.' Not one word of this answer from Austria did we suffer to be known while bragging of our threats to her, threats which assumed her having the design of attacking Sardinia. Then, when the impropriety of keeping such a document in your pockets was mooted in this House, my noble friend opposite (Lord Lansdowne) said, 'Oh, we were ready to give you that dispatch as soon as you asked for it.' Yes, when I did ask for it I got it; for, on the 18th of last September, my noble friend (Lord Aberdeen) was not at that time in the House, but in Scotland. I said, 'I have that dispatch in my hand, and I will read it, every word, if you do not consent to give it to the public.' Non constat that it would have been given if I had omitted to give that direct challenge to Her Majesty's Government. I don't blame my noble friend opposite for all this; he, good easy man, knew nothing at all about it; he was not instructed; the Foreign Office let him remain innocent and ignorant; but the sum and substance of all this is, that every indulgence was extended to Sardinia, whilst threats, downright threats, were held out to Austria. Now, for one moment stop to recollect the language which we used in the dispatch addressed to the Court of Austria on the 11th of September, 1847. It was as follows:

Any aggression on the rights of independent States will not be viewed with indifference by Great Britain. The independence of the Roman States is an essential element in the political independence of Italy; and no invasion of that territory can be attempted without leading to consequences of great gravity and importance.

The answer which we received to that note from Austria was, 'We never dreamt of any such thing, but are ready at all times to stand by the integrity of all Italy.' That declaration brings me, my Lords, from considering the affairs of Northern Italy to the subject of Central Italy, and more particularly of Rome itself; and I naturally ask, in the words of my first resolution, whether that full and satisfactory explanation which we have a right to receive has been given of 'those recent movements in the Italian States which tend to unsettle the existing distribution of territory, and to endanger the general peace of Europe'? First there is the occupation of Ancona by an Austrian army, then there is the occupation of Bologna by the main force of another Austrian army. I say nothing of the occupation of Tuscany. I put Tuscany out of the question, as it is a sort of family estate of the House of Austria, in which she has a right by treaty to interfere. But that is not all. There is also in the heart of Italy, in its very centre, in its capital, an army, not Roman, not Austrian, not Italian, not composed of its native soldiery, but a French army, consisting of 40,000 or 50,000 men, and with a park of artillery consisting of 120,000 guns. I crave your pardon, 120 guns. [Laughter attended this mistake.] This army did not fall from the clouds. The troops advanced on the surface of the earth. The Eternal City was invaded with all the usual pomp and circumstance of war. Some thousand men with a few guns were in the first instance sent from Marseilles to Civita Vecchia, and some explanation was given why they were sent, more or less satisfactory. But if any man has seen that explanation, stating that a force of 16,000 men and a strong fleet had been sent to Civita Vecchia by France, and has been told that the army was to stop there and to do nothing further, and that their sole object was to rearrange the balance of power—such was the Government explanation—to adjust the balance of Europe at that port; if any man, having seen that explanation, can take it as satisfactory, all I have to say is, that he is a man very easily satisfied. It does not satisfy me—indeed it seems very like treating us with contempt to give such explanations. Be that, however, as it may, the other events which followed, plainly demanded full explanation. That army, sent in the first instance to Civita Vecchia, afterwards marched onwards, and in three days arrived at Rome. What was it doing there? To an unskilled observer, to a non-military man like myself, who could not tell the difference between 120,000 and 120 guns, it did look as if it were going to make an attack upon the Eternal City.

Well, then, there is another question, still more apposite, and in answer to which I think that we should have had some explanation, and it is, 'What shall be done, supposing that this army should attack Rome, and, as is most probable, carry it?' Up to this hour I, for my part, do not know whether such a question has been put, or, if put, whether it has received an answer. 'What are the French doing before Rome, and what will they be doing after they have gained possession of it?' is the question that should have been put.

To say that they are there for the cause of humanity, or for the sake of maintaining the balance of power, these are words of which I cannot understand the connexion with the undenied facts, and with the march of 40,000 or 50,000 troops with 120 guns, which does require satisfactory explanation, because such proceedings are not an adjustment, but a subversion, a destruction of the European balance. I must forget all that I have ever read of the rights of nations before I consent to admit that circumstances like these can be allowed to pass over unnoticed. Here, my Lords, I should be doing injustice to my own feelings if I did not express my entire admiration of the conduct of the French army before the walls of Rome. What the French army had to do there—whether the French Government were entitled to send it thither—is another matter, and on this men may have different opinions. Whether or not it was in perfect consistency with the professions of the new half-fledged French Republic to send an army to put down another nascent, a newly-hatched republic, whether that step was in harmony with the views of the statesmen who had ruled France ever since the unhappy 24th of February—a day which I must ever consider deplorable for the peace of Europe, for the institutions and thrones of Europe, and, above all, most unhappy for the improvement and tranquillity of France itself—whether that step was in strict keeping with all the professions of all the parties who had been in power since that event had changed the face of France, and arrested the progress, the rapid, the uninterrupted progress, to comfort and happiness which France was making under the constitutional monarchy, by the development of her prodigious resources—whether it was in harmony with their professions of peace to send an army to overthrow the infant Republic of Rome—I will not stop now to inquire. Suffice it to say, that the assistance of France was invited by the Pope, as he says in his allocution from Gaeta, but not severally or distinctly—it was invited in conjunction with that of Austria, Spain, and Naples; and it is one of the very few criticisms which I am disposed to make upon the French Government, that the second difficulty in this question is the manner in which the French army went alone to Rome when the Pope asked them to come conjointly with the forces of the other Powers; for it, seemed as if they meant to anticipate others, and to gain a footing in Rome before the Austrians could take the field.

But all my unfavourable remarks touching France are now at an end, for no Government, no army, could have acted more blamelessly—I should rather say, more admirably—than that French army and its commanders. In the first place, can any man doubt that they could have taken Rome long ago if they had not been averse to the effusion of blood? Little do they know the gallantry of French troops who entertain a contrary notion. Then they were strongly impressed with the idea that it was not right the innocent should suffer with the guilty. Again, they felt that they were not going against the Romans, but against those who had usurped and exercised an intolerable tyranny over the Romans, properly so called. They were marching against Mazzini and Garibaldi, that Garibaldi for whom a noble friend of mine (Lord Howden), whose eulogy is really praise, bespoke your sympathy so strongly a few evenings ago. But my noble friend, perhaps, is not aware that this person—a clever man, undoubtedly, of great military talents—was, like Mazzini, a professional conspirator; that the object of his first plot was, like that of a great conspirator in our own country (Guy Fawkes), who was not, however, quite so popular, to blow up the Royal Family of Sardinia in the theatre of Genoa; and that the discovery of that gunpowder plot drove him out in exile, first to Brazil, and afterwards to the Rio Plata, where he began to act as a partisan, and afterwards acquired considerable influence. On the breaking out of the last revolution in France he returned to Europe, and shortly afterwards agitated the provinces of Italy, repeating in their northern districts, and in Rome itself, those valorous feats of arms which gained him reputation in the New World. Mazzini is a man of less courage, though of great ability, for few men are so bold as Garibaldi; but Mazzini, in conjunction with Garibaldi, got possession of Rome, the one eminent for his civil, the other from his military qualifications. There they established a dictatorship under the name of a Triumvirate, and disciplined several thousand soldiers, of whom scarcely one was a native Roman. Among them were Frenchmen, Monte Videans, Poles, Italians of the north, but Romans few or none. Therefore it was, I said, that General Oudinot was cautious how he bombarded Rome, as he could not direct his hostility against one class of men, and yet entirely spare all. Lastly, my Lords, I cannot shut my eyes to the merits of the French army, of which all ages must testify their sense as long as any regard remains among men for the precious remains of antiquity and for those more inestimable treasures of modern art which form the pride and glory of the Eternal City. General Oudinot had carried on the siege of Rome as if he would avoid the effusion of a single drop of human blood, and as if he were anxious not to expose the great monuments of art to the injuries of shot and shell. In this state of things, the delay of the capture took place, while many at Paris were impatient at the suspension of their triumph, but whilst many more were anxious that in future ages the French should not be ranked with the Goths and Vandals of past times; and I feel that the greatest gratitude is due to the French general and to the French army for the humane and generous spirit that tempered the valour which they displayed before Rome. What they are to do now there is a very different question. I believe that their difficulties are not yet over. I believe they are only now begun, and that is one reason why I urge to my noble friend opposite, the propriety of calling a general congress for the settlement of the disturbed affairs of Europe. The difficulties of the French army and the French Government at Rome are so great that an acute people, like that of France, cannot shut its eyes to them. They must see how little they have gained even of that for which the Red Republicans of France are so eager—military glory. If that was the aim of the Paris multitude, which I more than suspect, of their rulers it could not be the purpose, unless they yielded up their better judgement to the influence of the rabble, for assuredly, while exposing them to every embarrassment in their foreign relations, and augmenting their financial difficulties, they must have seen that it was an enterprise in which success could give their country little glory, while failure must cover it with disgrace. But what signifies to France the loss of such renown as victory bestows? What to her is the forgoing of one sprig of laurel more in addition to the accumulated honours of her victorious career? The multitude of Paris rather than France, the statesmen of the club and coffee-house, the politicians of the salons, the reasoners of the Boulevards, may retain their thirst for such additions, such superfluous additions, to the national fame. The sounder reasoners, the true statesmen, have, I trust, learnt a better lesson, and will teach her gallant people to prefer the more virtuous and more lasting glories of peace.

But whatever the Paris mob, in the drawing-rooms or in the streets, may have desired, I am confident the Government, if left to itself, had one object only in view, the rescue of Rome from the usurpation of a foreign rabble, and restoring the authority of the Pope, whom that rabble's violence had driven from his States. And here let me say a word which may not be popular in some quarters, and among some of my noble friends, upon the separation of the temporal and spiritual authority of the Pope. My opinion is that it will not do to say the Pope is all very well as a spiritual prince, but we ought not to restore his temporal power. That is a short-sighted and I think a somewhat superficial view of the case. I do not believe it possible that the Pope could exercise beneficially his spiritual functions if he had no temporal power. For what would be the consequence? He would be stripped of all his authority. We are not now in the eighth century, when the Pope contrived to exist without much secular authority, or when as Bishop of Rome he exercised very extensive spiritual authority without corresponding temporal power. The progress of the one, however, went along with that of the other; and just as the Pope had extended his temporal dominions by encroachments of his own, and by gifts like those of Pepin and Charlemagne, the Exarchate and Pentapolis, uniting the patrimony of St. Peter, and adding to it little by little until he got a good large slice in Italy, just in proportion as his temporal authority increased did he attain so overwhelming influence over the councils of Europe. His temporal force increased his spiritual authority, because it made him more independent. Stript of that secular dominion, he would become the slave now of one Power—then of another—one day the slave of Spain, another of Austria, another of France, or, worst of all, as the Pope has recently been, the slave of his own factious and rebellious subjects. His temporal power is an European question, not a local or a religious one; and the Pope's authority should be maintained for the sake of the peace and the interests of Europe. We ourselves have 7,000,000 of Roman Catholic subjects, Austria has 30,000,000, Prussia has 7,000,000 or 8,000,000. France is a Catholic country, so is Belgium, so are the peninsulas of Italy and Spain; and how is it possible to suppose that, unless the Pope has enough temporal authority to keep him independent of the other European Courts, jealousies and intrigues will not arise which must reduce him to a state of dependency, and so enable any one country wielding the enormous influence of his spiritual authority to foster intrigues, faction, even rebellion, in the dominions of her rivals? Probably, as General Oudinot has sent the keys of Rome to the Pope at Gaeta, it is his intention to restore the temporal authority of the Pope. There are difficulties in the way of the French General remaining at Rome, the inhabitants of which naturally do not like to see an army of some thousands encamped in their town, and there are difficulties in the way of his leaving Rome; but there is no way so easy of overcoming those difficulties as a general congress to settle the affairs of Europe; and I do not consider that a clearer course can lie before France than to propose it, or that she can find a safer and a more creditable way out of her present embarrassments in Italy.

I now come to a part of the subject which I have only originally glanced at, the state of our relations with the southern part of the Italian peninsula. On the 16th of December, 1847, the noble Lord at the head of Foreign Affairs (Lord Palmerston) wrote to Lord Minto, directing him to request an audience

for the purpose of conveying to his Sicilian Majesty the strongest assurances of the earnest desire of Her Majesty's Government to maintain, and if possible draw still closer, the bonds of friendship which have so long united the Crowns of Great Britain and of the Two Sicilies.

Here, then, the Government were vowing eternal friendship with the Neapolitan. But, on the 10th of January, there broke out a rebellion in Sicily, and then 'a change came over the spirit of their dream', for there appeared no longer the same ardent desire for amity with Naples, or lamentations that it was not possible to 'draw still closer the bonds of friendship between the two Governments'. Now came a scene which I have read in the mass of papers before me with feelings of very sincere regret. I cannot easily imagine a more imbecile judgement than presides, or a more mischievous spirit than pervades, the whole of the diplomatic correspondence, the whole correspondence, not only of our professional politicians, our Ministers, our Secretaries, our Consuls, our Deputy-Consuls, but also a new class of political agents, who appear on the scene, the vice-admirals and captains of ships of the line, who all seem, in the waters of Sicily, to have been suddenly transformed, as if by the potent spells of the ancient enchantress who once presided over that coast, stripped of their natural military form, if not into the same sort of creatures, whose form she made men assume, yet into monsters, hideous to behold, mongrel animals, political sailors, diplomatic vice-admirals, speculative captains of ships, nautical statesmen, observers, not of the winds and the stars, but of revolts: leaning towards rebels, instead of hugging the shore; instead of buffeting the gale, scudding away before the popular tempest; nay, suggesters of expeditions against the established Governments of the Allies, with whom their Government lamented it could not draw the bonds of friendship more closely—a new species, half naval and half political, whose nature is portentous, in whose existence I could never have believed. Mr. Temple, a prudent and experienced Minister, is absent, unfortunately, from his post, and his place is filled by Lord Napier, a worthy man, and an active, above all, an active penman, a glib writer if not a great; writing, not quite, but very nearly as well as the captains and admirals themselves. We find this gentleman, like them, ardently hoping that revolt may prosper, and doing his endeavour to realize his desire; dealing out every sort of suggestion and recommendation, lecturing as if he sat in the Foreign Office, administering rebukes like a Foreign Secretary, telling the Neapolitan Government they had better do so and so; if they did not, it would be the worse for them, and it would be viewed with 'great gravity'; and yet supposing that no one but himself was sensitive, for he takes care not to show respect by salutes, and addresses, and those matters about which monarchs are supposed to care a great deal; making very free in his, I will not say rude and unmannerly, but certainly his rough treatment of others, yet all the while excessively annoyed at the 'tone', as he calls it, of some of the communications addressed to him. But after carefully studying the papers, to catch what this offensive tone of the Neapolitan Minister was, I have found it so evanescent that I really cannot discern it, and suppose there must be something in the manner, or in Lord Napier's state of mind at the time, which overset him.

On the 18th of January, 1848, Sir W. Parker, than whom a more able and gallant officer could not adorn the service, but who cannot be everything—for there are very few who, like my illustrious friend at the table (the Duke of Wellington), or my renowned master, under whom I first served in a diplomatic situation, the late Earl St. Vincent, are equally great as captains and statesmen—Sir W. Parker wrote to say that, the rebellion having broke out again, he had given general orders to the captains of British vessels to afford protection to individuals of either side who were flying for their political conduct. It is easily to be seen which of the two sides these instructions are intended to protect. Sir W. Parker concludes by saying, 'I shall await with anxiety the result of the outbreak in Sicily, and the effect it may produce at Naples.' Why, what had Sir W. Parker to do with that? The truth is, he was in the hope and the expectation that the rebellion in Sicily would extend across the Faro, and lead to a rising of the Calabrese upon the neighbouring continent. In page 352 we have Captain Codrington, a most able officer, no doubt, giving a long political disquisition, and many speculations, respecting the rebellion and its effects elsewhere, in which he predicts a rising in Calabria, and foresees the danger which would subsequently accrue to the Neapolitan Government. The gallant captain writes as if he were a soothsayer, sent out to foretell the effect of the Sicilian force landing in Calabria, in shaking the Neapolitan throne. Nay, not content with being Minister and Ambassador, as well as naval officer, the gallant captain must needs act, at least speculate, as a Secretary of the Treasury, or whipper-in for the Sicilian Commons; so he proceeds to discuss the returns for the new elections:

'Should the small Sicilian force', says he, 'recently landed in Calabria—probably under 1,000 men—succeed in raising the inhabitants of that part of the country against the present Government, they may be able to beat the 12,000 Neapolitan troops at present in Calabria, and then by getting possession of Scylla and Reggio, the Sicilians will gain the control of the Straits, and ultimately so distress the citadel of Messina, by cutting off its communication, as well as by other military operations, as to bring on its surrender. In the meantime, the character of the return of members to serve in the coming Parliament, to meet in the early part of the next month, is adverse to the present Ministry. In some places, the electors on meeting have merely made a proces-verbal affirming the validity of their previous election, and reasserting the candidates then chosen as their actual representatives; in others they have proceeded to a new election; but in almost every case the very same individuals as before have been returned as members for the Parliament. This gives a considerable check to the Government, and shows the state of public opinion in the provinces. If on the meeting of Parliament the discussions are free, we may expect strong differences, if not collisions, between the King's Government and the Parliament, from recent events, from present difficulties, and above all from the want of experience of all parties in carrying on public business. If the Government control the discussions by force or prevent the meeting of Parliament, or suddenly get rid of it, and govern the country by means of the army, the provinces will then be almost sure of rising generally, particularly Calabria, excited by the Sicilian landing, and then not only will Messina be gone, but Naples and the throne of Ferdinand will be in the greatest danger. But if the King's Government were at present to act with great prudence and moderation, and if they believe them sincere in it, there would be no such general rising in the provinces as to render the Sicilian landing of importance, and then that small body of men would be crushed by the large Neapolitan force at present in Calabria. This would put the King's Government in a far more commanding position for terms in any future negotiations with Sicily, and probably put off a final settlement by inducing claims too exorbitant to be agreed to by Sicily.'

What had Captain Codrington to do with the going out or coming in of the Ministry? What, in the name of Neptune and Mars, and all deities having charge of ships of war, had a naval officer to do with the returns to Parliament, the results of votes in that foreign House of Commons? Observe, my Lords, the papers are selected out of the mass of documents at the Foreign Office, and I will venture to assert very confidently that, besides those which have been produced, there are half a dozen times as many which the Foreign Office has not produced; so that if we find anything in these papers showing faults to have been committed by those who produced them or by their agents, we may assume that, if the whole of the papers were given, not a few more faults of the same kind would be found to have been committed.

The noble Lord opposite (Lord Minto) went from Rome to Naples, and if he had been alone there I should have had greater confidence in the proceedings of the Government, for I have had long experience of his good sense, and sound judgement. But the noble Earl had a very active and zealous man under him; and while wading through this volume I have often had occasion to reflect upon the wise opinion of Prince Talleyrand, who used to reckon in diplomacy that zeal in young men is the next thing to treachery, and that sometimes it is just as bad as treachery, for the zealous are clothed with the garb of merit, and you have little hold over them. Well, the zeal, the honest zeal, no doubt, of Lord Napier, moved my noble kinsman from Rome to Naples. The noble Earl (Earl Minto) on the 2nd of February, 1848, wrote to the Foreign Office, that he had been so urged by Lord Napier to go to Naples that he had resolved to set off. But Lord Napier also tells us that on the 3rd of February he had an interview with the King of the Two Sicilies, and that he got the King, out of his zeal and his address working with it, to ask Lord Minto to go to Naples. Well, my noble friend and Lord Napier, representing the British Government, were decidedly for the Sicilians and against the Neapolitans. There was no attempt to hold the balance even between the two parties, but every expression was used, every proposal made, every captious objection taken in favour of the Sicilians under pretence of holding even the balance. In that country my noble kinsman and Lord Napier are what we term in the language of this country 'Repealers'. They are all for what they call a native and independent parliament in Sicily, just as the Repealers are for a native and independent Parliament in College Green. The noble Lord (Lord Minto) says, in a very vehement manner, that the sufferings of the people of Sicily under their thirty years' tyranny were so intolerable that the Sicilians had a much better ground for their rebellion than we had against James II in 1688. A consul, writing on the 24th of April, having given most flourishing accounts of the universal insurrection of the Sicilians (accounts which differ entirely from those I received from travellers in that country, as well as from public functionaries), informed Lord Napier that the Sicilians were going to choose the Grand Duke of Genoa as King of Sicily. This intelligence was received in London about the 4th or 5th of May. There was not a moment's delay in acting upon the notification, though it was only a prediction. If we were so very fond of our Neapolitan allies, if we lamented that we could not draw more closely the bonds of friendship between the two countries, protesting all the while our desire to keep the two crowns on the head of Ferdinand, it is very odd that our Minister should, on the very instant it was known that the Grand Duke of Genoa was likely to be chosen, and that the Sicilians intended to dethrone King Ferdinand namely, on the 8th of May, proceed to give these instructions to my friend, Mr. Abercrombie:

'Her Majesty's Consul at Palermo having reported that it is understood that the crown of Sicily is to be offered to the Duke of Genoa, I have to instruct you that if it should come to your knowledge that such an offer has been made, you will state to the Sardinian Government that it is of course for the Duke of Genoa to determine whether it will or will not suit him to accept this flattering offer, but that it might be satisfactory to him to know that if he should do so he would at the proper time, and when he was in possession of the Sicilian throne, be acknowledged by Her Majesty.'

Let it be known, said the noble Lord at the head of Foreign Affairs, that if the Duke of Genoa accepts the offer of the Sicilians, we shall lose no time in recognizing him, the Grand Duke of Genoa, under the Treaty of Vienna, as the King of Sicily, and in accepting the dethronement of our own ancient ally with whom we lament there is no possibility of 'drawing closer the bonds of our ancient friendship'. Oh, how easily snapped are the bonds that knit prince to prince, and State to State! Oh, how feeble the most ancient ties of the firmest political friendship! When the ink was hardly dry with which the profession was made of this earnest desire to draw more closely, if it were but possible, the bonds which united us to the King of the Two Sicilies, that Her Majesty's Government should, behind his back, and without a word of notice, avow their intention deliberately, but instantly, to acknowledge the usurper upon whose head his insurgent subjects were about to place the crown they had wrested from the brow of their lawful King! But my noble friend (Lord Minto) is strongly impressed with the advantages of a free constitution—not, however, more strongly than I am. Above all the free constitutions of the world, it is natural that the Sicilians should admire that admirable form of the purest of all governments, which, uniting the stability of order with the freedom of a popular constitution, which we happily enjoy, and upon the possession of which we have reason to pride ourselves beyond all the other bounties which a gracious Providence has showered down upon this favoured isle. No wonder the Sicilians should be prepared to admire and regard with reverence a constitution which unites in itself the advantages of all other forms of government, the freedom of democracy, the vigour of monarchy, and the stability with the peacefulness of aristocracy. If I were to say that I am niggardly enough to keep this blessing at all hazards to ourselves, not to desire the extension to others of this happy form of government, I should do injustice to my own feelings; but if I were to say I am slow to believe that the British Constitution is of a nature to be easily exported, and transplanted in other countries, I should only give vent to the opinions which the wisest have held, and which every day's experience of foreign affairs tends more deeply to root in all reflecting minds. The British Constitution is the work of ages, the slow growth of many centuries, and if it could be transplanted to countries so totally unprepared for its reception, and there made to take root, it would be as great a miracle as if we were to take a mature plant and set it to grow on a stone pavement, or a great wooden stick, and plant it in a fertile soil, there to bear fruit. The plant and the soil must be of congenial natures; the constitution must fit the nation it is to govern. The people must be prepared by their previous experience, their habits, their second nature, their political nature, to receive such institutions. I know not that I can ever sufficiently express the affection I bore to my late noble friend (Lord W. Bentinck) who, in 1812, instituted in Sicily the experiment of transplanting thither the British Constitution. But your Lordships now know from his experience what was the consequence of attempting to establish our own constitution in another country. A traveller happened to be in Sicily at the time, and I will read the account he gave of the solemnity which he witnessed. He is speaking of the most important of all proceedings under that transplanted system; he is describing the conduct of the people's chosen representatives; he is painting the scene of their legislative labours, in the temple of freedom; he is admitting us to the grand, the noble spectacle of the most dignified of human assemblies, the popular body making laws for the nation in the sanctuary of its rights. See, then, this august picture of a transplanted Parliament. Mr. Hughes says:

'As soon as the President had proposed the subject for debate, and restored some degree of order from that confusion of tongues which followed the announcement of the question, a system of crimination and recrimination was invariably commenced by the several speakers, accompanied with such hideous contortions, such bitter taunts, and such personal invectives, that blows generally followed, until the Assembly was in an uproar. The President's voice was unheeded and unheard; the whole House arose; patriots and antagonists mingled in the fray, and the ground was covered with the combatants, kicking, biting, striking, and scratching each other in a true Pancratic fray.'

It is to restore this grand political blessing of the 1812 Parliament that all our late efforts have been pointed. The great object of our negotiations has been the establishment of such a precious representative assembly; but the result is, that those efforts have been all thrown away. The King of Naples was said at that time to have agreed to certain concessions; he offered the people such terms as our negotiators thought they ought to have accepted; and, up to that time, indeed up to this hour, Ferdinand has behaved most fairly. He did not scruple to make such proposals for conciliation as our own negotiators thought the insurgents ought to have accepted. But all ended in their refusal. War broke out. Neapolitan troops were sent over. Messina was attacked, bombarded, and, after some four or five days, was taken.

Now, to show your Lordships the tendency there was in these negotiations to take advantage of every circumstance, accidental or otherwise, for the purpose of blackening the conduct of the Neapolitan Court, I will only state one particular, and that is with respect to the continuance of the bombardment. A most indignant denial has been given to this charge by the general officers and others engaged; and it turned out that our consuls and vice-consuls, all animated by the same spirit, all in favour of rebellion and against the lawful sovereignty, all agreed in one fact as the ground of the charge,—they all said that eight hours after the resistance had ceased the bombardment was continued. It might naturally be supposed that, with this continued bombardment, much blood would be spilt; and when all our agents are dwelling on this continuance as a cruelty, every reader must conclude that needless carnage was perpetrated, and much blood shed. But no such thing; not one drop could be spilt, and why? Because every creature had left the town before the eight hours had commenced to run! But the bombardment was continued for two reasons. In the first place, every house, as in Paris, was a fort; and, secondly, the Neapolitan commander could not possibly trust the white flag immediately after he had lost a whole battalion by a false flag being hoisted to decoy them into ambush, where the ground was mined. But no single fact of needless cruelty has been proved against the King of Naples, though I know, from a person attached to our Navy, and in those seas at that time, whose account I have read, as also from that of a traveller accidentally on board of one of the Queen's ships at the time, that there were cruelties of the most disgusting and revolting description committed by the Sicilians, and not one word of reference to which can be found in all the curiously selected papers that load your table. In the mass things are to be found, indeed, much against the wishes of the selectors, and also of their agents in Sicily and Naples. This is owing to their clumsy design of telling what they think will exalt the rebel and damage the loyal party, without always perceiving that these statements cut more ways than one. Thus, a number of consuls sign a statement that all the inhabitants had left Messina. This is contrived to show that resistance had ceased; but it also proves that no cruelty could be committed by the bombardment. Again, we are told that 1,500, by one zealous agent's account, had been slain of the King's troops: but Lord Napier's hotter zeal is not satisfied with this number, and he makes it 3,000. The object of putting forward this statement is to exalt the rebel valour, and give a more formidable aspect to the revolt. But the zeal in one direction forgets that the same parade of numbers also shows how necessary severe measures had become on the King's part, and how little blame could attach to the gallant troops who, thus assailed, had imposed on them, by the duty of self-defence, the necessity of quelling so bloody an insurrection.

I have given one sample of the not very even-handed justice which pervaded the correspondence. But I will proceed further. After the battle of Messina 700 or 800 rebels escaped towards the Ionian Islands. They were taken, and it was said by a stratagem: that by hoisting the English flag a Neapolitan cruiser was enabled to near them and take them. It was further alleged—and much of the correspondence is addressed to this point—that they were taken, contrary to the law of nations, within three miles or cannon-shot of the Ionian Islands, and therefore within the British waters. Very elaborate arguments are given in the correspondence to prove that position, and a great deal of indignation is expressed; and satisfaction was also demanded on account of the abuse of the English flag. An elaborate argument is prepared and sent by the Foreign Secretary to show that because the ships were first seen twenty miles off, and in half an hour more they were more clearly perceived, therefore at some unknown and unspecified time after the half hour, they must have been close in with the shore. I suppose on the principle that a sailing vessel going without steam, moves at the rate of twenty or thirty miles in the hour. However, such is this zealous argument to prove the favourite point that the rebels are always right and the Government always wrong. Alas! that so much good information and subtlety of argument should be thrown away. This able and argumentative paper crossed on its way out another from our own Admiral on its way homeward, in which he said he had inquired from the Governor of the Ionian Islands, and had ascertained that the ship was at least eight miles from the shore—so there was an end of the argument upon distance; and that of the insult to our flag was as shortly disposed of by a letter from our own Admiralty, stating that it was only a stratagem which our own Navy constantly employed, freely using the flags of other nations for its own purposes.

I rejoice to say, and your Lordships must he rejoiced to hear it, that I am approaching the end of this subject, but I cannot abstain from observing, to show how completely we took part with the one side against the other, that we treated the Sicilian prisoners as if they had been our allies, our own subjects. They were taken in rebellion, with arms in their hands, against their lawful Sovereign. But Lord Napier complains to Prince Cariati of his treatment of the prisoners, and says it would be observed upon in England, would raise a strong feeling on its exposure and publication, and that the feeling would be such that Her Majesty's Government could scarcely fail to take notice of it. But how? For those prisoners were guilty of municipal offence against the municipal law of their own country. Suppose, contrary to all probability and possibility, hostilities had ensued upon the late attempt at rebellion in Ireland, and some of the prisoners having been taken and sent to Bermuda or Australia, that the Ministers of France, Holland, Belgium, or any other country had taken it into their heads to object to our treatment of those prisoners and to say, 'Don't treat them in that way. Give them their native Parliament on College Green—you are acting cruelly in sending them to Bermuda or Australia. I shall write home to France, I shall write home to Holland, I shall write home to Belgium; and depend upon it your conduct will raise such a ferment of execration and hatred against you, that the President of the Republic, the King of Holland, and the King of Belgium will be absolutely obliged to take notice of it.' How should we have received that intimation? I think with a horse-laugh, and there was no reason why the Neapolitan King should not receive that dispatch of Lord Napier's in the same way, except that he, no doubt, gave it good-naturedly a more polite and courteous reception. Now we thus presume to interfere with the domestic affairs of Naples as neither France nor Holland would dare interfere with ours, and as we never durst interfere with theirs. True, we never should dream of urging the great Republic to treat its rebellious subjects, when charged with treason, otherwise than as its Government pleased! True, Naples is a feebler Power than France! But is that all the ground for the proceeding? Is that all the warrant for reading lectures such as those we have read, for doing the things we have done, threatening the things we have threatened, claiming the right we have asserted of protecting criminals imprisoned for rebellion from the justice of their lawful Sovereign? I say that to a generous nation, to a manly feeling heart, to a person of true British honour and true British gallantry, it is the very reverse of a reason, and makes our conduct the less excusable as it ought to be the more hateful.

But far from words being all we used, far from interfering by requisition and remonstrance being all we did, the British diplomacy and the British Navy were actually compelled to force an armistice upon the Neapolitan Government on behalf of its revolted subjects, and when their revolt was nearly quelled! After Messina had been completely subdued, its forces routed, its walls crumbled, its strongest place captured, our Admiral, having a fleet in those waters, was resolved it should not be there for nothing. Hitherto he and his captains had only expressed sympathy with the insurgents, and hatred or contempt of their lawful Sovereign. Now that the rebellion was on the point of being put down, by the capture of Catania and Palermo, which, but for us, must both have immediately fallen, now that the last hope of subverting the Throne of Sicily and installing a usurper on its ruins was about to vanish from the eyes of the British seamen, our Admiral, acting in concert no doubt with the British envoy, and inspired with the feelings of our Foreign Office, required a respite to be allowed the insurgents, and determined to back his requisition with his ships. But he was not, we must admit, the principal in this offence against the rights of an independent and friendly State. He has not the blame to bear, or, if you will, he has not the praise to receive, of having decided upon this intervention between the King and his insurgent subjects. The French Admiral was the contriver of the scheme. Admiral Baudin formed his own determination, doubtless in order to gratify the mob of Paris, as well as the rebels of Palermo; and our commander, afraid of being outstripped in his favourite course, at once yielded to the Frenchman's request, the one looking to the Boulevards of Paris for approval, the other to the Foreign Office of London. Orders were issued to all our fleet, that they should use every means to prevent the Neapolitans from following up their victory at Messina; and sealed instructions were sent to direct their proceedings should these peaceable efforts fail. Why not make the instructions public? Why not give notice openly of our intentions? It might have prevented the necessity of using force. However, the orders were sealed, and they directed that first the guns should be fired without shot; next, that they should be shotted, but not fired so as to injure the crews of our ally's ships; and, finally, that they should be used as hostilely and destructively as was necessary to accomplish the purpose of forcing Naples to let the Sicilian rebels alone. But then it is said, and it is the pitiful pretext of equal treatment to both parties, that the orders were alike to prevent action of the King's troops and the revolters. Was ever there a more wretched shift, a more hollow pretence, than this? Keep the Sicilians from breaking an armistice enforced to save them from utter and final destruction! Keep the beaten Sicilian rebel from overpowering his victorious masters! Keep the felon convicted from rushing to the gallows in spite of the respite granted him! Can human wit imagine a more ridiculous pretext than this, of affecting to hold the balance even, when you are preventing the conqueror from improving his victory, and only preventing the vanquished from attempting what without a miracle he cannot do, cannot, even with all your assistance, venture to try? But such was our just conduct in an interference which we had not the shadow of a right to take upon ourselves. We showed our friendly feelings towards an ancient ally by forcibly screening his revolted subjects, and compelling him to delay for nearly seven months the total defeat of those rebels and the complete restoration of tranquillity. From the 10th of September, when Messina fell, to the 30th of March, when we were kindly pleased to let the armistice expire, the English fleet persevered in reducing the King to inaction, and saving his rebellious subjects from the operation of his armies. But for our own fleet, there is not a doubt that Catania and Palermo must have fallen in a fortnight, but we nursed, and fostered, and prolonged the insurrection for above half a year. Talk of your humanity! Boast of your Admiral and his French associate interposing to save bloodshed! Whose fault was it that Catania, having profited by the respite you forced the King to grant, still held out, instead of opening her gates as soon as Messina had fallen, when the insurrection must have been crushed in its cradle? Who but your commanders and envoys are to blame for the necessity under which they placed the King's troops of fighting a battle on the 6th of April? That engagement no doubt put down the insurrection; but many lives were lost in it. Five-and-twenty officers were killed and wounded on the King's side, and some hundreds of men must likewise have expiated their loyalty with their lives, to say nothing of the insurgent loss. Palermo fell without a struggle, after all the boastings of your envoys and captains, and consuls and vice-consuls. Would she have resisted more fiercely in September? The insurgent chiefs fled, and got on board the Vectis, one of the two vessels of war which you suffered the Sicilian rebels to fit out in your ports, when you refused all help to your ancient friend's ambassador in checking this outrage on the law of nations, and when by a celebrated 'inadvertence' you suffered those rebels to obtain from the Tower a supply of arms, wherewith to fight your ally's armies.