Sir Robert Inglistrusted that the House would believe, that, opposed as he was to almost every measure of his Majesty's Government, he did not bring forward his present Motion as a party question; it was too nearly connected in his mind with considerations of religion to be so degraded. At the same time, while he would not shrink from declaring that he looked upon the situation of the Vaudois as peculiarly deserving the sympathy of this country, on account of their religion, he thought that he could satisfy 800 the House, that they had a right to claim its support on grounds entirely distinct and political. In fact, if they were Jews, Mahometans, or Heathens, their right to the interference of England would be the same; for it was founded on specific treaty.
As this was the first time for many years, he believed, that their name had been brought before the House, it was necessary to state something of their history and present condition, as the ground-work of the Motion. The people in whose behalf he now claimed the support of England, inhabited three vallies in the Alps of Piedmont; and they had been known for ages as the Protestants of that region. They are, indeed, part of that great family who, in the mountains of Dauphiné, in the Cevennes, in the Pyrenees, and in these Alpine recesses, maintained a pure faith amidst darkness and persecution. The motto of one of their chief towns (Luzern) Lux in Tenebris, is, indeed, exactly characteristic of their condition; and in a very distant age, from these vallies were sent forth those who were a light to other countries. They continued exposed to alternate violence and neglect till the year 1655, when the persecutions of the Duke of Savoy, their sovereign, threatened their total extinction. Their sufferings and their common faith excited the sympathy of all Protestant Europe. Oliver Cromwell took the lead in their behalf, and the magnificent letters of Milton, in his name, in this cause, ought to be known to every one. But the sonnet of Milton has better familiarised the sufferings of this people to every Englishman:—
Cromwell interposed strongly in their behalf; he authorised a general collection in England for their relief; he summoned every Protestant state to aid him; and said that he would send a fleet to Civita Vecchia, and his cannon should be heard in the Vatican. His policy was Protestantism, and he almost realised his own threat, that he would make the name of an Englishman as much feared as that of an ancient Roman. The result was a cessation of this persecution; and the Vaudois sunk into quiet neglect again. But after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the court of France roused the Duke of Savoy to the extirpation of his Protestant subjects. 801 Another persecution arose, almost as bloody as the last, and, for the time, more effectual. All of the Vaudois who were not massacred or imprisoned, were exiled; and there was not left one of them in their own vallies. The return of a band of them, the glorieuse rentrée, as it was called, was one of the most heroic military enterprises which an equal body of men ever accomplished; but any further allusion to it would be foreign to the present Motion. It was sufficient to say, that sympathy for their sufferings, and admiration of their gallantry, again won for this people the support of England. Up to that time the support had been founded on feeling; it was henceforth to rest on positive engagement and treaty. King William 3rd in 1690, made a treaty with Savoy, the States-General being a party to it, by which he stipulated, and the Duke of Savoy consented, that the Vaudois should be replaced and preserved in all their ancient rights, customs, and privileges, both as related to their habitation, business, and the exercise of their religion, and as to every thing else. The Ministers of King William and of the States-General were instructed and authorised to regulate the execution of this article with the Ministers of the Duke of Savoy. The noble Lord, the Paymaster of the Forces, must look with peculiar interest to this proceeding, because it was mainly the result of the zeal of Rouvigné, Lord Galway, the uncle of that illustrious woman who had conferred so much honour on the name of Russell.
- Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones
- Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold;
- E'en them, who kept thy truth so pure of old When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, Forget not.
If it were said, how would England have liked that, three years ago, the Minister of the king of Sardinia should have insisted on interfering here on behalf of the Irish Roman Catholics, the answer was easy. The sovereign of these Vaudois had, by solemn treaty with England, engaged that they should be preserved in all their civil and religious rights; and England had, consequently, the obligation of supporting them, irrespective altogether of a community of creed. The treaty of 1690 was confirmed in express terms by the Duke of Savoy, in the treaty signed in 1704 with England. The groundwork of the Motion was thus established. The Vaudois were put under the protection of England; and, if aggrieved, had a right to its interference. That interference was exercised in 1727, and formed the subject of the second part of his Motion. Mr. Hedges, the English Minister, then at Turin, wrote to his Government as follows, in reference to grievances then endured by the Vaudois:— 802 'I believe, if the Marquis d'Aix (the Sardinian minister in London) perceived an earnestness in England of having this affair remedied, it would very much facilitate it.'
'On another occasion he said (and, with all deference to the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he (Sir Robert Inglis) ventured to call his particular attention to this quotation; it was dated Turin)—'I cannot but be of opinion, that one great reason of the coldness I meet with here on those subjects, arises chiefly from the little warmth with which it is urged to the Marquis d'Aix at London; and as they are points by no means agreeable to the king of Sardinia, I do not doubt but he informs his master we have them not so much at heart as to oblige him to make many alterations in either case; for the treaties are so express with regard to the Protestants, that they cannot possibly have any thing to say in defence of their present behaviour to them.'
There was another passage, to which he begged the noble Lord's attention, as showing the way in which only the subject ought to be treated:—
'I can assure you that talking firmly to them, and that by persons of authority, and who they think are able to make good their words, is the only way of obtaining the most just and reasonable demands at this court; and nothing but great steadiness on our side, and insisting strongly on our treaties and the king of Sardinia's promises, can preserve the Protestants of the vallies from sure and certain destruction. The inveteracy against our religion is incredible, and if it be not supported with some warmth, since it is attacked with so much, it must give way to superior power.'
He now came to the third part of his Motion. In the course of the French revolution, the vallies of Piedmont were annexed to France; and the Vaudois enjoyed, with the other subjects of the French empire, a perfect equality of civil rights, and the free exercise of their religion. By the treaties of Paris in 1814 and 1815, and by the Congress of Vienna, the states of the king of Sardinia were restored to him, but they were restored on condition that none of the inhabitants should be molested in person or in property; and it might well be asked, how far the circumstances to which the Vaudois were on this restoration exposed, could be considered as other than a molestation. By a decree of a few lines, 803 the king of Sardinia revived, in 1814, all the laws which for four centuries his predecessors had enacted, including all against the Vaudois. At this day, a Vaudois could not be a physician nor an advocate; he could not purchase property out of his vallies. The Vaudois stated their grievances in two petitions to their authorities. He held these petitions in his hands. They stated, in 1814 (and the fact continued), that they could not establish schools, and could not print books of their own faith. And here it might be observed, that independently of their religious character, they might claim the sympathy and support of those who were called the liberal party of the world; because, two centuries before the establishment of a national education in Scotland, these people had in. every commune a school. They were now forbidden to introduce any system of mutual instruction in their schools; and a college opened at La Tour, only so late as March last, was in a fortnight closed by order of the government. It had been re-opened, indeed, lately, but under great restrictions. In their municipal councils, the majority must always be Roman Catholics, though the aggregate of the Roman Catholics scattered among them was not more than one-eleventh of the whole, and, in the place where they were most numerous, was only two-sevenths, and, in the principal place, was only one-fiftieth. If it were said, that all this was turning the old pro-Catholic arguments against those who now urged the cause of the Vaudois, it might be replied at once, that the rights of the Vaudois were secured to them by specific treaty, to which England was aparty; and, whether any other people ever suffered the same grievances or not, the duty of England to interfere and remedy these was clear and obvious. One of those grievances remained to be mentioned; it existed in law at least, whatever might be done in the matter. The penalty of death was enacted against such as would dissuade a Vaudois from turning Roman Catholic. Thus if a Vaudois pastor attending one of his flock in the last sickness, should find him yielding to the inducements of another to exchange his own faith for that of the Church of Rome, he would be liable to the penalty of death for an endeavour to rescue him. It was an old edict, revived in 1814: 'His Royal Highness inhibits those of the pretended reformed religion from diverting or dissuading any, whosoever he be, of the said religion, who would turn Catholic, under the same penalty of death; giving it in charge 804 particularly to the ministers of the said pretended religion, inviolably to observe the above said, upon pain of answering the same in their own persons.' Under these circumstances he had made out his case. He had claimed the protection of England in favour of this people on the ground of specific treaty. He had proved those treaties. He had proved the intervention of England in 1727, under those treaties. He desired to obtain the recognition of the same obligation on the part of the Government now, and he wished to see how, since the year 1814, that obligation had been discharged. He could not sit down without acknowledging the obligations which he felt, in common with all who took an interest in this subject, to Mr. Gilly, who having, with many other good and pious men, visited these vallies, and excited the sympathy of England in their behalf, in relation to their condition and their faith, had collected those materials, particularly in reference to the treaties, which had furnished the largest part of the authorities on which the present Motion rested. He begged to move for copies or extracts of the treaties of 1690 and 1704, so far as they related to the Vaudois, the correspondence of Mr. Hedges on the subject in 1727, and any correspondence on the same subject since 1814.
Mr. O'Connellseconded the Motion, upon the ground that, whatever might be the stipulations of treaties, it was our duty, as Christians, to interfere for the protection of those who suffered simply for the sake of religion; and he complimented the constancy of those sufferers, whose persecution was disgraceful to the nominal Christianity of those who inflicted it.
Sir George Rosemeant, in conformity to the wish of his hon. friend who made this Motion, to have seconded it, but thought it right to abstain when the hon. and learned member for Kerry rose to do that, in a manner honourable to himself; but having felt it his (Sir George Rose's) duty, when the Vaudois, in their utmost need sought the aid of England a few years since, to take a prominent part in the adoption of measures for their relief, he deemed it imperative on himself to give his aid to the present Motion. He would be very brief; their virtues, their industry, their peaceable and orderly conduct, their resignation, their loyalty, and their many excellent qualities, had excited a very strong feeling of interest in their cause; and although it was his intention to rest 805 their claim on Great Britain on political grounds, he would not dissemble the deep feelings of religious sympathy with which his heart was filled towards those sufferers under oppression. He did not mean to have adverted to the origin of religious opinions, but after what the learned member for Kerry had said, as to that of their Protestant faith, he would inform him, that, according to the results of the most recent, elaborate, and deep researches, it was made perfectly clear that there was no trace to be found of their having separated from any Church, and that they had unquestionably held their present tenets unchanged from the highest antiquity. These tenets were essentially the same as those held by the Church of England; and they had a form of liturgy. As to interference on their behalf, there was not a Member of the House more incapable of taking part in any endeavour to lead it to measures of undue intervention on the part of his Majesty's Government with that of any foreign State, with respect to its relations with its own subjects, than he was. He sought merely to ascertain whether England had any right to interfere in behalf of the Vaudois, and whether she was called upon to exercise it. Their virtues and unmerited sufferings, and a strong and national feeling of religious sympathy, had long interested the British nation in their behalf; Cromwell, even Charles 2nd, though he robbed them of their money, William 3rd and Queen Anne, all took their part against their sovereign; and the grounds of this interference were so strong—it was so natural, and so long acquiesced in, in point of fact, by Piedmont—that England might be said, in fairness, to have acquired a prescriptive right to exercise it, especially as Holland did the same; the Sardinian government, indeed, never appeared very jealous of such remonstrances, so that they might, in all probability, have been ventured upon with little risk. Prussia, also, through her envoy at Turin, exercised lately a most active intervention in behalf of the Vaudois without its having produced any inconvenience in the relations of the two governments, as far as he could learn. But still he would not argue upon this ground, but upon that of a positive compact between States alone. There were now before the public, extracts of a secret Treaty of l690 between the king of England and the Duke of Savoy, confirmed by one of the year 1704 between the two States; but they were printed in a private work, which, 806 though of unquestionable authority, was not one on which the House could proceed, as their official authenticity must be previously established. It was impossible, moreover, to judge of the effects that treaties ought to have, by mere extracts, which might not contain the most important points; and it must also be observed, that subsequent treaties, or other diplomatic acts, might modify or annul the whole or parts of any treaty, and it was, therefore, indispensable that official copies of treaties should be produced. But here it was material to state, that the secret stipulation in the Treaty of 1690, in favour of the Vaudois, confirmed by that of 1704, was bought by Great Britain, for a valuable consideration, of the Duke of Savoy. It might be said, that a difficulty arose as to their production, because that of 1690 was "secret;" but as far as it regarded the Vaudois, it was, in point of fact, the secret of the comedy which every one knew; moreover, it was scarcely possible that the stipulations of that treaty could, after such a lapse of years, affect now, in any degree, the honour or interests of either of the contracting States; but if this was not so, and there was still anything in this compact unfit to be submitted to the public eye, it would be right to let that part of it be kept from it. But, if England had by treaty a right to interfere in behalf of the Vaudois, would it be asked whether or no Great Britain was for that reason, required and called upon to exercise that right? In his opinion, the mere act of a nation, in taking the unfortunate and the oppressed under her protection, and acquiring a right, admitted by their Government, to intervene in their behalf, in all justice, as well as according to all high and honourable feeling, gave the sufferers a distinct claim to her good offices—one which could never be questioned by a high-minded people; and if such due interference was called for, and was honourable in proportion to the suffering on the part of the oppressed, and their extreme need—then, indeed, would such intervention redound eminently to the credit of Great Britain, as exercised in the behalf of this excellent and interesting people—deplorably trodden down, and vexed, and humiliated.
§ Viscount Palmerstonassured the hon. Baronet, that the Government shared fully the sentiments of interest and sympathy expressed for this class of persons by the hon. Baronet, and those who supported 807 his Motion. Neither had the Government any indisposition to exert every interference, that it could legitimately employ, for the protection of the Vaudois from ill usage or persecution. It did not appear, however, from what had been urged by the hon. Baronet, that he had established the fact of any injury being suffered by these people at present, as his statement referred only to the year 1814, and since then he had not heard that there was any reason to complain. The laws to which the hon. Baronet referred were probably obsolete. The treaties of which copies were now asked for had been secret at the time they were made, and a difficulty might have arisen in that respect; but, from the length of time which had elapsed, he should not now make any objection on that ground to their production. As to the correspondence that had taken place more than a century ago, it could not be supposed to have much application to the present day; and he presumed the hon. Baronet would not press for that. With respect to the correspondence from 1814 to 1829, that part of it which he had looked over led him to the result, that there was no oppression now practised towards the Vaudois. In that, too, which had passed between our Minister at Turin and the Government still later, it was mentioned that deputies from the Vaudois had been well received by the king of Sardinia, and that no complaint was made by them of the Government. He would, therefore, suggest, that it would be enough for the hon. Baronet to take copies or extracts of the treaties referred to, without putting the public to a great expense in printing a correspondence, the chief part of which was more than a century old, and the latter part of which, from 1814 to 1829, having reference to proceedings under a former reign, might revive unpleasant recollections. He, however, assured the hon. Baronet, that if there were any infraction of rights respecting which this country was entitled to interfere, he (Viscount Palmerston) would be ready to take such steps as might be requisite, whether for the restoration of those rights, or for the security of any privileges the Vaudois were entitled to.
Sir Robert Inglissaid, that he had been misunderstood. The noble Lord had assumed him to admit that no present grievances existed. On the contrary, though the state of the Vaudois might be improved, grievances still existed; for instance, at this moment the College of La Tour could not admit more than fifteen students, and theological 808 lectures must not be given; all the books must be submitted to the inspection of the Roman Catholic Intendant of the province; the masters must be approved by him and he was the visitor of the College. A Vaudois could not at this day purchase property out of the vallies, and could not be a physician or an advocate. As the noble Lord had recognised the general obligation of England to secure their rights to this people, and had stated his willingness to interfere, if there should be any infraction of those rights, he consented to withdraw so much of his Motion as related to former instances of interference on the part of this Government.
§ Motion, as amended, agreed to.