CHAP. IX. 1815.

BOOK XIV. the slightest difficulty on the part of the Austrian government till the treaty was ratified in the way that Murat desired; there was no suggestion of alarm, so far as the Austrian government was concerned. It was not enough, however, to say that the opinion given by Lord William Bentinck, on the 21st of March,-it was not fair to say, that it referred to transactions at the time of the ratification of the treaty. Lord William Bentinck communicated to Marsha! Bellegarde what bis opinion was how Murat had executed his part of the engagement. He evidently meant to qualify the conduct of the British government, and said, that they did not know the conduct of Murat when that authority was transmitted. On the 25th of March, long after the treaty had been ratified, and when Murat might have destroyed those unfavorable opinions which Lord William Bentinck had formed, that noble lord made use of the following language: "It is now necessary to consider the conduct of Murat. Has he fulfilled his engagements with Austria? Has be not acted rather as a friend to Bonaparte? Was it not the policy of a deserter to throw his whole force into the scale? He could expect no favor from Bonaparte: but is it not the language of all bis officers, that Italy should be united, and that he should be the head? Finally, is there any man in Italy, or any in the Austrian army south of the Po, who has any confidence in him? He is only waiting to place himself on the strongest side." Such was the opinion of Lord William Bentinck on the 25th of March. The honorable gentleman had stated, that it was the true policy of this country to resist all suspicions between Murat and the allies. At Chatillon, he consented that Murat should remain at Naples, and he hoped the honorable gentleman would feel, that throughout this transaction there was no disposition to entertain improper jealousies of the conduct of Murat. In his letter of the 3d of April, from Dijon, he endeavoured to argue down all the suspicions of Lord William Bentinck, because he felt that if we were not prepared to break with Murat, we should inspire him with more confidence. But Lord William Bentinck, who was nearer the scene of action, was better able to judge of his intensions. He (Lord C.) thought, however, that it was better to exercise an excess of confidence, than an excess of jealousy; and all his arguments were thrown into the scale in favor of Murat. The house might be assured, therefore, that there had been no failure of exertion on his part. It was towards the close of the month of March that the allies entered Paris. The noble lord arrived thither in the beginning of April, and he was not sure whether the letter of the 23d of March reached him there, or at Dijon. It made, however, a considerable impression on his mind, that the conduct of Murat had not been

such as the allies expected; but he thought that if the question_rested solely on the opinion of Lord William Bentinck, it would not form a jus tifiable cause of breaking with Murat. While be was at Paris, however, he had an opportunity of having a communication with a person, which amounted to a moral conviction that Murat had not honorably fulfilled the engagement on his part. He certainly had taken the earliest oppor unity after his arrival at London, to inform the Neapolitan agent, that the conduct of Murat appeared to him to have been inconsistent with his engagements. He stated the same thing expressly to the Duke of Campochiaro at Vienna, and told him, that on that account the question of Naples must be left free and open for the discussion of Congress. At the meeting of the Congress there were two sets of ambassadors, each appearing in the character of representatives of the King of the two Sicilies. He would agree with the honorable gentleman, that if nothing had occurred to shake the good faith of Murat in the perform. ance of his engagements, then it would have been the duty of this country to uphold the right of Murat to the kingdom of Naples. He, however, conceived his pretensions to have been completely merged, and that the whole question should be reserved for the consideration of the Congress. It was a question altogether of the utmost diffi culty to determine; and the only point that all the ministers could agree upon was, that this question should be reserved for the last point which the Congress were to determine. In point of fact, no act of Congress had taken place on this subject up to the period of Murat's aggres sion. He had always fairly stated to Prince Talleyrand, as well as the other ministers, that the British government held itself free upon this point. He thought it very probable that it was in consequence of his stating frankly and expli citly to the Neapolitan minister, that he conceiv ed the claim of Murat to be annulled by his conduct, that that minister communicated to him a very detailed memorandum, endeavouring to justify the conduct of Murat. This document did not at all shake the moral conviction in his mind of the duplicity and bad faith of Murat. Although he was himself possessed of sufficient documents to support his opinion, yet he referred this document to an officer who had commanded the advanced-guard of his army, and who had still better opportunities of judging of his conduct than he had. The officer to whom he alluded was General Nugent, who had so much distin guished himself in the present war, as well as in the last. He was a man of the highest honor and character, and of such consummate judgment in military matters, that he expected from him not merely an opinion but a detailed and reasoned opinion. He was not disappointed in his expec

tation-General Nugent had examined this document, paragraph by paragraph, and in his answer to it had made out a most complete case, not merely of military inactivity on the part of Murat, but of a most skilful management of his troops to defeat the objects which had been agreed upon by the allies, and, in one instance, to facilitate the escape of a considerable body of the enemy. He had not, however, relied merely on the opinion of General Nugent, but had also taken the opinion of Lord William Bentinck, who, being at that time near the spot, had good opportunities of judging. Lord William Bentinck had informed him, by a letter, that he conceived that the object of Murat was very clear," that he wanted to bold the balance in his own hands, to keep possession of Italy south of the Po, and then to throw his weight into the scale which appeared most likely to preponderate." Prince Talleyrand also told him, that he had the clearest proofs that long after Murat had been negociating with the allies, he was also in direct negociation with Bonaparte for the possession of Italy south of the Po. It is true that Bonaparte, not then thinking so humbly of his fortune, treated his proposal with the utmost contempt, and talked of Murat as a madman and a fool. It appeared that even in the month of February last year, the Queen of Naples was in direct communication with Bonaparte, and made proposals to him on the part of her busband. As to the merit that was claimed for his not joining the viceroy, the fact was, that he could not join him, as their pretensions were incompatible. He, in fact, claimed about half of his vice-royalty. The house would now see the cruel situation in which ministers had been placed. They had been reviled in every corner of the country for supposed breaches of faith, which the gentlemen on the other side so confidently charged them with. He trusted that he had been able to collect sufficient documents to prove to the house and the country that there had been no breach of faith on the part of the British government. He admitted that the honorable gentleman had fairly and properly, this night, said that the case was a prima facie one, and called for some answer or inquiry. He thought, however, that any man who had the least value for the honor and character of his country, or the government under which he lived, should, even if there was a prima facie case of breach of faith, suppose that the government would be able to give it an answer, and justify their conduct. Ministers, however, had been most violently attacked by other gentlemen in that house, upon some loose documents that had got into their hands, and before the time had arrived when they could go into their justification. As he had wished to get possession of what documents he could find respecting the con

have a search made in the bureau of Paris. A BOOK XIV. diligent search had been made, and very important documents had been found. He should now CHAP. IX. read to the house many extracts of the corres1815. pondence which had been found, that passed at that time between the Princess Borghese, Bonaparte, and the King and Queen of Naples. He should also read extrac's to prove the opinion of the French constituted authorities on his conduct. From the first letter, which was from the Princess Borghese to Bonaparte, dated Lucca, February 14th, he read the following extract :-"The King of Naples is in a great agitation. He is astonished that the viceroy should have retired from the banks of the Adige, and hopes that he has not forgotten the benefits he had received from your majesty. The second letter which he should read was from Bonaparte to the Queen of Naples, and was dated Nangis, the 17th of February. At the time this letter was written, Bonaparte did not despair of his fortune, and treated Murat in the stile of a master. This letter contained the following expressions ; "Your husband is a brave man in the field, but more cowardly than a woman when he has been a month from the field. He has no moral courage. He should know, that what he has he can only hold by me, and with me. When he quitted the army without orders, and ever since, he has been doing me as much mischief as he could. I may, however, yet pardon him. Recal him to a sense of his duty, and let him watch for a favorable moment to shew me that he is not as ungrateful as he has been pusillanimous" He should next read an extract from a letter from Fouche to Bonaparte, dated Lucca, February 18. This letter stated, "That the king was sick with grief: that he felt thoroughly the circumstances in which he was placed, and that the English and Austrians reproached him with too much attachment to his imperial majesty." He then read an extract of a letter from Eugene Beauharnois to Bonaparte, dated the 28th of February. This letter expressed," That the viceroy had the strongest hopes that the King of Naples would not add to the wrongs he had been guilty of towards his imperial majesty by firing at his troops." He next read an extract of a letter from the French consul at Ancona, which had no date, but was certainly written about the same time. That letter stated the substance of the conversation between him and Murat. "The King of Naples told him, that necessity alone compelled him to join the allies. The maritime strength of England was always threatening his states with inva-t sion, and his people were discontented at the stagnation of trade. He said that it was agreed that his army was never to fight against Frenchmen." The next letter which he had to read was a very curious document: it was a letter from Bona

BOOK XIV. sent to Lord Castlereagh. There shall also be communicated an original letter from a person CRAP. IX. whose testimony Lord Castlereagh will not dispute. This letter was written on the 4th of January, 1815, to Count Blacas, by Lord Wellington. We shall print it at the end of this note.

1815.

"We have a right to deduce from it the following facts, which no one can contest :-The government of the Count de Lille had committed to the English ambassador the papers which were found at its disposal, and which concerned the King of Naples; but then they had not yet falsified them, and Lord Wellington deduced the only consequences from them which the real papers could present "I return the papers which I have read: they contain no proof against Murat." Such an authority leaves us nothing further to say. Lord Wellington attests that the papers which we quote are true, because they contain none of the proofs sought for against the King of Naples, and that those which have been produced by Lord Castlereagh to parliament are false, since they strongly inculpate the King of Naples in his conduct towards the allies. No one can refuse this testimony. What then happened in the interval between the 4th of January and the 4th of March, 1815? Count Lille, who never ceased to insist, at the Congress at Vienna, that the Bourbon branch of Sicily should remount the throne of Naples, saw that the powers who had contracted treaties with the King of Naples resisted or hesitated. It was necessary to find means to overcome their scruples, and to justify the violation which was expected from them, by imputing to the King of Naples anterior violations. The cabinet of Count de Lille, in which we are certain that fabrication was studied, to serve the passions of that government by falsehoods of all kinds, composed the false correspondence in question, and which Lord Castlereagh presented to the parliament of England as the basis of the determination whence peace or war is to result. The royal falsificators did not suppose that the archives upon which they drew would become again imperial archives, that Count Blacas, in a precipitate flight, would abandon those of his master and his most secret papers, and would thus give the means of bringing into open day, not only the base intrigue which we now develope, but so many others that occupied so much time and held so great a place in a reign of a few months."

talked loudly of his intentions not to hurt Na poleon, &c. &c. But these letters in general, especially that of Clarke, tend to prove that he was in a state of actual hostility against France; and this was what he ought to have been. "Your very faithful and sincere, "WELLINGTON.

"To his excellency Count de Blacas d'Aulps"

On the 19th of May, Mr. Horner called the attention of the house of commons to what had been published by the French government; and said, that as the charge of forgery had been made in the face of Europe, it called for explanation. He, therefore, moved for the production of Lord Wellington's letter, and those of Count Blacas,

In reply, Lord Castlereagh said the papers moved for should be produced. With respect to the letter of Lord Wellington, of the 4th of January, he allowed it was perfectly correct and authentic; but then it applied to papers totally different from those which he (Lord C.) had read in that house. It was true, however, that papers on that subject were found in the archives at Paris, before the Duke of Wellington left that city; but so far as that letter went, it only proved that the Duke of Wellington was not disposed to strain any point with respect to the conduct of Murat. It was alleged that certain of the documents which he (I ord C.) had read, were either wholly fabricated or in part falsified. Now those documents amounted to eight in number, and of five out of those eight be would venture to say that not a doubt could exist in the most incredu lous mind as to their being original and authentic. The remaining three were the only ones that might by possibility be fabricated, and they were draughts or minutes of letters from Bonaparte himself. It was necessary he should state that the whole of them were transmitted officially to him by the Count de Blacas, according to the usual forms, and authenticated by that minister as being faithful and correct copies. The official letter of the Count de Blacas, which accompanied them, would, be found among the papers, when they were laid upon the table. Anxious that no misrepresentation might arise, and at the same time not wholly without apprehension that some attempt would be made to impeach the authen ticity of those documents, the Count de Blacas took the precaution of transmitting the originals to the Prince of Castelcicala, the ambassador from his majesty the King of the two Sicilies to this country, and obviously the fittest person to whom such documents could be confided. He (Lord C.) had seen and examined those originals that morning, and certainly there did not remain upon his mind the slightest doubt of their being authentic. authentic. Taking the case, therefore, upon the

five documents only, as applicable to the conduct of Murat, it would appear most satisfactorily to the house, that instead of affording an active cooperation to the allies, he had balanced between them and Bonaparte, waiting only for a fit opportunity to declare for either, as might best suit his own ambitious views. The last letter of Bonaparte, in particular, would be found to be unequivocally authentic; and, in fact, the attempt now made to represent the whole as fabrications, was only a part of that general system now openly acted upon, of fabricating proclamations for the Duke of Wellington and Prussian governors, for the sole purpose of deluding and misleading the French nation, in order to make them the blind instruments for carrying on the projects of its present ruler. After those documents had been officially communicated to him, he immediately transmitted them to the Duke of Wellington, at Vienna, and his grace's letter in reply would be laid before the house, in which he stated, that having received from him (Lord C.) the proofs of Murat's treachery during the last campaign, he had immediately submitted them to the allied sovereigns, who were completely satisfied with them, and had determined, in consequence, to commence an attack upon Murat. That individual, however, did not wait for the attack; but in perfect consistency with his whole policy, and in the hope of achieving the great objects of his ambition, he had himself begun hostilities. In short, the whole case of Murat's treachery was completely made out by the letter of the viceroy alone, the original of which he had seen; and he believed he himself knew sufficient of that person's hand-writing to pronounce upon it as authentic. With regard to the allegation that the other three letters were either fabricated or materially falsified by the Count de Blacas, before he trans

CHAP. IX.

1815.

mitted them to him, he certainly was not inclined BOOK XIV. to believe it, because, even supposing that a minister of state could be base enough to forge documents of so grave a character, and give them to the world as original, there was no sufficient motive for such a proceeding in the present case; for every thing which it was necessary to prove was completely proved by documents unequivocally authentic, and it would therefore have been a gratuitous act of immorality to fabricate papers merely to make that clearer which was already clear enough. Upon the whole, he did not think it necessary for the honorable gentleman to persevere in his motion, as the object of it would be completely complied with under a former motion to which the house had agreed. If, however, it was thought desirable to produce the letter of Lord Wellington, he should certainly feel no objection to its production, provided it could be found in the foreign office; at the same time, for all the purposes of discussion, he was ready to admit its authenticity.

Mr. Horner said, the noble lord had argued that only three out of the eight letters were pretended to be false; but certainly if he found that of eight documents, coming all from the same source, three could be proved to be forgeries, it would create a considerable doubt in his mind as to the authenticity of the remainder; and it might be regarded as a fair inference, that the other five were correct, only because their fabrication was not sufficiently made out. He was quite sure that if the noble lord himself were to be convinced that three had been so imposed upon him, he would place no confidence in the remainder. With regard to the letter of the Duke of Wellington, he was certainly desirous to have that produced; but the other part of the motion he should withdraw.

Bologna through Florence and Foligno, in order to occupy the direct road from Ancona to Naples, and thereby to turn the positions of the Neapolitan army. On the 2d of May he took a position

1815.

'BOOK XIV. in front of Tolentino, which rendered it necessary for Murat to venture a battle for the purpose of CHAP. X. securing a retreat to the Neapolitan frontier. Advancing from Macerata, with a much superior force, on the same day he attacked the positions of Bianchi, and the contest continued till the approach of night. On the following morning, the attacks were renewed with great vigor, and were resisted with equal obstinacy, till night again put an end to the combat. The arrival of Count Niepperg, at Jesi, now obliged the Neapolitans to commence a precipitate retreat in the direction of Ferino, in order to gain the road along the seacoast to Pescara. General Nugent, who had entered Rome, marched from that capital in the beginning of May, towards the Neapolitan frontier on that side, the enemy retiring before him. They were at length driven beyond the Garigliano to San Germano, to which they were followed by the Austrian advanced-guard. On the 14th, Murat arrived at San Germano, and his troops being considerably reinforced, he drove back the advanced-guard, and afterwards attacked all the Austrian out-posts. On the 15th, he began again to retire, and returning with a small escort to San Germano, he soon left that place. Nugent, resuming the offensive, advanced against the enemy, who were posted on the banks of the Melfa, which they quitted on his approach. They afterwards left San Germano to their pursuers and fell back to Mignano, where they drew up in force. In that position they were attacked and put to the rout; and thus the Neapolitan army, named that of the interior, was entirely broken up. On the 18th, a junction was formed at the Austrian camp, near Calvi, of Bianchi's army with that of Nugent, who had now no opponents in the field, the wretched remains of the Neapolitan army being reduced, chiefly by desertion, to a dispirited band of about 16,000 effective soldiers of all kinds.

Meanwhile, in consequence of arrangements made between Lord Burghesh, the English minister at Florence, and Captain Campbell, of the Tremendous man-of-war, the latter, in the beginning of May, sailed with his ship, accompanied by a frigate and a sloop-of-war, to the Bay of Naples. On his arrival he declared to the Neapolitan government, that unless the ships-ofwar were surrendered to him, he would bombard the town. Madame Murat immediately sent Prince Carrati to negociate for the surrender. The terms dictated by Captain Campbell were, that the ships of the line in the bay should be given up; that the arsenal of Naples should be delivered over, and an inventory taken of its actual state, and that these captures should be at the joint disposal of the English government and of Ferdinand IV. of Naples. The ships were then taken possession of, and were sent off to Sicily. The

war was now near to a conclusion, the final close of which is thus related by Lord Burghesh to Lord Castlereagh, in a dispatch, dated Teano, May 21:

"After the successes obtained by General Nu gent, and stated in my last dispatch, General Bianchi received, on the 18th, a message from the Duke de Gallo, requesting an interview, to communicate to him propositions he was charged with from Marshal Murat. A meeting for the next day was appointed: on the part of England, General Bianchi requested me to attend it, and in the absence of the British commanders-inchief, both by sea and land, I consented. I met therefore the Duke de Gallo with General Bian chi, on the morning of the 19th. The conversa tion which ensued with that minister led to ne other result than in having given the allies an opportunity of stating to him the grounds on which alone they would engage to arrest their military movements. Having stated that he had no authority to treat on any basis of the nature so announced to him, the Duke de Gallo returned to Naples, having received, however, an assurance, that any propositions General Carras cosa might wish to make, should, in the course of the following day, be received. The meeting with General Carrascosa took place this morning. General Niepperg, on the part of Austria, General Colletta, on that of Naples, and myself, in the absence of the British commander-in-chief, negociated the military convention. On the part of Naples, propositions were at first made totally inadmissible; on our part the abdication of Mar shal Murat was insisted upon. General Colletta wished to secure for that person a safe retreat to France; but, finding that such was totally impos sible, and having declared that he had no autho rity from Marshal Murat to treat with regard to him, the convention, such as your lordship will receive it, was agreed to. It is impossible to conclude this dispatch without calling your ship's attention to the manner in which the campaign, now terminated, has been carried on by Ge neral Bianchi. The activity with which he has pushed his operations is almost without example. The constant successes which have attended bis arms are crowned in the satisfaction of his being able to re-establish the authority of the legit mate sovereign, without those misfortunes to the country attendant on protracted military operations."

Military Convention.

lord

Art. 1. From the day in which the present military convention shall have been signed, there shall be an armistice between the allied troops and the Neapolitan troops, in all parts of the kingdom of Naples.

2. All fortified places, citadels, and forts of the kingdom of Naples, shall be given up in their