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oppose the Government, induced them to recommend that his Grace should address a letter to the King, stating the alarm to which the situation of affairs had given rise, and a hope that his Majesty will interfere to render the influence of the Court beneficial to the real interests of his Government.

During our deliberation, the Duke arrived, and, after telling us that the King had enjoined him directly to communicate his sentiments upon the state of public affairs whenever a proper opportunity shall offer for that purpose, he read, with some slight alterations, the accompanying letter, which had been drawn up before our meeting. The letter, having been approved in the present form, was delivered to M. de Pradel this morning; and I hope it will reach his Majesty in sufficient time to prevent the consequences which may result from the appearance of the report the Committee were expected to bring forward in the beginning of the next week.

My conversation with several persons who are aware of what is passing upon the subject of this measure leaves very strong doubts in my mind how far it is likely to succeed. The King has upon no occasion shown sufficient character to control the party, which, with the sole exception of the Duke de Berry, his own family decidedly espouse; and if his Majesty determines to maintain the Ministry in office, without giving them the necessary support, the Duke de Richelieu has no other alternative, after the report is presented, but to dissolve the Chambers, notwithstanding his dread of encouraging the party who were the former opponents of the Crown, and favouring Anti-Royalist elections.

If our efforts to support the Ministers are unavailing in this particular crisis, I am disposed to think that the return of M. de Blacas is the sole measure which can give the King that influence over the Princes necessary to control the party acting under their direction.

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Extract of a letter from Sir Thomas Maitland to Lord Bathurst, dated Corfu, March 6, 1816.

Since I closed my letter to your lordship relative to Capo d'Istria, and in which you will find one to Lord Castlereagh open, I have seen the son, Vicaro Capo d'Istria, twice, and have told him very fairly my feeling in regard to his father's conduct; when he several times repeated to me that I must not mind what his father did-that he was in the extreme of old age-and that all he did was to keep himself alive. He did not, in the first conversation, seem to wish to be employed; but in the second, I think his feelings rested more upon all the first places being already promised away, than on any disinclination for employment; and his professions were certainly strong.

Your lordship may rely upon it that, if I can with propriety, I will employ him, if it were only to show we have no disinclination to the family. But we must always look at him with a jealous eye.

Lord Castlereagh to Sir Charles Stuart.

Foreign Office, March 9, 1816. My dear Sir-I send you an official instruction for the direction of your conduct in Sir R. Wilson's case, and I have sent to press the report of the Crown lawyers in reply to your reference.

What may be the means of proof to substantiate this more serious charge yet remains to be seen; but, if the French Government have in their possession the means of affording to the world even rational evidence that the conduct of these English gentlemen is not to be traced simply to an impulse of humanity, but that it was connected with a desire to screen all the French traitors from punishment, and to a wish to see the existing order of things subverted, I can neither wonder at nor blame their giving to the accusation that character which may

let them into the whole of the case, involving, as it does, the interests of all Governments as well as that of France.

The assurances given to you by the Duke de R[ichelieu], as well as those received by me through the Marquis d'Osmond, sufficiently dispel any alarm as to the intentions of the French Government to inflict, even in the event of conviction, a capital punishment-a determination which we feel satisfied no ebullition of temper in the Ultra-Royalist party will shake; but it is nevertheless right that your Excellency should be prepared at a proper moment, if necessary, to support them in this determination.

I think it necessary in confidence to apprize you that, probably in consequence of representations from Paris, Lord Grey and Lord Grenville have had an interview with Lord Liverpool, who informed them that we had every reason to believe the intention of the French Government was not to push punishment to an extreme against the accused, but that we could not pledge that Government by such declaration. I think it extremely material to impress this on your mind, because these gentlemen may conduct themselves in such a tone of outrage to the Government and laws of France as to make it difficult for the King and his Ministers to treat them with clemency.

Whether Sir Robert Wilson and the other prisoners will or will not be made acquainted with the lenient intentions of the French Government as to punishment, or whether it is useful that they should, I profess not to be able to decide, but confident I am that they ought to be cautious not to provoke by unnecessary offence the Government of the country to whose laws they are now amenable. If I may judge from report, they have indulged in a most imprudent latitude in this respect since their first arrest.

I propose seeing the French Ambassador this forenoon, and shall request him to impress earnestly upon his Government that, whilst the British Government desires to abstain from

interference in what the French Government feels due to itself, they claim, on every principle of common interest, that blood shall not be shed in the present case, however culpable may have been the conduct of the accused.

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Lord Clancarty to Lord Castlereagh.

Frankfort sur Maine, March 10, 1816.

My dear Lord—I shall be much obliged to you to read and act upon my private letter of the 4th of March, which will go herewith, as I believe its matter will not brook delay.

The instructions contained in your despatch No. 1, of the 2nd instant, were most necessary to me; without them I certainly never should have considered your despatch to Lord Stewart of the 29th January (the only document which I can call to mind by which the Protocol is exceeded) as going the length of authorizing the support of our Government to the cession of Maine et Tauber. What were my ideas upon this subject you will find in the accompanying correspondence between Lord Stewart and me upon this point; which, though in a great measure superseded by your late instructions, yet, as containing points still en l'air, and because it is right you should be in possession of whatever has passed, or may pass, in the minds of those you employ upon the matter confided to them, notwithstanding the immense drafts upon your time by Parliament, I think it proper to send in extenso. To obviate any ill-effects from this correspondence, I have already, since the receipt of your despatch, by a safe conveyance, communicated to Charles its substance.

Be assured that my sentiments upon this subject have not been influenced by any wish "to save the negociators all trouble," but from perceiving difficulties of a nature to render perhaps impracticable that speedy and satisfactory conclusion which your despatch so strongly recommends. With Wessenberg, I have been in the habit of free concert and confidential

communication ever since my arrival at Frankfort; and he, I can assure you, is equally with me at a loss to conceive how, upon the bare cession by Baden of the circle of Maine and Tauber, without some indemnity, the matter is ever to be terminated. He, therefore, immediately upon the receipt of his instructions from Milan, wrote to Prince Metternich respecting the difficulties, and imploring him to endeavour to obtain the Emperor's consent to make any pecuniary or other sacrifices to Bavaria, rather than proceed in the course latterly adopted. For the answer to this reference we still wait.

Now, though I am aware of the spirit of party at the Austrian Court, and that as the late instructions from Milan emanated from the success of the military, so the remonstrances against these instructions may partly proceed from a desire to thwart, upon the part of the civil faction, yet the difficulties do in effect exist. They are these: neither the Russian nor the Prussian Minister here has yet received any instructions to go beyond the Protocol; nay, the latter states a precise injunction not to go further than its exact provisions; and though the Emperor of Russia's letter to the King of Bavaria, in Lamb's despatch, leads to a supposition that he may outstep the arrangement at Paris, yet is it possible that he should do so to the required extent? But suppose both these Ministers as fully instructed as I am, if Baden should continue to withhold her signature to an arrangement, and persist, as she threatens, not even to send a Minister here to discuss upon cessions without indemnity, are the territories in question to be taken possession of without her assent?-and are we to lend our sanction to such a measure? As, in my opinion, it will come to this point, I should wish to have your directions upon it. To decide this question, it may perhaps be relevant to lay before you in what precise position Baden stands, as it appears to me, both with respect to her sacrifices and with regard to her Frankfort Treaty.

It is certainly true that no State has proportionably gained

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