was it an answer? Why, to the communication made to him of the Protocol of the Allied Ministers of the 3rd of November. And what was this? Why, an undertaking of theirs to urge the Court of Bavaria to certain specified exchanges, professing to indemnify that Court financially and statistically, under the provisions of the Treaty of Ried, but founded upon the very principle of foregoing that of contiguité, as guaranteed by the same Act. And what is M. de Rechberg's answer? Why, saving the points of discussion on the "convenances statistiques et financières," and taking ground for the diminution of the cessions required from his Court upon the base of those proposed at Vienna, he renounces (as far as he is qualified) “à un arrondissement qui lui a été tant de fois garanti." But there was no relinquishment of the principle of "arrondissement" proposed to him in any other sense than as synonymous with contiguité. Neither was arrondissement ever, that I am aware of, guaranteed, except under the denomination of contiguité.

I see that both Rechberg, in his note of the 11th of November, and Montgelas, in his of the 11th instant, forwarded in your despatch No. 5, talk of a Convention signed at Vienna, which the latter dates the 23rd of April, 1815. As a Convention, I know nothing of such a document; neither was that or any other arrangement made on this subject, under the mediation, although with the concours of Great Britain, as well as of Prussia. What they both term a Convention, I take to be a discussion and arrangement in the usual course of Vienna Conferences, of which I send you a copy of the Protocol-the only paper that I know of signed on the subject by a British plenipotentiary. The arrangement therein made, you will see, was eventual, and subsequently altogether failed, from the impossibility of obtaining the consent of the other Powers to the great sacrifices required from them to satisfy the demands of Bavaria; and, accordingly, by a subsequent secret Protocol of the sitting of the 10th of June, Austria

revived her claim to the entire of the cessions stipulated by the Treaty of Ried and Convention of Paris, and the plenipotentiaries of the other four Powers undertook to support her claims.

Perfectly confirmed in the construction given in my former letter to Rechberg's note, all the reasoning, in my opinion, follows from it, as conveyed in mine of the 4th. I agree with you that it might be difficult to reproach a Power who says, "Merely leave me what I have, and what you have repeatedly guaranteed to me, if you cannot give me what you promised in exchange for it." But this is not the case of Bavaria. So far from any Power having guaranteed to her what she has, she is under a positive stipulation to cede a part of it; and, though she was assured in return of equivalents in contiguity, her Minister (subject, no doubt, to the future confirmation or dissent of his Court) waved this, and his Court, so far from immediately disavowing him, as it was their duty to have done, if they thought he had gone too far, have practically confirmed his act by entertaining a negociation incompatible with this principle, and now they turn round and reassert it, thereby raising an insurmountable barrier to all further negociation; and in this, I conceive, consists their wrong; and General Wacquant's in not having ascertained his point in the first instance, and, having blundered here, blundering again in not availing himself of the wrong of his adversary.

So far from thinking it unreasonable that Bavaria should assert a right to seek advantages to counterbalance those which, under my construction of M. de Rechberg's note, she resigns, in my mind, this very note takes fair ground to seek such advantages as a consideration for the relinquished contiguity. But M. de Montgelas has not, latterly at least, placed the negociation upon this ground; but, by again reviving his principle of contiguity, has raised an effectual bar, as long as he shall adhere to it, to all ulterior negociation.

I know not whether M. de Wacquant's retiring from

Munich, as suggested in my last, would have had the effect of recalling Bavaria to a renewal of the negociation; but the threat of it, properly motived, seems to me to have been the most likely means to have induced that Court to declare finally the principle upon which she would consent to negociate, and in the event of her positively reviving that relinquished by her Minister at Paris, by which all future negociation would become impracticable, have enabled him to place his Court rather on higher ground before the world than the expertness of his adversaries has now permitted.

Au reste, I have not now much hope of any satisfactory result from prolonging discussions at the present time with Bavaria. If, through your management, the negociation can be replaced upon the only practicable ground, so that there may be an early prospect of terminating this the last matter in the settlement of Europe, you will render great service. But I do not conceive that adherence to the principle of contiguity can by any possibility effectuate this object, or otherwise operate than to create considerable alarm in other countries, without any possible good effect.

The Tableaux annexed to the Protocol of the 3rd of November I take to contain the denominations of all the indemnities which can now be offered, if, by a proper understanding of the real value of these as compared with that of the cessions demanded from her, Bavaria will enter into negociation; or, if on this ground she should even propose a diminution of the required cessions: these are fair subjects of discussion, may be fairly examined, and lead to satisfactory results; but her now seeking as indemnity the northern part of the Baden territory, for the purpose of uniting Aschaffenburg and Würzburg with the transrhenane provinces, &c., I look upon to be just as much as to say she will not treat at all; and I cannot but believe, after what has passed at Vienna and Paris, she does so likewise.

When I stated in my former letter that, "Wacquant

having chosen to wait for instructions, the mediators having nothing else to do but to wait also," I was perfectly aware that you might be called upon, as you have been, for a joint interference, and which there was certainly no reason to refuse; but, after the full effect, whatever it might be, of the interference of other Powers had been already obtained from the communication of the Protocol of the 3rd of November, I really deemed its repetition, thus late especially, nothing, and the result has proved it; nevertheless, I perfectly agree with you, and for your reasons, that the joint representation, if requisite at Munich, ought to have been made at the very outset. If, as you seem, though rather distantly, to hope, it shall still have the result of recalling Bavaria to the only practicable basis of negociation, it will have done much, and I shall have great pleasure in making amende honorable.

I know not why General Wacquant should allow himself to be beat upon placing in the balance of indemnity the comparison between Würsburg and Aschaffenburg and the Tyrol. The bargain was an entire one by the Treaty of Ried, and the conveyance of these exchanges a part execution of it; and without at all shaking the Treaty of Congress, the comparative value of these exchanges may fairly be urged and relied upon in endeavours to perfect the original agreement. I have reason to think that this is not only mine, but Lord Castlereagh's opinion, because, in his despatch to me, acquainting me with your instructions, he not only compares the relative value of the exchanges remaining to be effected, but those already made.

There are no other stipulations that I know of than those contained in the enclosed treaties and the Articles in the Act of Congress—the latter conveying Würzburg and Aschaffenburg to Bavaria, and the Tyrol to Austria.

It is unnecessary at this time, or till we shall be sufficiently advanced for the consideration of details, to enter into any examination of the comparative value of the Tableaux.

VOL. XI.

M

I

shall therefore only remark on this subject that, if M. de Montgelas would have looked into the heading of the Tableaux contained in the Note of the 11th instant, he would have found an answer to some of his observations therein contained. Though M. de Beauharnois has doubtless a claim, arising out of the Treaty of Fontainebleau, the proceedings at Vienna, and latterly, under the Protocol of the 21st November last, to an établissement, I know of none he can form to a sovereignty, and consequently of none which can give him a title to the relinquishment of one over 50,000 persons. The Protocol above referred to excludes, in fact, all idea of sovereignty: he cannot, therefore, transfer to Bavaria a claim to that which does not belong to him. His prospects of an établissement he may transfer, for they are his; and we, though no parties to an Act, said to have been framed by the other Powers at Vienna upon this point, are bound by the Paris Protocol to forward the object of an établissement for him, and to act as mediators in obtaining this in a negociation, with the view agreed to be commenced by the other three Powers with the Court of Naples.

Adieu! I have written enough, and am always heartily tired of a subject that does not advance.

Yours, my dear Lamb, very sincerely,

CLANCARTY.

Extract of a Despatch from Lord Castlereagh to Lord

Stewart.

Foreign Office, January 29, 1816. Your despatches of the 12th instant from Milan have been received and laid before the Prince Regent. His Royal Highness has commanded me to express to you his approbation of the judgment and discretion with which your lordship has remarked upon the views of Austria, both on the side of Turkey and of Bavaria, and also of the temperate mode in which you have endeavoured to correct erroneous alarms as to