§ MR. SMYTHEwished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether a document which had been published in the public journals, and which purported to be a despatch from Count Nesselrode to Baron Brunow, was genuine in its substance, and authentic in its description?
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONA despatch to the same effect (together with another: despatch) from Count Nesselrode to Baron; Brunow, was communicated to Her Majesty's Government not many days ago by Baron Brunow.
§ MR. SMYTHEPerhaps the noble Lord would also say, as it is important and necessary to have complete information on the subject, whether he would have any objection to lay on the table of the House not only those two particular dispatches to which he refers, but any other notes that may have been addressed by those Powers to the noble Lord, and which may immediately or directly have been provoked; by the last untoward event?
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONI am preparing the communications to lay before Parliament as soon as the time for doing so shall arrive. They will be a continuation of those documents which have already appeared before Parliament. I thought it right, in submitting to Parliament these papers, to stop at the moment when instructions were given to commence reprisals. The instructions given to the Minister at Athens will be laid before Parliament at no distant period.
§ MR. E. DENISONMy noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs has said that certain papers connected with the affairs of Greece will be laid on the table of the House at the proper time. I wish to ask my noble Friend whether he means to say that a certain necessary time is requisite for the preparation of those papers, or whether there are any events now in course of proceeding which must be brought to a close before the proper time will arrive for those papers to be laid on the table of the House?
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONMy hon. Friend knows that the usual course is not to lay before Parliament papers connected with negotiations still going on and pending, as it is obvious that much inconvenience would arise from that. The present state of the matter is, that the French Government has offered its good offices with a view to the settlement of the question between England and Greece, and that negotiation I can hardly say is going on, because we have no account so late as the arrival of the French negotiator at Athens. Until that negotiation is brought to a point, ray hon. Friend and the House must feel that laying statements on the table from day to day regarding those transactions would not conduce to the in- 647 terest of the public, or give to the House any information on which it could form a distinct opinion.