Page images
PDF
EPUB

keep them. This the most virtuous of the poor have to submit to; and surely these persons could not find fault with being put on the same footing as others more virtuous than themselves. It is the custom of some of the parishes in the city, very opulent parishes, and who can afford to increase their parochial fund, if necessary, in order to save themselves trouble, to farm out their poor; and when they are farmed out in the suburbs of the city, Hoxton or Islington, for instance, it has been too often the case that the individual who farms the poor, has an interest very much to his advantage, to permit those people to go out; every day they go out in the morning, and are not at home to breakfast or din. ner, nor cost the individual any thing. There is no doubt there is an understanding between the farmers of these poor and the poor themselves: and the individual who receives six or seven, or eight shillings a week, for the board of these paupers, may give them two shillings, and let them have the week to beg in: in some instances they take lodgings out of the district where they are farmed, and come home only on certain days when they expect a muster, and that the parish officers will come and look at them.

[blocks in formation]

evil; it might deter some of them: but the advantages arising from begging are such a temptation to the idle poor, not willing to work, that they would sooner be imprisoned three months in the year, than be deterred from the practice of begging the other nine: the great evil lies in persons not inquiring. Many persons would' sooner give ten guineas than lose ten hours in inquiring into those cases. I said once to a gentleman, who had given to a charity I did not believe deserving, "How could a gentleman of your information, give to such a charity?" he said, "I had no time to think; if I see a few respectable names I put my name down."

Have you made any observations on the state of Sunday schools in your neighbourhood? -O yes; there has been a great alteration in the moral condition of Spitalfields since their establishment: the character of the poor of Spitalfields is very different from what it was thirty or forty years ago; you never hear of any attempt to riot there. I know at one time there were individuals sent up from Nottingham, with a view to effect something like what they were doing there; and that they have been more than once excited to riot during the last war; and yet that they were always very quiet: great care is taken of their mental and moral improvement. And I believe no instance is to be found where so multitudinous a poor congregate together in so small a space, with so little inconvenience to their neighbours. You have reason to think that

the instruction given in those schools, has had an effect on the poor of that district?-No doubt of it, it leads them to better habits generally speaking. The poor who have had their children educated there, benefit very much by it themselves; even although they cannot read, it teaches them to be sober and frugal.

In the year 1801-2, you were overseer of Spitalfields Parish?—

I was; and that was a time of very great distress.

You have for many years had an opportunity of observing the condition of the poor of Spitalfields?—I have, from the year 1800; I have ever since that time taken a part in parish concerns; I am treasurer of the parish, and that leads me to attend the parish meetings, and to be acquainted with the concerns of the parish.

STATE PAPERS OMITTED.

NOTE

Delivered in by Viscount Castle reaghtothe Allied Ministers, and placed upon their protocol. Paris, September 11, 1815.

ment of the world, to invade France, and twice their armies have possessed themselves of the capital of the state, in which these, the spoil of the greater part of Europe, are accumulated.

The legitimate Sovereign of EPRESENTATIONS hav- France has, as often, under the

Ring been laid before the Mi- protection of those armies, been

nisters of the Allied powers from the Pope, the Grand Duke of Tus cany, the King of the Netherlands, and other Sovereigns, claiming, through the intervention of the high Allied Powers, the restoration of the statues, pictures, and other works of art, of which their respective states have been successively and systematically stripped by the late revolutionary government of France, contrary to every principle of justice, and to the usages of modern warfare, and the same having been referred for the consideration of his court, the undersigned has received the com, mands of the Prince Regent to submit, for the consideration of his Allies, the following remarks upon this interesting subject :

It is now the second time that the powers of Europe have been compelled, in vindication of their own liberties, and for the settle

enabled to resume his throne, and to mediate for his people a peace with the Allies, to the marked indulgencies of which neither their conduct to their own monarch, nor towards other states, had given them just pretensions to aspire.

That the purest sentiments of regard for Louis XVIII, deference for his ancient and illustrious House, and respect for his misfortunes, have guided invariably the Allied Councils, has been proved beyond a question, by their having, last year, framed the Treaty of Paris expressly on the basis of preserving to France its complete integrity, and still more, after their late disappointment, by the endeavours they are again making, ultimately to combine the substantial integrity of France, with such an adequate system of temporary precaution as they may

satisfy what they owe to the security of their own subjects.

But it would be the height of weakness, as well as of injustice, and in its effects much more likely to mislead than to bring back the people of France to moral and peaceful habits, if the Allied Sovereigns, to whom the world is anxiously looking up for protection and repose, were to deny that principle of integrity in its just and liberal application to other nations, their Allies (more especially to the feeble and to the helpless), which they are about, for the second time, to concede to a nation against whom they have had occasion so long to contend in war.

Upon what principle can France, at the close of such a war, expect to sit down with the same extent of possessions which she held before the Revolution, and desire, at the same time, to retain the ornamented spoils of all other countries? Is it, that there can exist a doubt of the issue of the contest or of the power of the Allies, to effectuate what justice and policy require? If not, upon what principle deprive France of her late territorial acquisitions, and preserve to her the spoliations appertaining to those territories, which all modern conquerors have invariably respected, as inseparable from the country to which they belonged?

The Allied Sovereigns have perhaps something to atone for to Europe in consequence of the course pursued by them, when at Paris, during the last year. It is true, they never did so far make themselves parties in the criminality of this mass of plunder,

as to sanction it by any stipulation in their Treaties; such a recognition has been on their part uniformly refused; but they certainly did use their influence to repress at that moment any agitation of their claims, in the hope that France, not less subdued by their generosity than by their arms, might be disposed to preserve inviolate a peace which had been studiously framed to serve as a bond of reconciliation, between the nation and the King. They had also reason to expect, that his Majesty would be advised voluntarily to restore a considerable proportion at least of these spoils, to their lawful

owners.

But the question is a very different one now, and to pursue the same course under circumstances so essentially altered, would be, in the judgment of the Prince Regent, equally unwise towards France, and unjust towards our Allies, who have a direct interest in this question.

His Royal Highness, in stating this opinion, feels it necessary to guard against the possibility of misrepresentation.

Whilst he deems it to be the duty of the Allied Sovereigns, not only not to obstruct, but to facilitate, upon the present occasion, the return of these objects to the places from whence they were torn, it seems not less consistent with their delicacy, not to suffer the position of their armies in France, or the removal of these works from the Louvre, to become the means, either directly or indirectly, of bringing within their own dominions a single ar ticle which did not of right, as

the period of their conquest, 'belong either to their respective family collections, or to the countries over which they now actually reign.

Whatever value the Prince Regent might attach to such exquisite specimens of the fine arts, if otherwise acquired, he has no wish to become possessed of them at the expense of France, or rather of the countries to which they of right belong, more especially by following up a principle

in war which he considers as a reproach to the nation by which it has been adopted; and so far from wishing to take advantage of the occasion to purchase from the rightful owners any articles they might, from pecuniary considerations, be disposed to part with, his Royal Highness would on the contrary be disposed rather to afford the means of replacing them in those very temples and galleries, of which they were so long the ornaments.

Were it possible that his Royal Highness's sentiments towards the person and cause of Louis XVIII. could be brought into doubt, or that the position of his Most Christian Majesty would be injured in the eyes of his own people, the Prince Regent would not come to this conclusion without the most painful reluctance; but, on the contrary, his Royal Highness really believes that his Majesty will rise in the love and respect of his own subjects, in proportion as he separates himself from these remembrances of revolutionary warfare. These spoils, which impede a moral reconciliation between France and the countries she has invaded, are

not necessary to record the exploits of her armies, which, notwithstanding the cause in which they were achieved, must ever make the arms of the nation respected abroad. But whilst these objects remain at Paris, consti. tuting, as it were, the title deeds of the countries which have been given up, the sentiments of reuniting these countries again to France, will never be altogether extinct: nor will the genius of the French people ever completely associate itself with the more limited existence assigned to the nation under the Bourbons.

Neither is this opinion given with any disposition on the part of the Prince Regent to humiliate the French nation. His Royal Highness's general policy, the demeanour of his troops in France, his having seized the first moment of Buonaparte's surrender to restore to France the freedom of her commerce, and, above all, the desire he has recently evinced to preserve ultimately to France her territorial integrity, with certain modifications essential to the security of neighbouring States, are the best proofs that, consideration of justice to others, a desire to heal the wounds inflicted by the revolution, and not any illiberal sentiment towards France, have alone dictated this decision.

The whole question resolves itself into this:-Are the powers of Europe now forming in sincerity a permanent settlement with the King? And if so, upon what principles shall it be concluded? Shall it be upon the conservation or the abandonment of revolutionary spoliations?

Can the King feel his own dig

« PreviousContinue »