§ MR. T. DUNCOMBEWill the noble Viscount at the head of the Government permit me to ask him whether, since the withdrawal of the legations of France and England from Naples, any overtures have been made by the King of Naples to the British and French Governments for the return of those embassies; and, if so, whether those overtures are likely to be acceptable to the two Governments? I ask this in consequence of the appearance in The Times of this morning of a statement, that an envoy has gone from Paris with a view of settling the differences which exist between the Neapolitan Government, and those of England and France.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONSir, no overtures, properly so called, have been received by the British and French Governments from the King of Naples since the discontinuance of diplomatic relations. An indirect intimation has, however, reached us that the Neapolitan Government was anxious to know whether, if the King of Naples were to carry into execution the convention made with the Argentine Confederation, under which the political prisoners now retained in the prisons of Naples were to be banished to the Argentine Republic, that would be considered by the two Governments as a substantial beginning of that more moderate system of government which we wished to see established at Naples. Speaking only for the British Government, we do not think that clearing the prisons of Naples by sending the prisoners into banishment in South America, with the intention, no doubt, of replenishing those prisons by means of fresh arrests, would be such a change of system as could be considered 2480 by us as accomplishing the purposes for which diplomatic relations with that country were broken off.