§ On the Motion for reading the Order of the Day for resuming the Adjourned Debate,
1189LORD J. RUSSELLsaid, he had given notice of a question with respect to Papers connected with the recent proceedings in Buenos Ayres; it was not clear to him what was the origin of that war, nor in what manner the instructions sent out there had been executed. He wished to know whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to lay any further Papers on the Table of the House by which the relations between the Argentine Republic and this country could be more satisfactorily explained?
§ SIR R. PEELwas not prepared at present on the part of the Government, to lay any more Papers on the Table of the House. It was very difficult to ascertain what might be the local effect of producing such Papers upon the questions at issue between this country, France, and the States upon the banks of the River Plate. The communications were subject to great interruption—for instance, up to the present hour the Government had received no official account of the late action in the Parana. He only mentioned this to show how very uncertain was the position of affairs, and how doubtful might be the effect of producing further Papers on the subject.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, there was another question connected with these operations. It had been a general usage, when two countries united for the purpose of having recourse to coercive measures, for them to enter into a Convention, regulating the course to be pursued. That was the case in the interference of England and France in Portugal, in the case of Spain, and when England and France united to wrest the citadel of Antwerp from the hands of the Hutch. He wished to ask whether, in the present case, before the two countries determined to act together by force in the River Plate, any Convention was entered into, regulating the course to be pursued, and defining the objects which were to be attained?
§ SIR R. PEELsaid, the instructions which had been sent out by the French Government to the French Agent there, were in substance the same as those sent by the English Government to Mr. Mandeville, but no Convention had been entered into.