all his talent, is not a match for these people at their own weapons. The question is one of such indifference to our interests, and of so doubtful an advantage here, that I have declined interfering in any way.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

WILLIAM À COURT.

Mr. à Court to Lord Clancarty.

Naples, October 28, 1816.

My Lord-As I am about to send a messenger to England, with an account of our proceedings in the business of Prince Beauharnois, I have deemed it advisable to send him round by Frankfort, in order that your lordship may be fully informed of the state of the negociation here. I have left my despatches to Lord Castlereagh under flying seals, for your perusal, and I shall be obliged to your lordship not to detain my messenger any longer than may be absolutely necessary.

My last letters from Lord Castlereagh upon the subject in question led me to believe that I should, before this time, have received some information from your lordship, both with respect to the amount of the compensation, and the propriety of admitting the proposal of a re-partition. I am, however, without any information upon these subjects.

Our great difficulty arises from the double part which Prince Metternich has played from the beginning of this negociation. The Neapolitan Minister at Vienna still writes by every opportunity, to encourage his Government in its resistance to our demands; and, though I generally leave M. de Circello convinced of the necessity of yielding, I have to fight the battle over again at every succeeding conference, in consequence of the arrival of fresh letters from Prince Ruffo, exhorting this Government to persist in its refusal. As this Cabinet is entirely guided by the reports of its foreign Ministers, your lordship will readily understand how much we are embarrassed by Prince Ruffo's correspondence.

I shall be very anxious to hear from your lordship upon

these subjects. Should you have any opportunity of writing to Vienna, I shall be obliged to you to apprise Lord Stewart of the state of the negociation here. I have no safe means of conveying a letter to him.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

WILLIAM À COURT.

Mr. G. W. Chad to Lord Castlereagh.

Brussels, November 5, 1816.

My Lord-I communicated your lordship's private letter of the 9th October to M. de Nagell, who, after reading it, expressed his entire satisfaction at the explanation of the supposed delay in the transmission of the Duke de Richelieu's note by Sir Charles Stuart.

The Prince de Hatzfeld has reached this residence, as Envoy Extraordinary from the Court of Berlin. The Baron de Nagell informs me that, in his very first interview, the Prince stated to him his intention of remonstrating verbally with the King against the residence in Belgium of persons comprised in the law of amnesty, and of other obnoxious individuals.

The Baron also states that the Austrian Minister has lately communicated to him the Protocol of the 28th August last, and Lord Wellington's statement in consequence of the same. M. de Nagell, in reply, begged the Baron de Binder would not offer this Protocol to him in an official shape, as it would produce an unpleasant reply. His Excellency frequently speaks to me with considerable irritation of the proceedings of the Ministers of the four Allied Powers at Paris; ridicules the pretension he considers them as having formed of governing Europe; and declares his conviction that the tone and line of their proceedings are calculated to disgust and irritate all the minor Governments.

Much of the ill-humour I conceive to have been caused by the manner in which the Baron de Binder has of late urged the Minister for Foreign Affairs upon the propriety of introducing an Alien Bill. To statements of the expediency of

such an enactment, his Excellency replies that it would be necessary (according to the Constitution) in order to propose such a law, to assemble the States-General in double numbers —a measure which he considers as little short of a revolution.

The popularity of the Prince of Orange, although it has always been very great, seems to increase daily, and his Royal Highness neglects no means of conciliating and attaching the inhabitants of these provinces.

I have the honour to be, &c., G. W. CHAD.

The Hon. F. Lamb to Lord Castlereagh.

Munich, November 5, 1816.

My dear Lord-Having a secure opportunity of writing to your lordship, I send you some details about the occurrences of the last week, not because I regard them as important, but lest you should hear of them from other quarters, and be surprised I should not have noticed them.

Prince Wrede, who has never before been in the habit of receiving at Munich, has kept a sort of open house ever since the arrival of the Ambassador; while Montgelas, who was in the constant habit of giving entertainments, has not found a single opportunity of inviting the Ambassador or his suite, and has passed the whole time of his residence here in a state of ill-humour and dissatisfaction, which has been evident to everybody.

These are the facts: they excite much remark, and a great number of persons explain them by supposing that M. de Montgelas has always been hostile to the marriage; and that he takes no pains to conceal the dissatisfaction which he experiences at its success. I have some reasons for not par

1 The marriage here mentioned was that of the Emperor of Austria with Caroline Augusta, daughter of the King of Bavaria, who had been separated in 1814 from the present King of Wirtemberg. Prince Schwarzenberg was sent to Munich to negociate this alliance, and the marriage took place on the 29th of October, 1816.-EDITOR.

taking this opinion. The first is the appearance of sincere joy which he wore from the first annunciation of the marriage up to the arrival of the Ambassador-an appearance which, had it been assumed, he would hardly have laid aside at the moment when it became most his interest to continue it. The second is the information I have received from M. de Schulz, [?] the Austrian Chargé d'Affaires, through whom the first suggestion of the marriage was conveyed to the Emperor, who has continued to be the active agent in the affair, who has seen all the correspondence, and who has uniformly told me that M. de Montgelas had done everything in his power to forward it.

The motives of his discontent are, I believe, to be found in much smaller causes. Several of the nominations which he had proposed to the King for the occasion were refused by his Majesty, and other persons substituted in their place: besides this, he is supposed to have applied for a sum of money, for the purpose of giving a féte, and to have been refused: thirdly, he expected that the Ambassador would have paid him the first visit, in which he was disappointed; the Prince Schwarzenberg claiming, on the contrary, to receive it. This must have been a great source of discontent to M. de Montgelas, whose constant object it is to raise his situation, and who is accustomed to have everybody at his feet.

The King interfered to adjust this difficulty, and engaged his Minister to go to the Ambassador's first dinner, in order to avoid any appearance of dissension; but to a man of M. de Montgelas' extreme vanity, the wound must have been deep. In the middle of these causes of ill-humour, he found that his house was abandoned even by those persons who used habitually to meet there, and who naturally fell off to the balls of M. de Wrede, where the Austrian Ambassador and the whole town were assembled. Montgelas was forced either to go there himself, or to have the air of forming a sort of pettish party against the Marshal, and was thus reduced to be the second

person, where it had depended only on himself to be the first.

Under these circumstances, the extremely susceptible vanity of Montgelas sufficiently explains to me the ill-humour which he has shown: the only thing unexplained is, his not having, in the first instance, determined upon opening his house; and this I attribute partly to an unwillingness to expend money; greatly to his extreme indolence, and aversion to break through his habits of ease and inaction; and greatly, also, to his fear of taking such a step without the consent of Madame de Montgelas, who was daily expected from Switzerland, where she had been pretending to be ill, in order to avoid coming to Munich for the occasion of the marriage. The extent of his subjection to her, in all his private concerns, renders this last supposition as probable as it must appear extraordinary.

The result of the conduct of M. de Montgelas has been to create great dissatisfaction in the Austrian embassy, and it can hardly fail to do him harm at Vienna, where he is regarded, with justice, as a revolutionary Minister. He appears to feel this, as his intended journey thither is already spoken of as doubtful. If he abandons it, and leaves the King there alone, with the Prince Wrede, he certainly furnishes a great advantage against himself, and which might be fatal to his authority, if Wrede had either the talents or the party in the country which could enable him to profit by his position. The friends of Montgelas wish to persuade him to go to Vienna, but if he considers his reception as at all uncertain, it is probable his extreme idleness, which may now be considered as the leading feature in his character, will very probably induce him to decline the journey.

I have no doubt that he regrets the destruction of the power of France, and is the firm friend of the adherents of Napoleon. I know several who have found protection in Bavaria, and am told that the number is greater than I am aware of. He dislikes the present Government of France, and uniformly wishes