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ITSELF CAN NEITHER HAVE VALUE NOR DURATION, they will devote the means and the power conferred upon them BY HEAVEN to the exclusive happiness of their subjects.1

These events cannot pass, and yet less can these principles be recognised without materially affecting the basis on which the Peace of Europe depends. The avowal by the Sovereigns charged with its maintenance, that Peace can be of no value or duration unless the "RIGHTS OF THRONES," as by them understood, be insured, contains in itself a doctrine of great and permanent danger to the public tranquillity; and the practical illustration of it in the war they are now making upon Naples, must give immediate as well as serious alarm for the extension of its effects all over the world. Even if the occupation of the Neapolitan States by one of the Sovereigns could take place without disturbing the European balance, the measures concerted at Laybach are known to have reference to future prospective arrangements of still wider scope, all grounded on the same principles, with a view to the same assumed Rights, and to be executed by the same means.

IT IS NOT TO BE EXPECTED that the people of these free realms, the throne of which stands, and is secured to its possessor, on principles directly adverse to the only legitimate title acknowledged by the Sovereigns, can view with indifference the consolidation of a system which, in its progress, must inevitably come into mortal conflict with their own laws and liberties. Standing at the head of the Representative Governments of Europe, all and each of which are menaced in their foundations by the acts and declarations of the Sovereigns, we have felt, therefore, the necessity of turning our attention to some means of mutual defence, in an emergency which, by no very remote possibility, may arise, if it should please Providence to favor for a time the cause of the confederates. But in order to arrive at this object, and to clear the way for a System becoming the British name and character, it was necessary to ascertain whether any, and what obstacles might exist to the adoption of measures towards its attainment in consequence of our foreign treaties. Our first step therefore was to enquire into the state of our relations with Austria, Russia, and Prussia, as well to inform ourselves how far the public faith stood engaged to take a direct part with those powers in the present war, as with the view of understanding how far the British Government was agreed with them on that which seems the vital principle of all modern treaties, the Right of interference in the internal concerns of other nations. We wished likewise to learn whether the British Government had

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Austrian Declaration.

2 Circular from the British Cabinet, 19th Jan. 1821.

remonstrated, or interposed its good offices, with the Allies, in order to dissuade them from invading the Neapolitan territory.

Explanations were asked and granted. These, although deficient in many respects, satisfy us that there is no immediate intention, on the part of His Majesty's servants, of joining our arms to those of the combined Sovereigns. They lead us also to believe that the principles of the confederacy, carried to the extent avowed by it, are not the principles of the British Government. So far we are satisfied: inasmuch as it is clear that no lawful impediment exists to the attainment of our proposed end. Great Britain is free to unite with other states on the basis of mutual defence, and the guarantee of INSTITUTIONS EMANATING FROM OUR

SELVES.

It was not however without sorrow that we learned that no suitable interposition had been attempted with the Sovereigns, in order to induce them to desist from their present designs. Professing a regard for rational liberty, it spoke but ill for the credit and influence of the leaders of His Majesty's councils, that they should have ventured upon no step in favor of an unoffending People, in close amity with Great Britain. They were in a situation to make honorable terms for both parties. They were the natural mediators between Austria and the two Sicilies. If the new Government of that country was, in reality, calculated to give alarm to Austria, what power so able as Great Britain to obtain from it securities which might enable her to become the guarantee of Peace between them? Under such a compact, Naples could take no hostile step against Austria, without subjecting her Capital to sudden destruction, and one half of her dominions to be severed from the other. These, also, were our means of protection for Naples, if Austria, in defiance of our representations, should have persisted in her aggression. But we never will believe that she would have so persisted; or that a sincere and serious demonstration by our Government at Troppau would not have stopped at once the course of the present calamitous events.

But the backwardness of His Majesty's Ministers on this occa'sion, and their declared incompetence to obtain respect to their remonstrances, were not the only painful disclosures which resulted from our enquiries. It appeared that on the 19th of January, a Circular dispatch had been addressed from Downing-street to all British Ministers at foreign Courts, for the professed purpose of explaining the principles and conduct of His Majesty's Government in the present circumstances. In this document, the fact is for the first time made known to us, by authority, of the existence, among the Sovereigns, of Projects "in direct repugnance to the fundamental laws of this country." Of the general views of the

'Circular from the British Cabinet.

;

Sovereigns, their declarations already afforded sufficient evidence but that a system of action had been grounded on them, that it had been proposed to His Majesty for his concurrence, and that its ulterior objects and the details necessary to carry it into execution, were actually in a train of negociation and settlement, was a discovery wholly unexpected, and could not fail of exciting suspicion and alarm. What the projects may be, is still unexplained to us. All we know is, that they are supported by three powerful Monarchs, having at their disposal more than a million of men in arms, and who avow their determination to consider no Peace as valid any longer than it shall provide for the maintenance of their pretended Rights.' Doubtless it were unworthy, the dignity of Great Britain to notice the slights of these Powers; still more so to alarm herself at their menaces; nevertheless, she cannot in prudence wholly dismiss from her consideration projects that bear a character of hostility to her laws and constitution. It is not enough that we have not acceded to them. It is fit that we know what are these " measures in direct repugnance to our fundamental laws," in order that security may forthwith be taken against their being directed to the destruction of those laws. It is fit also that we know how far they may be calculated to affect the Independence of the smaller states. Under the ancient system of our foreign Policy, we should have a right to such explanations: it is our duty to call for them now, when a totally new scheme of relations has been established for the European community, not grounded, as formerly, on a just balance of territory among its Princes, but on a balance of monarchical pretensions against popular rights.

But if these considerations render it fit that we should obtain a more clear knowledge of the projects thus announced, it is become the more so from the scope and tenor of the Downing-Street Circular. On the face of this document it appears that the foundation of these projects had been laid at the settlement of the Peace in 1815, and that in the judgment of the Sovereigns, the system on which they were built, and the principles on which it is now proposed to enforce them, had obtained the 'sanction of the British Government. The belief of the Sovereigns in this sanction is confirmed by a Memorial officially communicated in December last, by their several Ministers to the Senate of Hamburgh. The allegations contained in that communication have never been retracted; on the contrary, the Manifesto of the Court of Vienna expressly declares, that although " particular reasons, and weighty

Austrian Declaration.

"On vous traitera comme une nation pestiferèe" was the punishment denounced against us by a foreign Minister of high rank, on being told by an English gentleman that the People of England disclaimed the schemes of the Holy

Alliance.

3 Hamburgh Note.

considerations, induce the British Government not to take part in the resolutions of the other Cabinets, no difference of position, or action, between the Powers of Europe, would give rise to any difference as to the basis of their alliance, and as to the general uniformity of principles and VIEWS."

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These are serious assertions; they convey a charge against the good faith and honor of Great Britain, which it is highly necessary to repel by proof. His Majesty's Ministers, it is true, declare that they have uniformly expressed their dissent from the construction put by the Sovereigns on the several treaties; that they "regard the principles on which these measures (the projects proposed to them) rest, to be such as could not be safely admitted as a System of international Law; and that their adoption would sanction more extensive interference in the internal transactions of states, than can be reconcileable with the authority or dignity of independent Sovereigns.' On the other hand, the allegation of the Allies derives but too much support from the nature of the alliance itself, and from its unanimously admitted objects. The union of Sovereigns, to which Great Britain had become a party, was, in the very terms of the compact itself, to be the "pledge" for the future peace of Europe.3 The basis of that union is declared by them to be THE RIGHTS OF THRONES; and the peace resulting from it, and of which it is thus pronounced to be the pledge, is further declared by them "to have neither value nor durability" except in company with those Rights. But certainly the Rights of Thrones, in the sense entertained and promulgated by the Sovereigns, and not controverted by the British Government at the time of negociating the several treaties, have been contravened in the case of the Neapolitan Revolution. The confederates, therefore, have some apparent cause of complaint against the British Government, for now declaring to the world that the principles on which they are proceeding for the re-establishment of those Rights are "inadmissible into any system of international law, and incompatible with the authority or dignity of independent Sovereigns."

It is deeply to be regretted that His Majesty's Ministers should have declined producing more satisfactory evidence of the uniformity and perspicuity of their explanations with the Allies, with regard to their common engagements. They would then have cleared the good faith of Great Britain from the imputation which now rests upon it. They would not appear to be retreating from their solemn engagements, after having for six years given reason to believe that on the great foundations of the European system, and on the principles which had presided over "all their common

'Austrian Declaration.

2 British Circular.
3 Protocol of the conferences at Aix-la-Chapelle, 1818.

relations and interests, and the RIGHTS resulting from their several treaties," no difference of opinion had at any time existed. Interests so vast ought not to be suffered to rest on ambiguous generalities. The "extreme principle" contended for by the Sovereigns, "of suppressing all revolutions, without enquiry into their necessity," ought to have been officially disavowed by His Majesty's Government; and the mere fact of a fundamental change effected by a people in their institutions with the sole intent of improving their internal condition, ought to have been expressly denied to be a casus fœderis.

That His Majesty's Government, even' in its amended interpretation of the Treaties, was not much at variance with the combined Sovereigns in regard to the extent to which they carried the right of interference, would likewise appear from the note presented by Sir W. A'Court to the Neapolitan Government, in answer to its demand of explanation as to the presence of a British squadron in the Bay of Naples. The British Envoy in that note professes, that "his Government will interfere in no way IN THE AFFAIRS" of the country, "unless such interference should be rendered indispensable by any personal insults or danger to which the Royal Family may be exposed." It is hence clear that a possible affront to a Sovereign from his subjects is considered by His Majesty's Ministers as a just ground for sending an armament against them; and the affront itself (of which the local resident Envoy is of necessity the sole judge) a just ground for making war upon them. They do not limit the operations of their armed force to the protection of the person of the Monarch; they extend it to an interference with "the affairs," or in other words, with the Laws and Constitution of the offending People. Into the prudence of this measure we do not for the present enquire: as little into the precipitation with which it appears to have been abandoned, at the only moment at which it could be of any effect: it is enough that the principle here announced as a ground for interference, differs in nothing from the principles uniformly avowed by the three Sovereigns, from the very beginning of their union-differs in nothing from that which constitutes, in their view, the basis of those "RIGHTS OF THRONES, without which external peace itself can have neither value nor duration."

Yet in spite of these various causes for mistrust, in contradiction to all the declarations of the allied Cabinets, with regard to the concurrence of that of His Majesty in their "principles and views," we feel it our duty, as loyal subjects to His Majesty, to accept the

3

Protocol, &c. 1818.

Lord Liverpool's speech on Lord Grey's motion, 20th February, 1821.
Note of Sir Wm. A'Court to the Duke of Gallo, Feb. 11, 1821.

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