rizing the employment of Councillors of State, with the exception of those already employed.-The Repeal of this Decree, though it may not prevent a change of Ministers, effectually puts an end to the Administration which it was proposed to form. No. 36.-Sir W. à Court to Mr. Sccy. Canning.-(Rec. March 3.) Madrid, February 19, 1823. (Extract.) SIR CHARLES STUART'S Secretary arrived last night, bringing me your Despatch of the 9th instant.* He also brought me an Extract of Sir Charles Stuart's Despatch to you of the 10th instant, by which I learn, for the first time, the exact Concessions which will satisfy France, and engage her to put an end to her armaments. What use I shall be able to make of these Communications, I cannot yet foresee. The Cortes were closed this morning in the usual form, after which the Ministers tendered their resignations. P. S. The resignations are all accepted, except that of the Minister of Finance. The Heads of the several Departments are to act as Ministers till a new Administration be formed. (Extract.) No. 37.-Sir W. à Court to Mr. Secy. Canning.-(Rec. March 3.) Madrid, February 20, 1823. His Catholick Majesty has been pleased to re-appoint the same Ministers ad interim. I shall endeavour to see Monsieur de San Miguel to-morrow, in order to communicate to him your Despatch of the 9th instant; and the Propositions contained in Sir Charles Stuart's Letter of the 10th of February; but I am perfectly persuaded that all my efforts will be vain. No. 38.-Sir Charles Stuart to Mr. Secy. Canning.-(Rec. March 9.) Paris, March 6, 1823. (Extract.) I CANNOT help thinking that there is in the language of the Ministers a more pacifick colour, than I had observed within the last three weeks; for both to myself, and to all those with whom they converse, Monsieur de Villèle and Monsieur de Chateaubriand express their hopes of averting a War, with a degree of confidence which induced me to observe to the latter Minister, that the insisting upon a direct Negociation between the Duke d'Angoulême and a Spanish Prince, may be a great obstacle to success. His Excellency answered, that although this mode of settling the Question had been strongly urged, he could assure me the objects of the Negociation are too important, not to be sought for by the concession, if necessary, of this, or of any other mere Point of form; and that if the Spanish Government will empower * See No. 27, Page 54. any Negociator to treat, after a change of Ministers at Madrid, he shall be able to look forward with confidence to the continuation of Peace. I cannot, however, participate in the hopes which the French Cabinet found upon the intelligence they expect to receive from Madrid: I consider late events to be the prelude to War. No. 39.-Sir W. à Court to Mr. Secy. Canning.-(Rec. March 13.) (Extract.) Madrid, February 23, 1823. M. SAN MIGUEL called on me this morning, for the purpose of exchanging the Ratifications of the Articles respecting the Slave Trade. Having gone through that ceremony, I informed him that I had Communications of some importance to make to him, which the troubled state of the Capital for several days past, and my own continued indisposition, had prevented me from submitting to his consideration at an earlier period. Having thus drawn his attention to what I was about to say, I produced your Despatch of the 9th February, and an Extract from Sir Charles Stuart's Despatch to you of the 10th February; and proceeded to read to him those parts of each which I thought the most calculated to produce a favourable effect, accompanying my reading with such remarks as the nature of the Communication required. M. de San Miguel listened with the greatest attention; but as soon as I had concluded, observed, that the British Government was labouring under a delusion, in supposing any sort of Modification possible. It would be a much easier thing to overturn the whole Constitutional System, and to re-establish absolute Despotism, than to concede even the most insignificant of the Points which had been pointed out as the most likely to conciliate. He was fully aware that England asked no modifications on Her own account. He knew that, We wished to preserve to Spain Her Constitutional System; that our only object in trying to engage Her to yield upon certain Points, was the conviction that if a War did break out, We must be, sooner or later, involved in it ourselves. He knew very well that We should not declare in favour of Spain at first; but nobody could be so blind as not to see, that, if the War was protracted, and other Powers took part in it, England alone could not remain a passive spectator of what might be its results. No. 40-Sir W. à Court to Mr. Sccy. Canning.-(Rec. March 16.) (Extract.) Madrid, March 5, 1823. A SPANISH Gentleman at Paris has written from Paris to that the French Government has declared, that it will suspend hostilities if a General Amnesty be granted, a 'verbal promise of Modifi cations hereafter be given, a change of Ministers take place, and the King be permitted to go to the Waters of Sacedon. That the Negociation must be carried on at Paris through the Mediation of the British Ambassador; quotes Sir Charles Stuart as his authority, and refers his friends to me for further information. Now I have heard nothing from Sir Charles Stuart since the 20th ult. when he still referred me to his Despatch to you of the 10th of February, as containing the final determination of the French Government. That determination is very widely different from the arrangement alluded to by No. 41. Sir William à Court to Mr. Secretary Canning.-(Received March 18, at Night.) (Extract.) Madrid, March 9, 1823. I SAW Monsieur de San Miguel this morning, and to my great astonishment, he asked me what were the precise Conditions required by France, in case any questions should be asked him in Cortes. J repeated to him the Conditions stated in Sir Charles Stuart's Despatch of the 10th February, and those (hardly to be considered official) contained in the same Ambassador's Despatch of the 21st February ;* and, according to his request I sent him, upon my return home, an Extract from the Despatch of the 10th February. What is in agitation I know not.-He told me he should say nothing upon the subject, unless called upon by the Cortes; and that if any Negotiations were entered into, he would not be the Person to negotiate. I should only mislead you if I were to attempt to give any explanation of this singular conversation. No. 42.-Sir W. à Court to Mr. Secy. Canning.-(Rec. March 25.) (Extract.) Madrid, March 11, 1823. IN a few hurried lines, written as the last Courier was setting off, I communicated to you a singular conversation which had passed between M. de San Miguel and myself. I forebore to express any opinion upon this conversation; but whatever hopes some of his expressions were calculated to excite, are now entirely at an end. No. 43.-Mr. Secretary Canning to Sir Charles Stuart. SIR, * See No. 33, a Copy of which was received by Sir William à Court, subsequently to his Letter of the 5th March, commanded by His Majesty to address to your Excellency, for the purpose of being communicated to the French Minister, the following explanation of the Sentiments of your Government upon the present posture of Affairs between those two Kingdoms. The King has exhausted His endeavours to preserve the Peace of Europe. The Question of an interference in the internal concerns of Spain, on account of the troubles and distractions which have for some time prevailed in that Kingdom, was not one on which His Majesty could, for Himself, entertain a moment's hesitation. If His Majesty's Plenipotentiary at Verona did not decline taking part in the deliberations of the Allied Cabinets upon that Question, it was because His Majesty owed to His Allies, upon that as upon every other subject, a sincere declaration of His opinions; and because He hoped that a friendly and unreserved communication might tend to the preservation of general Peace The nature of the apprehensions which had induced The King of France to assemble an Army, within His own Frontier, upon the borders of Spain, had been indicated, in the first instance, by the designation of the "Cordon Sanitaire." The change of that designation to that of an "Army of Observation" (which took place in the month of September last) did not appear to His Majesty to imply more, than that the Defensive System originally opposed to the contagion of physical disease, would be continued against the possible inconveniences, moral or political, which might arise to France, from a Civil Contest raging in a Country, separated from the French Territory only by a Conventional Line of Demarcation. The dangers naturally incident to an unrestrained intercourse between two Countries so situated towards each other;-the dangers of political intrigue, or of occasional violation of Territory, might sufficiently justify preparations of military defence. Such was the state of things between France and Spain at the Opening of the Congress at Verona. The Propositions brought forward by the French Plenipotentiary in the Conferences of the Allied Cabinets, were founded on this state of things. Those Propositions did not relate to any Project of carrying attack into the heart of the Spanish Monarchy, but were in the nature of inquiries: 1st, what countenance France might expect to receive from the Allies, if She should find Herself under the necessity of breaking off diplomatick intercourse with the Court of Madrid? and, 2dly, what assistance, in supposed Cases of outrage to be committed, or of violence to be menaced, by Spain? These Cases were all contingent and precautionary. The Answers of the Three Continental Powers were of a correspondent character. The result of the Discussions at Verona, was a determination of His Majesty's Allies, the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the F King of Prussia:-1st. to make known to the Cabinet of Madrid, through their respective Ministers at that Court, their sentiments upon the necessity of a Change in the present System of the Spanish Government; and, in the event of an unsatisfactory Answer to that Communication, to recall their respective Ministers; and to break off all diplomatick intercourse with Spain. 2dly. To make Common Cause with France against Spain, in certain specified Cases; Cases as has been already observed, altogether contingent and precautionary.— His Majesty's Plenipotentiary declined concurring in these Measures; not only because he was unauthorized to pledge the faith of his Government to any hypothetical engagement, but because his Government had, from the month of April 1820, uniformly recommended to the Powers of the Alliance, to abstain from all interference in the Internal Affairs of Spain; and because, having been from the same period entirely unacquainted with whatever transactions might have taken place between France and Spain, his Government could not judge, on what grounds the Cabinet of the Tuileries meditated a possible discontinuance of diplomatick relations with the Court of Madrid; or on what grounds they apprehended an occurrence, apparently so improbable, as a commencement of hostilities against France by Spain. No proof was produced to His Majesty's Plenipotentiary, of the existence of any design on the part of the Spanish Government, to invade the Territory of France;-of any attempt to introduce disaffection among her Soldiery;-or of any project to undermine her Political Institutions: and so long as the struggles and disturbances of Spain should be confined within the circle of her own Territory, they could not be admitted by the British Government to afford any plea of Foreign interference. If the end of the last, and the beginning of the present Century saw all Europe combined against France, it was not on account of the internal Changes which France thought necessary for her own political and civil reformation; but because She attempted to propagate, first Her Principles, and afterwards Her Dominion, by the sword. Impossible as it was for His Majesty to be Party to the Measures concerted at Verona with respect to Spain, His Majesty's Plenipotentiary declared, that the British Government could only endeavour, through His Majesty's Minister at the Court of the Catholick King, "to allay the ferment which those Measures might occasion at Madrid, and to do all the good in His power." Up to this period no communication had taken place between His Majesty and the Court of Madrid, as to the discussions at Verona. But about the time of the arrival of His Majesty's Plenipotentiary, on his return from Verona, at Paris, Spain expressed a desire for the "friendly interposition," of His Majesty to avert the calamities of War. Spain distinctly limited this deisre to the employment of such "Good Offices," |