[Nellenburg.]

Royal Highness's Envoy to the Confederate States of Switzerland, Privy Councillor and Commander of the Order of the Lion of Zahringer; and on the part of the Swiss Confederation, M. Jean Jacques Hirzel, Councillor of the Canton of Zurich, sent for that purpose to the Court of Baden as Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary; who, having recognized each other's Full Powers, have concluded the following Convention, subject to the Ratification of their respective Governments.

Division of Estates, Tolls, and ready money Capital between Switzerland and Baden.

ART. I. Three-fourths of the value of all the Estates, Tolls, and ready money Capital, formerly belonging to the several Cantons, or to secular and spiritual Foundations, Parishes, Communities, Corporations, and Monasteries, in the Principality of Nellenburg, and included in the claims of escheat brought forward by the Imperial House of Austria; such as they were in the year 1810, transmitted to His Royal Highness the Grand Duke, shall be restored to their former possessors; and the remaining two-fifths shall form an incontrovertible portion of the Grand Ducal Domains.

ARTS. II. to VII. (See Table.)

Sale of Domain of Klingenzell to Canton of Thurgau.

ART. VIII. His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Baden, as a compromise for his Claims on the Domain of Klingenzell, in the Canton of Thurgau, will accept the sum of 6,000 florins (standard, 24 florins the marc of fine silver), which shall be paid by the Canton of Thurgau within the space of 6 weeks from the day of the Ratification of the present Convention; for which sum the above-mentioned Domain of Klingenzell, in its present state and condition, is recognized as the incontrovertible property of the Canton of Thurgau; the Records and Accounts relating to the Domain of Klingenzell being subject to the provisions. contained in Article VI.

Ratifications.

ART. IX. The present Convention shall be ratified within 6 weeks from the date of its signature; after which the Ratifications shall be mutually exchanged.

To authenticate the present Convention, it has been drawn up in Duplicate, and signed and sealed by the two Plenipotentiaries. Carlsruhe, the 24th of December, 1820.

(L.S.) J. J. HIRZEL.

(L.S.) AL. FRIEDRICH.

[Conferences of Laybach.]

No. 107.-CIRCULAR Despatch to British Missions at Foreign Courts. London, 19th January, 1821.

SIR,

Foreign Office, 19th January, 1821.

I should not have felt it necessary to have made any communication to you, in the present state of the discussions begun at Troppau (No. 105) and transferred to Laybach, had it not been for a Circular Communication, which has been addressed by the Courts of Austria, Prussia, and Russia to their several Missions, and which His Majesty's Government conceive, if not adverted to, might (however unintentionally) convey, upon the subject therein alluded to, very erroneous impressions of the past, as well as of the present, sentiments of the British Government.

It has become therefore necessary to inform you, that The King has felt Himself obliged to decline becoming a Party to the measures in question.

These measures embrace two distinct objects:-1st, The establishment of certain General Principles for the regulation of the future political conduct of the Allies in the cases therein described:-2ndly, The proposed mode of dealing, under these principles, with the existing affairs of Naples.

The system of measures proposed under the former head, if to be reciprocally acted upon, would be in direct repugnance to the fundamental Laws of this Country.-But even if this decisive objection did not exist, the British Government would nevertheless regard the principles on which these measures rest, to be such as could not be safely admitted as a system of International Law. They are of opinion that their adoption would inevitably sanction, and, in the hands of less beneficent Monarchs, might hereafter lead to, a much more frequent and extensive interference in the internal transactions of States, than they are persuaded is intended by the August Parties from whom they proceed, or can be reconcileable either with the general interest, or with the efficient authority and dignity, of independent Sovereigns. They do not regard the Alliance as entitled, under existing Treaties, to assume, in their character as Allies, any such general powers, nor do they conceive that such extraordinary powers could be assumed, in virtue of any fresh Diplomatic Transaction amongst the Allied Courts, without their either attributing to themselves a supremacy incompatible with the rights of other States, or, if to be acquired through the special accession of such States, without introducing

[Conferences of Laybach.]

a federative system in Europe, not only unwieldy and ineffectual to its object, but leading to many most serious inconveniences.

With respect to the particular case of Naples, the British Government, at the very earliest moment, did not hesitate to express their strong disapprobation of the mode and circumstances, under which that Revolution was understood to have been effected; but they, at the same time, expressly declared to the several Allied Courts, that they should not consider themselves as either called upon, or justified, to advise an interference on the part of this Country: They fully admitted, however, that other European States, and especially Austria and the Italian Powers, might feel themselves differently circumstanced; and they professed that it was not their purpose to prejudge the question as it might affect thein, or to interfere with the course which such States might think fit to adopt, with a view to their own security, provided only that they were ready to give every reasonable assurance that their views were not directed to purposes of aggrandisement subversive of the Territorial System of Europe, as established by the late Treaties.

Upon these principles the conduct of His Majesty's Government with regard to the Neapolitan Question has been, from the first moment, uniformly regulated, and copies of the successive instructions sent to the British Authorities at Naples for their guidance have been from time to time transmitted for the information of the Allied Governments.

With regard to the expectation which is expressed in the Circular above alluded to, of the assent of the Courts of London and Paris to the more general measures proposed for their adoption founded, as it is alleged, upon existing Treaties; in justification of its own consistency and good faith, the British Government, in withholding such assent, must protest against any such interpretation being put upon the Treaties in question, as is therein assumed.

They have never understood these Treaties to impose any such obligations; and they have, on various occasions, both in Parliament and in their intercourse with the Allied Governments, distinctly maintained the negative of such a proposition: That they have acted with all possible explicitness upon this subject. would at once appear from reference to the deliberations at Paris in 1815 (No. 40), previous to the conclusion of the Treaty of Alliance (No. 44)-at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 (Nos. 87 & 88); --and subsequently in certain discussions which took place in the course of the last year (Nos. 95 & 104).

[Conferences of Laybach.]

After having removed the misconception to which the passage of the Circular in question, if passed over in silence, might give countenance; and having stated in general terms, without however entering into the argument, the dissent of His Majesty's Government from the general principle upon which the Circular in question is founded, it should be clearly understood that no Government can be more prepared than the British Government is, to uphold the right of any State or States to interfere, where their own immediate security or essential interests are seriously endangered by the internal transactions of another State.-But as they regard the assumption of such right, as only to be justified by the strongest necessity, and to be limited and regulated thereby, they cannot admit that this right can receive a general and indiscriminate application to all Revolutionary Movements, without reference to their immediate bearing upon some particular State or States, or be made prospectively the basis of an Alliance.-They regard its exercise as an exception to general principles of the greatest value and importance, and as one that only properly grows out of the circumstances of the special case; but they at the same time consider that exceptions of this description never can, without the utmost danger, be so far reduced to rule, as to be incorporated into the ordinary diplomacy of States, or into the institutes of the Law of Nations.

As it appears that certain of the Ministers of the three Courts have already communicated this Circular Despatch to the Courts to which they are accredited, I leave it to your discretion to make a corresponding communication, on the part of your Government, regulating your language in conformity to the principles laid down in the present despatch. You will take care, however, in making such communication, to do justice, in the name of your Government, to the purity of intention, which has no doubt actuated these August Courts in the adoption of the course of measures which they are pursuing. The difference of sentiment which prevails between them and the Court of London on this matter, you may declare, can make no alteration whatever in the cordiality and harmony of the Alliance on any other subject, or abate their common zeal in giving the most complete effect to all their existing engagements.

I am, &c.

CASTLEREAGII.

[Conferences of Laybach.]

No. 108.-DECLARATION of the Allied Sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, on the breaking up of the Conferences of Laybach, after the Suppression of the Revolutions in the Two Sicilies and Sardinia.-Signed at Laybach, 12th May, 1821.

(Translation.*)

EUROPE knows the motives for the resolution taken by the Allied Sovereigns to stifle the Conspiracies, and to put an end to the Disturbances which threatened the existence of that General Peace, the re-establishment of which cost so many efforts and so many sacrifices.

At the very time at which their generous determination was being accomplished in the Kingdom of Naples, a rebellion, if possible, of a still more odious character, broke out in Piedmont.

Neither the ties which for so many centuries unite the Reigning House of Savoy to her People, nor the benefits of an enlightened administration under a wise Prince and under Paternal Laws, nor the unhappy perspective of the evils to which the country was about to be exposed, were able to restrain the designs of the wicked.

The plan for a general overthrow was drawn up. In that vast combination against the tranquillity of nations, the Piedmontese Conspirators had their part assigned to them. They hastened to fulfil it.

The Throne and the State have been betrayed; oaths were violated, and military honour disowned, and the forgetfulness of all duty soon brought about the scourge of all the disturbances.

Everywhere the evil presented the same character, everywhere the same spirit directed those fatal Revolutions.

Not being able to find plausible reasons to justify them, or a national support to maintain them, the authors of those disturbances seek for an apology under false doctrines, they build a still more criminal hope by criminal associations. For them the salutary empire of the Laws is a yoke to be broken. They disclaim all feelings which the love of country inspire, and putting in the place of known duties arbitrary and indefinite pretexts of

• For French version see "State Papers," vol. viii., p. 1199.