Note from Mr. Secretary Canning to the Count de Starhemberg, dated April 25, 1807. The Undersigned, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has laid before the King his Master the Note delivered to him by the Count de Starhemberg, Envoy Extraordinary, and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, in which his Imperial Majesty offers himself as the mediator of a general peace. The Undersigned has received the orders of the King to transmit to the Count de Starhemberg the inclosed official answer to the Note of His Imperial Majesty. Rendering the fullest justice to the motives which have actuated His Imperial Majesty, in the proposal of such a mode of negociation, as can alone, by embracing the interests of all parties, conduce to the establishment of a solid peace, and to the permanent tranquillity of Europe, the King accepts, so far as His Majesty is concerned, the offer of His Imperial Majesty's Mediation, subject only to the condition of a like acceptance of it on the part of all the other Powers who are engaged in the present war. In executing this duty, the Undersigned is happy to seize the opportunity of renewing to the Count de Starhemberg the assurance of his high consideration. GEORGE CANNING. Foreign Office, April 25, 1807. (Signed) Official Note, referred to in the foregoing. His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, has received, with a just sense of the consideration which is due to every communication from His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and of the motives by which, on this occasion, His Imperial Majesty has been actuated, the offer of his Imperial Majesty to become the mediator of a general peace. The King, who has never ceased to consider a secure and durable peace as the only object of the war in which His Majesty is engaged, and who has never refused to listen to any suggestions which appeared likely to conduce to the attainment of that object, cannot hesitate to declare his entire concurrence in the opinion expressed by the Emperor and King that peace of such a description is only to be attained through negociations which shall be common to all the Powers principally engaged in the war. To such negociations, whenever the consent of the other Powers interested in them shall be obtained, the King will willingly accede; and His Majesty will lose no time in communicating with such of those Powers as are connected with him by the bonds of amity and confidential intercourse, for the purpose of ascertaining their views; and if those views shall be favourable to His Imperial Majesty's proposal, of concerting with them the mode in which such negociations should be opened, and of agreeing upon the principles which (according to the suggestion of His Imperial Majesty, it might be expedient previously to establish as the basis and foundation of a general discussion and arrangement. With respect to the place which should be selected as the seat of the negociations, His Majesty would not object to any place which, in addition to the indispensable qualification, proposed in the note of His Imperial Majesty, of being sufficiently remote from the immediate influence of the events of the war, should have that of affording to His Majesty, in an equal degree with all the other Powers concerned, the opportunity of a prompt and uninterrupted communication with the Plenipotentiaries who should be appointed to represent His Majesty at the Congress. GEORGE CANNING. Foreign Office, April 25, 1807. Copy of a Dispatch from Mr. Secretary Canning to Mr. Adair, His Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary Minister and Plenipotentiary to the Court of Vienna, dated April 28, 1807. SIR, I herewith inclose to you for your information, the copies of two Notes which I have received from Count Starhemberg, and of the answers which, by His Majesty's command, I have returned to them. If any communications should be made to you by the Austrian Government on the subject to which these inclosures relate, you will not fail to forward them hither by the mode of conveyance which may appear to you to be the most secure and expeditious. Extract of a Dispatch from Robert Adair, Esq. to Mr. Secretary 'Canning, dated Vienna, May 20, 1807. SIR, I have the honour of acknowledging the receipt of your dispatches of 28th ult. together with their inclosures. Extract of a Dispatch from Mr. Secretary Canning to the Earl of Pembroke, dated May 15, 1807. His Majesty has accepted, unequivocally, so far as he is himself concerned, the proffered mediation of the Emperor of Austria, subject only to the condition of its being equally accepted by all the other Powers principally engaged in the war. The Note received from Count Starhemberg, and the answer, which, by His Majesty's command, I returned to it, are herewith inclosed for your Lordship's information. Extract of a Dispatch from the Earl of Pembroke to Mr. Secretary Canning, dated July 8th, 1807. SIR, I have the honour to inform you that I arrived at Vienna on the 3d instant, and that I lost no time in requesting a conference with Count Stadion, at which 1 was precluded from making any progress in the object of my mission, owing to the accounts received of an armistice having taken place between Russia and France; to which, though not official, the Count gave credit. II.-CORRESPONDENCE WITH RUSSIA. Note from General Budberg to his Excellency Lord MY LORD, (Translation.) Accept my best thanks for the promptitude with which you had the goodness to transmit to me the dispatches which I have received, together with your Excellency's letter of the 11th (23d) instant. The reports which your Lordship mentions are well founded. On the 9th (21st) instant an armistice was concluded, which was yesterday ratified by both parties. The two armies remain nearly in the same positions, and hostilities will not recommence until a month after the denunciation of the armistice. Sensible that it is of the utmost importance to you, to transmit this intelligence as speedily as possible to your Court, I lose not an instant in re-dispatching the Messenger whom your Excellency has sent to me. In respect, my Lord, to the interview which you request of me, it would give me great pleasure to comply with your wishes, if it were possible for me to foresee at what place the Emperor will stay even for a few days; but as we are still upon our journey, I must wait for the first opportunity of taking His Imperial Majesty's commands, in order to invite you to rejoin me, where I may then be. I have the honour to be, &c. Note from his Excellency Lord Granville Leveson Gower, to General Budberg, dated Memel, 16th (28th) June, 1807. GENERAL, (Translation.) I have to acknowledge the receipt of the intelligence of the armistice which was signed on the 21st of this month, and although I implicitly confide in your Excel lency's assurances, I cannot pass over in silence the prospect of a solid and permanent peace, which, from the tenor of your public letter to the Governor of Riga, your Excellency appears to believe will be the result of that measure. The reciprocal engagements between the Courts of London and St. Petersburgh, the known principles and the firmness of His Imperial Majesty, the verbal assurances of the Emperor, which I have just transmitted to the King my Master, were so many pledges, that it is not now a question (according to public rumour) to negociate for a separate peace, but for a general one; and whatever doubts I may have entertained on this subject, your Excellency's letter to General Buxhovden has completely done away. The just and enlightened manner in which your Excellency views the situation of Europe, convinces me that you could not expect a peace would be either firm or lasting, which did not include every power at war, and which was not founded upon an equitable basis. My Court will be ready to concur in negociations so formed, since it made war for the sole purpose of obtaining a secure and permanent peace. But your Excellency will nevertheless permit me to express all the regret I feel, at being still unable to make known to my Government the basis upon which it is proposed to ground negociations. At the moment when negociation is carrying on with the enemy, it is most essential that unlimited confidence should subsist between the Allied Powers. Upon this principle it is that the Court of London has ever acted, and it would be superfluous to recal to your Excellency the eagerness testified by the British Ministry last year to communicate to the Russian Ambassador the whole of the correspondence with the French Government. I wait with impatience your Excellency's summons to repair to His Majesty. Nothing can afford me greater pleasure than to repeat in person the assurances of the esteem and high consideration with which I have the honour to be, Your Excellency's, &c. (Signed) G. L. GOWER. |