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try. One single day should dissipate all the misfortunes of many years. The most sacred, the most invariable pledges of moderation, of gentleness, of reciprocal confidence, and of entire union will be the guarantees of your tranquillity. Neapolitans, second with all your efforts an enterprize whose object is so great, so just, so benevolent, and which enters into the common cause of Europe, of which all enlightened nations have undertaken the defence with immense forces.

I promise you that I will not preserve the least recollection of all the faults committed by whatever person, without any exception, against the duties of fidelity towards me, during my absence from this kingdom, at whatever time committed, whether after my first or second departure. An impenetrable and eternal veil shall cover all past actions and opinions.

With this view I promise, in the most solemn manner, and on my sacred word, the most complete, most extensive, and general amnesty, and an eternal oblivion.

I promise to preserve to all individuals, Neapolitan and Sicilian, who serve in the armies by land or sea, all the pay, the rank, and military honours which they now enjoy.

May God, the witness of the rectitude and sincerity of my intentions, deign to bless them with FERDINAND.

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To all our subjects, greeting,

France, free and respected, was enjoying, by our care, the peace and prosperity which had been restored to it, when the escape of Napoleon Buonaparte from the Island of Elba, and his appearance on the French territory, seduced to revolt the greatest part of the army. Supported by this illegal force, he has made usurpation and tyranny succeed to the equitable empire of the laws.

The efforts and the indignation of our subjects, the majesty of the throne, and that of the national representation, have yielded to the violence of a mutinous soldiery, whom treacherous and perjured leaders have seduced by deceitful hopes.

This criminal success having excited in Europe just alarms, formidable armies have been put in march towards France, and all the Powers have decreed the destruction of the tyrant.

Our first care, as our first duty, has been to cause a just and necessary distinction to be recognised between the disturber of the peace and the oppressed French nation.

Faithful to the principles which have always guided them, the Sovereigns, our Allies, have declared their intention to respect the independence of France, and to guarantee the integrity of its territory. They have given us the most solemn assurances, that they will not interfere in the internal government, and it is on these conditions we have resolved to accept their generous assistance.

The usurper has in vain attempted to sow dissentions among them, and, by a feigned modera

tion, to disarm their just resentment. His whole life has for ever deprived him of the power of imposing upon good faith. Despairing of the success of his artifices, he seeks, for the second time, to precipitate with himself into the abyss, the nation over which he causes terror to reign; he renews all the departments of administration in order to fill them wholly with men sold to his tyrannical projects; he disorganizes the National Guard, whose blood he intends to lavish in a sacrilegious war; he begins to abolish rights which have been long since abolished; he convokes a pretended Field of May to multiply the accomplices of his usurpation; he promises to proclaim there, in the midst of bayonets, a derisory imitation of that constitution, which, after 25 years of disorders and calamities, had, for the first time, founded on a solid basis the liberty and the happiness of France. Finally, he has consummated the greatest of all crimes towards our subjects, by attempting to separate them from their Sovereign, to tear them away from our family, whose existence, which for so many ages has been identified with that of the nation itself, is still at this moment the only thing that can guarantee the stability of the legitimacy of the government, the rights and the liberty of the people, the mutual interests of France and of Europe.

In these circumstances we rely with entire confidence on the sentiments of our subjects, who cannot fail to perceive the dangers and the miseries to which they are exposed by a man whom assem

bled Europe has devoted to public vengeance. All the Powers know the dispositions of France. We are assured of their amicable views and of their support.

Frenchmen! seize the means of deliverance which are offered to your courage. Rally round your King, your father, the defender of all your rights-hasten to him to assist him in saving you, to put an end to a revolt, the prolongation of which might become fatal to our country, and by the punishment of the author of so many evils, to accelerate the era of a general reconciliation.

Given at Ghent, the 2d day of the month of May, in the year of our Lord 1815, and the 20th year of our reign.

(Signed)

SWITZERLAND.

LOUIS.

Note delivered to the Diet by the Ministers of the Four Great Powers, which was read in the Sitting of the 12th of May.

"From the moment that Buonaparte returned to France, all Switzerland resolved by an unanimous and energetic determination to take up arms to defend its frontiers, and to keep off those disorders of all kinds with which Europe is menaced by the return of this Usurper.

"This measure, which fully displayed the energy of the Diet, and the wisdom of its deliberations, was perfectly in harmony with the sentiments of all Europe, which openly applauded the conduct of a people, who, though the nearest to the danger, was

seen

seen to pronounce, without hesitation, on the events of which France is the theatre; and boldly profess sentiments so honourable, by repelling the proposals made by the pretended Government of that country to all the States, and which were every where rejected with indignation.

"In this unexpected and unparalleled crisis, the Helvetic Confederation, guided by its ancient integrity, has joined of itself the system of Europe, and embraced the cause of social order, and of the safety of nations. It has felt the conviction that so long as the volcano, rekindled in France, should threaten to influence and convulse the world, the inestimable advantages which the high allied powers take a pleasure in seeing enjoyed by Switzerland, its welfare, its independence, its neutrality, would be always exposed to the encroachments of that illegal and destroying power which no moral restraint is able to check.

"United by the same wish, of annihilating this power, the Sovereigns assembled at the Congress of Vienna have proclaimed their principles in the treaty of the 25th of March, as well as the engagements they contracted to maintain them.

"All the other States of Europe have been invited to accede to it, and they have readily answered this invitation. Thus, the moment is arrived, when the august Sovereigns, whose orders the undersigned are commmissioned to execute here, expect that the Diet, on receipt of the present official communications, will, by a formal and authentic declara,

tion, adopt the same principles, and in concert with the undersigned, resolve on the measures which may become necessary to oppose the common danger.

"But at the same time that the powers expect without any doubt, that Switzerland, agreed with them on the principal object, will make no difficulty in declaring that it is armed to attain it, and that it has placed itself in the same line of policy, they are very far from proposing to it to display any other force than such as is proportioned to the resources and the usages of its people. They respect the military system of a nation which, remote from all ambition, puts forces on foot only to defend its liberty and its independence; they know the value which Switzerland attaches to the principle of neutrality; it is not to infringe upon it, but solely to accelerate the period when this principle may be applied in an advantageous and permanent manner, that they propose to the confederation to assume an energetie attitude, and adopt vigorous measures commensurate to the extraordinary circumstances of the times, but without forming a precedent for the future.

"It is conformably with these principles that the undersigned have received from their respective courts, the necessary instructions to regulate by a Convention which cannot but be agreeable to Switzerland, the footing upon which its adhesion is to subsist to the sacred cause which it has already embraced. They have, therefore, the honour to invite the Diet without delay to name Plenipotentiaries to enter into a nego

ciation

ciation with them upon this subjeet.

"The allied Monarchs impose upon themselves the greatest sacrifices; nevertheless, they require from Switzerland, only those from which it cannot possibly withdraw itself in a crisis in which its dearest interests are at stake; and to alleviate the burden of putting on foot the forces necessary for the vigorous defence of their frontiers, as well as to insure its success, they propose to keep at the disposal of Switzerland all the assistance which the general operations of the war shall permit them to dedicate to this object.

"The Monarchs desire in this manner among this nation (the object of their particular regard and esteem) those sentiments of attachment, confidence, and gratitude to which they believe themselves so justly entitled, sentiments which they would have at heart still to increase and strengthen at the time of a general peace, by paying particular attention to the interests and the safety of Switzerland.

"The undersigned renew to his Excellency the President, and to Messrs. the Deputies to the Diet, the assurance of their dis tinguished consideration.

"STRATFORD CANNING,
"KRUDENER,
"SCHRAUT,
CHAMBRIE."

"Zurich, May
6, 1815."

ANSWER OF THE DIET.

"At the moment when a new political convulsion shewed itself in France, Switzerland, struck with the dangers of its situation,

took with vigour and celerity the measures of safety which the importance of the circumstances required. The Diet has made known by a proclamation, the object of these armaments; it has avoided all connection with the man who has taken the reins of the French government, and has refused to recognise him.

"The Ministers of the Allied Powers justly infer from this conduct, that Switzerland, united in interest and intentions with the other States, must oppose with all its might a power which threatens the peace, the tranquillity, the independence, and the rights of all nations. Such are, in fact, the resolutions of the Diet.

"The relations which it maintains with the high allied powers, and even with them alone, leave no doubt respecting its disposition or its designs; it will abide by them with that constancy and fidelity which have been at all times honourable features in the Swiss character.

"Twenty-two little republics, united among themselves for their security and the assertion of their independence, must seek their national strength in the principle of their confederation. This is what is prescribed by the nature of things, by the geographical situation, the constitution and the character of the Swiss people.

"A consequence of this principle is its neutrality recognised in its favour, as the basis of its future relations with all states. It equally results from this principle, that in the great contest which is on the eve of commencing, the part of Switzerland must naturally

naturally consist in the vigorous defence of its frontiers. By remaining on this line, it does not estrange itself from the cause of the other powers; on the contrary, it embraces it the more sincerely, and serves it with the more advantage, as this cause becomes immediately its own. Considered in itself, the defence of a frontier 50 leagues in extent, which serves as a point d'appui to the movement of two armies, is a co-operation not only very effectual, but even of the highest importance. Thirty thousand men and more have been put on foot for this purpose. Resolved to maintain this developement of force, Switzerland thinks on its side that it

may expect from the kindness of the powers, that their armies will respect its territory, till it shall itself call for their aid. Assurances on this head are absolutely necessary to tranquillize the people, and to induce them to bear with courage so great a burthen. The Diet believes that it has answered, by these explanations, the expectations of their Excellencies the Ministers, at the same time that it shews its confidence in the justice and magnanimity of the Monarchs who have but lately aken such an interest in the fate of this country, and thus acquired fresh claims to its gratitude.

"If there is now any thing to be, done according to the principles above explained, in order to fix in a more precise manner the political relations of the confederation with the allied powers, during the continuance of the present war, and at the same time to agree on the conditions of its system of defence, the Diet is

ready to hear these overtures: it. has commissioned Messrs. the Burgomaster Wyss, the Avoyer Merlineu, and the Burgomaster Weiland to enter into a negociation with Messrs. the Ministers upon these two points, which are essentially inseparable. But in every case the right is reserved to the Cantons, to take a definitive resolution on this head, and to give these arrangements legal validity by constitutionally.confirming them.”—(Zurich, May 12.)

Proclamations of the King Prussia on resuming possession of his Polish Provinces.

"Inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Posen,-At the same time that, according to my letters patent of this day's date, I restore to their original state those parts of the late Duchy of Warsaw which belonged originally to Prussia, and now revert to my dominions; I have also had it in view to fix your political relations: you have now also obtained a country, and at the same time a proof of my esteem for your attachment.

"You are incorporated with my Monarchy, but without being obliged to renounce your Nationality. You will participate in the Constitution which I intend to give my faithful subjects, and you will have a provisional constitution, like the other provinces of my kingdom. Your religion shall be maintained, and a suitable dotation be assigned to its servants. Your personal rights and your property shall return under the protection of the laws, upon which you will also be called upon in

future

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