§ MR. HUMEwished to know whether the rumour was correct which generally prevailed, to the effect that a messenger arrived on the 26th of March from Copenhagen, with a despatch of importance for the noble Viscount the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which despatch, it was alleged, remained unanswered and unattended to until too late to prevent the hostilities which afterwards took place? He would put this question to-morrow if the noble Lord preferred to have notice of it, but he thought the question was one that ought to be put, in order that the House might know whether any blame attached to the noble Lord or not in respect to the rumour.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONI may as well answer the question now as to-morrow. The facts are these:—After the Danish Government announced the armistice, communications took place between Her Majesty's Government and the two parties to the dispute, with a view of endeavouring to see whether it was not still possible to 458 bring about a friendly understanding, and I proposed, on the 13th of March, a protocol to these parties, in the hope that they might be brought to agree to it. On the 26th of March the Danish Minister received from his Court an amended version of this instrument, to which the Danish Government said they agreed, but they required that the consent of the German Plenipotentiary should be immediately given to that instrument in the form in which they sent it, and they also desired that it should be sent back to them before the 29th of March, in order that they might know whether they were to begin hostilities again, as they had announced, on the 2nd of April. The note of the Danish Minister, communicating this to me, was sent on the 26th of March; it was not made in the usual official way, and it was, by accident, mislaid; and it was not until Thursday the 29th of March, instead of Tuesday the 27th, that I was able to communicate the contents to the Prussian Minister, who was the representative of the central Power. But the proposal was one which it was quite out of the power of that representative to accede to, and it was perfectly immaterial with respect to the result whether the communication were made to him on the Tuesday or on the Thursday, The proposal was one which it was quite inconsistent with his instructions to accept, and therefore his answer would have been the same on one day as it would have been on the other, namely, that he could not agree to it.
Subject at an end.