Liverpool shook his head.] I shall be happy to hear the noble earl's explanation on this point. Let it be observed also, my lords, that by the Treaty of the 25th of March, the Allied Powers bind themselves "to maintain the order of things so happily established, by which the rights, the liberty, and the independence of the nations of Europe have been recently secured;" so that by your vote on the 7th of April, you virtually confirmed all the arrangements of Congress, including those by which "the liberty and independence" of Genoa and Saxony were destroyed. welcomed all the evils which could have resulted from both. I will now trespass upon your lordships attention by a few, and only a few remarks on the nature of the Treaty. In the first article of that Treaty, the contracting par ties engage, in the spirit of the Declaration of the 13th of March last, to direct, in common and with one accord, should the case require it, all their efforts against Napoleon Buonaparté, and against all those who should already have joined his faction, or shall hereafter join it." As this article of the Treaty pledges the contracting parties to conduct the war in the spirit of the Declaration of the 13th of March," it becomes necessary to refer to that Declaration; and by so doing, your lordships will find that in that document, the four Allied Powers declare," that Napoleon Buonaparté has deprived himself of the protection of the law, and has placed himself without the pale of civil and social relations; and that, as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance." By the Treaty itself, this ban is extended to Buonaparte's adherents, -to his faction. My lords, how is this to be understood? The present Ruler of France evidently re-entered that country with the concurrence of a great portion of the population, and of the whole of the soldiery. Most of the different political parties of France espouse his cause, and particularly the Constitutional party, the individual at the head of whom, I mean M. Constant, is at present in Buonaparte's councils. Are all these persons included in the proscription of the Treaty? By the London prints of this day, we find that the French people are soon to be called upon to pronounce upon a constitution which has been drawn up for them, a principal article of which establishes on the throne of France the person who now sits there. Suppose the majority of the French people should accept this constitution, and thereby confirm the assumption of that throne by Napoleon Buonaparté-are they to be held as "deprived of the protection of the law, placed without the pale of civil and social relations, and rendered liable to public vengeance," according to the dreadful words of the Declaration of the Allies? By the Declaration also, in the spirit of which the Treaty professes to proceed, the Allied Powers pledge themselves to the maintenance of Louis the 18th on the throne of France. [Lord My lords, in referring to those proceed. ings, it is impossible not to be reminded of the saying ascribed to a great French statesman (prince Talleyrand), who is reported to have told the Congress, that while they warred against the person of Buonaparte, they adopted his principles." But there is another point on which I wish for explanation from the noble earl. In the event of the overthrow of the Government of the individual now possessed of the supreme authority in France, is it meant to proceed further? Should the French place Lucien Buonaparté, or Ney, or Massena, or Carnot, at the head of affairs, are we to consider our work as concluded? The article of the Treaty, as it now stands, adverts only to the destruction of the Government of Buonaparté. For my own part, my lords, I have distinctly stated to your lordships, on a former occasion, that I thought there were points in the character of the present Ruler of France which would naturally precipitate him into measures self-destructive and destructive of the existing political system of France; and I cannot, therefore, but be of opinion, that his removal from power, under the present circumstances, would increase rather than diminish the danger to be apprehended from that system, This is a topic which requires explanation. As the whole Treaty now stands, it is the most incomprehensible production ever submitted to the judgment of man. And here, my lords, I must request your attention to the Memorandum from the Foreign Office, appended to the substance of the Treaty as laid on your lordships table. That Memorandum announces the directions of his royal highness the Prince Regent to ratify the Treaty under a certain explanatory Declaration, namely," that the 8th article of the said Treaty, wherein his Most Christian Majesty is invited to accede, under certain stipulations, is to be understood as binding the Contracting Parties, upon principles of mutual security, to a common effort against the power of Napoleon Buonaparté, in pursuance of the 3d article of the said Treaty; but it is not to be understood as binding his Britannic Majesty to prosecute the war with a view of imposing upon France any particular government. That, however solicitous the Prince Regent must be to see his Most Christian Majesty restored to the throne, and however anxious he is to contribute, in conjunction with his Allies, to so auspicious an event, he nevertheless deems himself called upon to make this declaration, on the exchange of the ratifications, as well in consideration of what is due to his Most Christian Majesty's interests in France, as in conformity to the principles upon which the British Government has invariably regulated its conduct." Why, my lords, can any thing be so contradictory and inconsistent as all this? In the first place you, in the Treaty, threaten the supporters of the existing Government in France with vengeance; and then, in this Declaration, you attempt to impress France with an opinion of your moderation, by professing your disinclination to impose any particular government upon her! "In consideration of what is due to his Most Christian Majesty's interests!" Nothing can be more injurious to those interests than this most impolitic Declaration. Nothing can tend so effectually to annihilate the hopes of the Bourbons in France, and to arm with tenfold power the individual whom we wish to destroy. My lords, these are, as shortly as I have been able to state them, the reasons which induce me to postpone my motion, which stood for to-morrow. I request the noble earl, either at present, or soon, to answer the inquiries which I have made. I wish him first to tell us, why he withheld from us the knowledge of the Treaty of Vienna, at the time when he called upon us to vote the Address of the 7th of April, and what are the different circumstances under which he has consented to its production. I wish him next to explain, what is the object of the war as resulting from the Treaty of Vienna. Is it the expulsion of Buonaparté exclusively? Is it the expulsion and punishment of Buonaparté and all those who have adhered and may adhere to him? I wish him lastly to inform us, whether there is any reason to hope that the circumstance of the return of this person to supreme authority in France, and the consequences (VOL. XXX. which may naturally be expected from that event, may lead to a re-consideration by the Allied Powers of the objectionable parts of their previous arrangements in the Congress; and thus to present to Buonaparté a front the most dreadful to such an individual-contented Europe-united Europe.-The present situation of Italy-of Saxony, ought irresistibly to urge to such a revision. At this moment the king of Prussia is compelled to suppress by military force an insurrection at Dresden favourable to Buonaparte. I ask the noble earl if there are no hopes that the order of things to which such an occurrence is at tributable, may not yet be ameliorated?— My lords, I move to discharge the order for to-morrow, intending to bring the question forward some day next week, should the information which may render it unnecessary not be afforded. The Earl of Liverpool said :-With respect, my lords, to the first topic adverted to in the noble marquis's speech, his intended motion on the subject of Saxony, all that I can say is, that it is for the noble marquis to determine for himself, as to the period at which he may think it convenient to bring it forward. It is one of those questions on which his Majesty's Government feel it to be their duty not to communicate information to Parliament at the present period, incomplete as are the transactions in which it was comprehended, and no treaty having been concluded with relation to it. Whenever the noble marquis may choose to make his motion, I am prepared to defend the conduct of his Majesty's Government, on the grounds which are already before the public. I wish, however, my lords, to reply to some of the subsequent statements and questions of the noble marquis. The noble marquis accuses me of not having produced the Treaty of Vienna, when I moved the Address on the 7th of April. Now, what was the extent of that Address? To vote the increase of our land and sea forces, and the expediency of acting in concert with our Allies. I distinctly declared on that occasion, that I wished carefully to abstain from touching on the policy of war or peace. Your lordships, however you might entertain different opinions with respect to ulterior proceedings, were unanimous in your approbation of that armament, and that concert, which war or peace alike demanded. To that the House and the country are pledged, and not an iota beyond. At the period of the dis(3 L) cussion of the Address, the Treaty in question could not with propriety be laid before Parliament, being an unratified document. But, my lords, besides this general reason, there were special reasons which, as I stated to your lordships the other evening, rendered it an imperative duty on the part of his Majesty's Government, not, on the 7th of April, to communicate to Parliament their knowledge of the Treaty. As was said both by myself and by a noble friend of mine, in the debate on the Address, the question is an European question, and not a British one; and it is therefore indispensable that in every step which we may take respecting it, we should steadily contemplate the disposition and objects of the Allied Powers generally. We were bound to acquiesce in the general determination. If by the whole of the Allied Powers war were considered expedient,or peace deemed practicable, on whichever side of the alternative the general opinion prevailed, to that we must prepare ourselves to conform. The great reason, my lords, which induced his Majesty's ministers to withhold from Parliament on the 7th of April, their knowledge of the Treaty of Vienna, was, that we felt that the circumstances which existed when the Treaty was signed, were very different from the existing circumstances when it was received in this country. I by no means say, that that change of circumstances was such as to induce us to think that it would actually lead to a change of policy on the part of the Allies: but still we felt that it might do so. At the time of the conclusion of the Treaty, it was scarcely known at Vienna that Buonaparté had reached Paris. The Allied Powers believed, at that time, that the King of France was still in that country, that he had an apparent party in his favour, and that he had expressed his determination not to quit France while he was able to maintain himself there. Under these circumstances, I put it to your lord-existing engagements; and their only im ships-I put it to the noble marquis him- port in the Treaty is that of hostility self, whether it would have been fair to against the parties, such as that maintained the Allied Powers to publish their un- by one belligerent against another. The ratified Treaty, contemplating as we did noble marquis asserted, that the Treaty the possibility, although not the proba- pledged the Allied Powers to the restorability, of a change being effected in their tion of Louis the 18th. It conveys no policy by the change of circumstances; such meaning. One of the principal inand in that event entitling them to say to accuracies in the copy of the Treaty pubus, "Affairs have completely altered since lished in the London newspapers, was the we sent our Treaty to you for your appro- passage which related to the re-establishbation. You ought to have been aware of ment of the Bourbons. My lords, it never this, and to have given us an opportunity was in the contemplation of his Majesty's of re-considering our decision; instead of Government-it never was in the contem which you have placed us in an inconvenient dilemma by the publication of the Treaty, and you have done this without any necessity on your part for taking so premature a step." It was on these grounds, my lords, that we did not lay the Treaty before Parliament; and when the noble marquis asks me, why I have now consented to its production, I will tell him, that it is only the substance of the Treaty which, in compliance with the motion of a noble earl, has been produced; and that his Majesty's ministers consented to its production because it had been published in the Berlin and Vienna Gazettesbecause a copy, materially incorrect, had found its way into the London newspapers, and because his Majesty's Government knew the subsequent opinion of the Allied Powers on the subject. My lords, it is not my intention to go into any discussion, at the present moment, on the merits of this Treaty. When the subject shall be hereafter under your lordships consideration, I pledge myself to sustain itsexpediency; but it is necessary for me to say a few words in reply to the noble marquis's questions. The noble marquis, in commenting on th first article of the Treaty, contended that, as it referred to the Declaration of the 13th of March, it proclaimed not only Napoleon Buonaparté as "out of the protection of the law," but all those persons who had joined, or who might join him. My lords, I know how difficult it is so to word any public instrument as to preclude the possibility of cavil. But I am prepared distinctly and unequivocally to state on the part of the British Government and of our Allies, that they never considered the words used in the Treaty to be liable to the interpretation put upon them by the noble marquis. Those words only applied to the manner and to the circumstances of the invasion of France by Buonaparté, in violation of plation of the Allied Powers-to consider the passage in the Treaty alluded to by the noble marquis as involving a necessary obligation on them to maintain war on that ground. The noble marquis certainly has characterised the Declaration of his royal highness the Prince Regent, appended to the Memorandum from the Foreign Office, laid on your lordships table with the substance of the Treaty, as inconsistent with the Treaty itself. I confess, my lords, I was never more astonished in my life than at the arguments built by the noble marquis on this declaration. Never, in my humble opinion, were words chosen so completely to express the sentiments entertained in common with myself during the whole of the late war by the noble marquis, and by a noble baron (lord Grenville) not now in his place. The whole of the case, as it stands at present, may be resolved into three propositions :-first, that we consider the present Government of France as an evil that must be got rid of; secondly, that we deem it highly desirable to restore the legitimate monarchy of France, and will contribute our efforts to that restoration; and thirdly, that we do not, however, consider that restoration as a sine quâ non, and disclaim any intention of imposing a government on the French people. If therefore, my lords, we go into France, we go to destroy the pernicious Government that exists, but by no means to impose any government in its stead. The noble marquis asks, in the event of the destruction of Buonaparte's government, whether we shall think our work completed? I reply, that we have already declared our wishes under these circumstances; but as it is impossible to foresee what may happen, his Majesty's Government will not fetter their determinations by pledging themselves to any particular course of conduct. The question with respect to the future, must be left open to be decided by the occurrences of the future. The Declaration of his royal highness the Prince Regent, I confess, I should have thought was in strict conformity to the sentiments of the noble marquis; I know that it is in conformity to the sentiments of our Allies; and I believe it to be in conformity to the sentiments of the illustrious monarch to whom it chiefly refers. This Declaration, my lords, was founded on the third and on the eighth articles of the Treaty. In the third article, the contracting parties reciprocally engage not to lay down their arms but by common consent; in the eighth article, Louis the 18th is especially invited to accede to the Treaty. Now his Majesty's Government thought that if no explanation attended the ratification of the Treaty by Great Britain, we might be placed in this dilemma-that although we were not bound by the Treaty to carry on the war until the restoration of Louis the 18th, we should not be able to make peace without his consent. We knew that this was a mere inadvertence on the part of the Allies, but we thought it but fair and candid towards them, to accompany the ratification of Great Britain with a declaration explanatory of our understanding of that which might otherwise be misapprehended. Earl Grey said:-My lords, I will not follow all the arguments advanced by the noble earl, in reply to the observations of my noble friend. All I wish to state is, that when I voted for the Address of the 7th of April, in assurance and on the admission of the noble earl, that that vote would not pledge Parliament to war, I did it also on the further persuasion, that at that moment his Majesty's ministers had taken no step by which the country was actually committed on the subject. If, at that time, I had understood from his Majesty's ministers that their policy was conducted on offensive, and not on defensive views, I should have felt it incumbent on me not to object to the Address (for under the existing circumstances, the measures of preparation to which the Address pledged Parliament, were indispensable), but to offer to your lordships an amendment, distinctly marking my sense of the question before us. Whether or not it was consistent with the noble earl's duty to communicate to this House at the time the Address was proposed, so much of the Treaty of Vienna as would have given us an insight of the policy of the Allied Powers, I will not take upon me to determine; but I repeat, that my intentions in voting for the Ad dress were to enable his Majesty's ministers to adopt measures of preparation in a very different spirit from that by which I now find they were animated. With regard to the exposition of the Treaty which we have just heard from the noble earl, all I can say is, that I think the communication of the Treaty itself ought to have been accompanied by a Message from the Throne, comprehending the reasons which had induced his royal high ness the Prince Regent to agree to it; and | for that purpose. It not only raises the that we should not have been exposed to sword of public vengeance against his the inconvenience of endeavouring to col- life, but it arms the assassin for the same lect the object of that acquiescence. I object. Certainly this, which is the only agree, my lords, with the noble earl, that natural, is the most atrocious construction this is not a fit opportunity to discuss the of the passage in the Declaration of the merits of the Treaty. No notice was Allies, and I am heartily glad to hear it given, and no expectation was entertained disclaimed by the noble earl. But, surely, of such a discussion; and I should be my lords, something more than a speech more particularly reluctant to enter into in this House is demanded, in order to it in the absence of a noble friend of mine explain the matter to the country, to our (lord Grenville), whose absence is, I have friends, and I will add, even to the enemy. no doubt, occasioned by his not antici- It is, however, a consolation to hear the pating that your lordships would this noble earl's solitary voice proclaim that evening engage in the examination of the Declaration is not held to bear the any great public question. Nevertheless, construction to which it seems liable, and there have been one or two observations to find that the parties to this shameful made by the noble earl, which I cannot instrument blush at their own conduct, and allow to pass without remark. The noble hasten to disavow it. There was one part earl says, that the Treaty does not pledge of the noble earl's speech which, I conus or our Allies to prosecute the war on fess, I heard with considerable alarm. the principle of the Declaration of the The noble earl asserted that the principle 13th of March. I wish, my lords, that which the explanatory Declaration of his this explanation rested on something more royal highness the Prince Regent actually than on the passing words of the noble involved was one which he had maintained earl in this House. I regret that it was for many years, in common with my not attached to the Declaration with which noble friend near me (marquis Wellesley), his royal highness the Prince Regent has and a noble friend of mine who is not in accompanied his directions for the ratifi- his place (lord Grenville)-I mean the cation of the Treaty. The noble earl de- principle of putting an end to the existing clares, that now that Buonaparté is on Government of France. Three proposithe throne of France, and that the King tions were stated by the noble earl, as of France is expelled, the general senti- those which were comprehended in that ment of the country appearing to be ad- Declaration; the first that the sine quâ non verse to him, it was not intended to pro- of peace was the destruction of the existsecute the war against the French Ruler, ing Government of France; the second, in any other spirit than that of ordinary that it was desirable to restore what he hostility against an enemy. The Treaty, called the legitimate monarchy of that however, binds his Majesty's Government country; the third, that the restoration of and the Allies to prosecute the war in the that monarchy would, however, by no spirit of the Declaration of the 13th of means be considered as a sine quâ non. And March, and to direct in common and with first, my lords, with respect to the principle one accord, should the case require it, all on which we are to go to war, that of the their efforts against him and against all destruction of the existing Government of those who should have already joined his France, I maintain that the noble lord's faction, or shall hereafter join it. Now, assertion, that during the late war it was my lords, what is the spirit of the Decla- for many years avowed and acted upon, ration of the 13th of March? That Decla- is unfounded. Avowed I know it was ration states, "that Napoleon Buonaparté not, and if acted upon, then were Parliahad destroyed the only legal title on ment and the public most scandalously which his existence depended," that (in deceived on the subject. I recollect, mya phrase of an almost incomprehensible self, before I had the honour to sit among nature)" he had placed himself without your lordships, making a motion in the the pale of civil and social relations, and other House of Parliament to bring this that as an enemy and a disturber of the question to an issue, by a declaration that tranquillity of the world, he had rendered the nature of the existing Government of himself liable to public vengeance." Why, France did not preclude a negociation for my lords, this can point only to the per- peace. Was my motion negatived? No, sonal extermination of the man. It susmy lords. Mr. Pitt would not venture pends all the rules of ordinary warfare to meet it in that way. He would not. |
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