§ MR. CHISHOLM ANSTEYsaid, that he had on a former occasion put a question to the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, with respect to the negotiations that were then going on, upon the part of the Courts of Berlin and Vienna, for the admission of their non-German provinces into the German Confederation. The noble Lord then stated that he had presented a strong protest to those Courts against so manifest a violation of the Treaty of Vienna as that would be if it were carried out without the assent of the other parties to that treaty. It was stated that some reply had been made to that protest on the part of the Court of Berlin, denying the right of the other Powers concerned in the Treaty of Vienna to interfere in the matter in any way. He wished to ask the noble Lord if that statement was correct, and if it were whether he had addressed to the Courts of Vienna and Berlin such a rejoinder as would tend to keep alive the rights of the British Crown in this matter?
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON,who was indistinctly heard, said, that no formal answer had as yet been received to the representations which Her Majesty's Government had made upon the subject of those negotiations. When the Germanic Diet again met at Frankfort, the representative accredited to that Diet on the part of Her Majesty, together with the representative of France, delivered to the Diet on the part of their respective Governments a note containing a protest against such an annexation as that to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, without the consent of the other parties to the Treaty of Vienna. No answer had yet been actually received by the Government; but he was informed, by a despatch from the British Minister at Frankfort, that an answer had been given him, on the 17th of this month, and that he might expect it by the next messenger. The doctrine that this was a purely German question, and did not at all relate to other Powers, was one to which Her Majesty's Government could not assent.