No. III.-P. 17.

THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEES.

The Committees, then, have simply sought to put the Law again in force, and to restore to the Privy Council its legitimate authority. To demand more would be utopian; to obtain so much would be to accomplish their object. They have never ceased to declare that none of the wars of England since the accession of the Elector of Hanover, and, more especially, since the Congress of Vienna, could have been made, if the previous consent of a single man not compromised by political relations had been necessary before it was declared.

Their views on this matter are very distinctly put forward in the following passage from one of their Petitions to the QUEEN:

"That the Privy Council, under whose supervision all foreign ne66 gotiations ought to be conducted, has been set aside :

66

That, consequently, the royal prerogative has been infringed: (1) "as regards the appointment of Ministers; (2) as regards the advice "to be obtained (by the QUEEN) from men of experience; (3) as regards the commencement of hostilities with foreign Powers; whence "it has resulted that hostilities have often taken place without a De"claration of War as required by the Law of Nations;

66

"That these wars have been brought about in a clandestine man"ner and commenced illegally for objects neither just in themselves, 66 nor conformable to the interests of Great Britain;

"That these acts have been justified and explained by a system of "falsehood, and even by forgeries, committed in official documents.” (Those presented to Parliament to explain the invasion of Afghanistan in 1837.)-From "The Movement for Social Reform" in the "Revue Catholique des Institutions et du Droit," Grenoble.

No. IV.-P. 21.

VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH TO THE EMPEROR OF

EXTRACT.

RUSSIA.

October 12, 1814.

I might also appeal to past experience, were it necessary, to relieve myself and my Government from any suspicion of a policy adverse to the views and interests of Russia. Your Imperial Majesty will recollect that we are only now emerging from a long course of painful policy with respect to Norway, undertaken at your Imperial Majesty's instance, in order to secure to you the support of Sweden throughout the war, and to consolidate your possession of Finland, by obtaining for that Power an adequate indemnity in another direction. To this object our resources throughout THE contest, and our conquests from Denmark, were steadily directed and successfully applied under circumstances not a little arduous to such a Government as ours.

Your Imperial Majesty will trace the same friendly spirit in the aid lately afforded by His Majesty's Ministers at (the Porte to the conclusion of a peace with the Turks, which involved in it a large accession of territory to your Empire.*

I may refer to a still more recent instance on the side of Persia, which your Imperial Majesty has condescended more than once to acknowledge, where a peace has been signed, securing to your Imperial Majesty important and extensive acquisitions in consequence of the active intervention of the King's Ambassador, acting under express instructions from home.+

If I have referred to these transactions, it is only from an anxiety that your Imperial Majesty may not misinterpret my motives. If I now find myself compelled in this, the fourth instance of Russian aggrandisement within a few years, by a sense of public duty to Europe, and especially to your Imperial Majesty to press for a modification, not for an abandonment, of your Imperial Majesty's pretensions to extend your Empire further to the westward (Poland), I persuade myself that I may do so without being considered by your Imperial Majesty as influenced by any other sentiments than those which it becomes me to entertain as the Minister of an Allied Power.

No. V.-P. 21.

VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH TO COUNT NESSELRODE.

DRAFT.

London, May 28, 1815.

My DEAR SIR,-You will receive by the present courier the Convention I have signed with the Count DE LIEVEN and the Baron FAGEL relative to the Dutch loan. I trust that it will prove satisfactory, and that I shall thus have fulfilled, as I have very sincerely desired to do, the Emperor's wishes.

The Count DE LIEVEN, with his accustomed zeal for the service of his Court, was desirous that the fifth article should have been confined in its operation to the part of the debt falling to the share of Holland; but this change, whilst it would have been at direct variance with all my arguments, as employed both from Vienna and since return to reconcile the Government to the measure, would my have destroyed my whole case in Parliament, by enabling my opponents to describe the arrangement as one made not upon the principle of a fair equivalent with Holland, but as a gratuitous concession to Russia for an object that might not survive the present crisis.

* The "aid" here referred to was a "threat of war."- See Appendix to Sir R. Wilson's "Russian Journal."

†These instructions were to practise deceptions on the Persian Government, as will be seen in the detail of the negotiations, given in Sir John McNeill's "Progress of Russia in the East."

The risk to you is, I trust, small, whilst the principle is everything to us in justifying the measure in Parliament. Although M. DE LIEVEN pressed this point earnestly, I am confident you will do justice to the consideration which made it quite impossible for me to accede to his proposal. I should have deemed it highly imprudent, with a view to the success of the measure in Parliament, to have introduced so obnoxious a stipulation, which I could never defend, as the loss of the Netherlands would not only imply that Great Britain ought to save its money, but keep the Dutch Colonies into the bargain.

Count LIEVEN will also inform you confidentially of the utmost we can attempt here in the shape of subsidy for the service of the ensuing year, and I prefer, as I am sure you will, in the spirit of that confidence in which we have personally acted on such subjects towards each other, this friendly explanation to a more formal answer to your and Count RASOMUFFSKI's note.

The substance of what I have stated to him is, that if it is thought necessary to bring forward BENNIGSEN's army of reserve to make our coup against France quite sure, we shall be ready out of our vote of credit to make advances not exceeding, in the whole, one million, in twelve monthly payments, the payments to commence from the period the troops leave the Emperor's dominions, with reasonable allowance for their return home, to be regulated with reference to their position on service or march when the contest may close. As this is the extent of what we can propose to undertake, I must trust to you to protect us against this being made the ground of new pretensions in other quarters.

You will, I trust, also be fully satisfied with what we have done for the minor Powers. You will observe that we have sacrificed in a great measure the strength and efficiency of the Duke of WELLINGTON'S army in order to preserve the entire confederacy in harmony and good humour by spreading our subsidies over the whole surface of the alliance. We shall have thus to pay :

I hope you will be satisfied with our proceedings in Parliament It required some management to embark the country heartily in a new under all the embarrassments of a Congress and an escape from Elba. You my rely upon it that it has been well done, and that we shall not be wanting to our Allies and to the good cause. Believe me to be, &c.,

CASTLEREAGH.*

Castlereagh Correspondence. Third Series, vol. ii., p. 365.

No. VI.-P. 22.

THE STATE OF THE NEGOTIATION.

[We here give the full title of this extraordinary publication, the appeal to the English people with which it commences, and the last seven pages of the work.]

The State of the Negotiation; with details of its progress and causes of its termination in the recall of the Earl of LAUDERDALE.

The present details are given to the end that, in the necessary delay of the Official Papers, the Public may be enabled to form a due estimate of the conduct of His Majesty Ministers.

London

printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly, 1806.
ADVERTISEMENT.

TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.

It is now that the real conflict, the Bellum ad internecionem, begins. The errors or misfortunes of our Allies have lost all the outworks. The War is now at the foot of our walls. Your national resources are equal to the peril of your situation, if you fail not of your national courage. You have Ministers who are worthy of being at the head of such a nation. Give them your confidence-your full confidence. Harass them not by a pernicious opposition to sacrifices that must be made. Appeal not to the strictness of your constitution. There are times, said the most pious and wisest of Romans, when the statues of the gods must be veiled. The return of peace will recall everything to its right channel.

FROM PAGE 82 TO THE END.

After the exchange of many projets and contre projets, the following, which was proposed by the negotiators on the part of England, was the one under discussion so late as the middle of July last.

1. France to confirm the Cape of Good Hope in perpetual sovereignty to England.

2. France to procure the immediate restoration of Hanover.

3. France in the same manner to confirm the island of Malta in perpetual sovereignty to England. This article to be expressed simply.

4. France to evacuate the kingdom of Naples, and become a party in a general guarantee of the integrity of the Turkish Empire.

5. That if, in return for a due valuable consideration, the Sublime Porte could be induced to the surrender or exchange of the district of Montenegro to his Russian Majesty, France should not oppose, but should on the other hand faithfully, and strenuously, concur to give effect to such negotiation.

6. That the Republic of Ragusa should be declared independent, but under the protection of Russia.

7. England, on her part, in return for the above cessions, and the

restoration of the ordinary amicable intercourse between nations at peace, to acknowledge the Imperial and Royal Title, and the state of actual possession on the part of France and her Allies, subject to the above exemptions only.

8. The several settlements and islands, conquered on the part of His Britannic Majesty from France or her Allies, in Asia, Africa, and America, with the exception of the Cape of Good Hope, and the settlements of Surinam and Pondicherry, to be restored to the several powers from whom they may have been conquered.

This scheme or projet had been but a few days in discussion when the honour and actual sincerity of the French Government appeared in its proper point of view. The projet was admitted into discussion and discusssd with much apparent heat, so as to give the most natural colour to the artifice. Whilst the suspicions of the British negotiators were thus laid asleep, and they were congratulating themselves upon being on the point of effecting the fond object of their aims-a Russian and Turkish barrier-the French Government procured D'OUBRIL to sign the act of the 20th of July, and renounce for ever that for which England was contending.

If it be here demanded why D'OUBRIL signed such an act, the answer has been given before; it was simply because it was such an act that he was sent to sign. The Russian Ministry had been changed in the mean time. Sufficient time-not more however than sufficient -had doubtless elapsed between this change and the signature of the act of the 20th of July, to have enabled the new Russian Ministry to have sent new instructions, but in the bustle, and contention of the new nominations, the new Ministers had more immediate occupation, than a new arrangement in Foreign Affairs. Perhaps they were of opinion that it would be prudent to lose a little time in fitting themselves to their seat, and feeling their dignity before they exerted it. Whatever the cause might be, it is certain that D'OUBRIL had received no counter instructions from the new Ministry when he had signed the act of the 20th of July.

How did this affect the projet under discussion between the French and English Governments? Why, the French negotiators immediately declared, that Russia having renounced the required barrier, and Ragusa being otherwise disposed of, the proposals upon those points could no longer make part of any discussion.

In the mean time the English Court were lost in astonishment when they had learned the act of D'OUBRIL. They were already better acquainted with the new Ministry at Petersburg than D'OUBRIL himself. They had received assurances from them of fidelity to the common cause, at least of negotiating in concert. How therefore were they to explain this act of D'OUBRIL? The Ministry had been long enough established for D'OUBRIL to have received new orders D'OUBRIL, however, had evidently received none-the Court of Petersburg was too much governed by private faction. The immediate Court party might have prevailed. Even supposing the act of D'OUBRIL not authorised by the new Ministry, how could the Sovereign refuse to ratify it?