Lords Sitting of 11 April 1848

MINUTES.
Took the Oaths.—Archibald Acheson, Esq.(commonly called Viscount Acheson), having been created Baron Acheson.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Removal of Aliens; Bankruptcy Court Regulation.
2a Mutiny; Marine Mutiny.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Cheltenham, against the Election Recognisances Bill.—From the Members of several Lodges of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Manchester Unity, for the Extension of the Provisions of the Benefit Societies Act to that Order.

ALIENS REMOVAL BILL.
The DUKE of BEAUFORT said, he wished to call their Lordships' attention to the circumstance of the great number of foreigners that were to be seen at present filling the streets of London, and among whom it had been ascertained were several who were known to be the worst characters of France. He was the last person who would object to this country affording a refuge to foreigners driven from their own country by misfortune; but he thought it was a very different matter when persons came to this country, as many now did, with the object of trying to raise sedition and disturbance. He wished, therefore, to know from Her Majesty's Government whether, since the repeal of the Alien Act, there were any provisions in force in this
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country which would enable the Government to interfere with this class of persons; and if not, whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to ask Parliament for new powers to effect that object? There was another point also on which he wished for information. It was in reference to the body which called itself the National Convention. That assembly, he was aware, had not been recognised by the Government, but still it was well known to be in existence; and now that there was this fraternisation with foreigners going on, it appeared to him that the existence of that society ought to be taken into consideration, and he would wish to know, therefore, if Her Majesty's Government had any intention of taking measures to put it down?
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE: My Lords, with regard to the subject last mooted by the noble Duke, I do not propose to state what are the intentions of Her Majesty's Government in reference to that society; but with respect to the point to which he first alluded, I am anxious to give an answer which I trust will be considered satisfactory, not only by the noble Duke, but by your Lordships' House generally—I mean the circumstances connected with the presence of large numbers of aliens in this country. In reply to the first question of the noble Duke, I may state that there are no provisions now on the Statute-book by means of which the conduct of aliens can be controlled in this country, otherwise than in accordance with the general laws which exist regarding the personal liberty of Her Majesty's subjects. But in answer to the very natural question put by the noble Duke, whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Ministers to propose any measure providing a remedy for such a state of things, I have to state that I now hold in my hand a Bill on this very subject, which I intend to lay on the table of your Lordships' House to-night, and by which ample powers are given to the Government to proceed at once to eject foreigners whose objects in this country do not warrant their remaining here. Although it is not necessary for me, according to the forms of your Lordships' House, to preface any application I may make for laying such a Bill on the table with any observations whatever, yet, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, and with a view to the expediency of passing the Bill into law with as little delay as possible, I trust that your Lordships will

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allow me on this occasion, in moving the first reading of the Bill, to make a few observations on the object of it. I am myself the last person who would wish that there should remain in force any permanent law in this country prohibiting either the arrival or the residence of aliens among us, other than the usual laws of the country with respect to all her Majesty's subjects; and under this feeling I have myself, in conjunction with other noble Lords, taken a part in procuring in one instance a modification, and in the other a repeal of the laws which had existed on this subject. But I must say that I am of opinion, that desirable as it is that this country should on all occasions afford hospitality and a refuge to all those aliens, whether they be monarchical, constitutional, or republican, who are ready to obey the laws of the country. that they are about to enter, and to adopt the part of obedient subjects during the residence that they obtain there under the favour of the law; yet I cannot conceal from myself, when I see the causes that are now in operation, and when I am aware of the increased number of foreigners that, under the most peculiar circumstances, have recently visited this country, and, in short, when I know that these foreigners come under various influences, and those not the accustomed influences of pleasure or business, but influences of a totally different description that I shall not at present more particularly allude to—I say, my Lords, that seeing these things, I cannot but think, and I trust your Lordships will think with me, that the Government of the country ought to have vested in them a power, to be used on their responsibility and for a limited time, in certain cases, to compel the departure of these persons. I am authorised to state that this is the opinion of Her Majesty's Ministers generally, but also that it is above all the opinion of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; and, my Lords, when I hear it proclaimed loudly, and generally, and avowedly, that there are numbers of those foreigners who are prepared to take a part in the internal dissensions of this country—if there be such dissensions —and, above all, when I hear it clearly proclaimed by a person who is deeply guilty of misleading his fellow-subjects in that respect—when that person has publicly stated, that there are 40,000 or 50,000 persons, not only prepared, but desirous, to seize an opportunity of taking part in overturning the Government of this
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country, and in dismembering the parts of which the empire consists—when I hear this, and when I know that there are crowds of persons resorting to this country, whose motives cannot at this moment be ascertained, I say that it is the duty of the Government, and of Parliament, to stand armed in this respect, as in every other, against such contingencies as may arise. I will not go farther at present than to state the circumstances under which I lay the Bill on the table; and if your Lordships consent to read it a first time to-day, I shall propose to read it a second time on Thursday; and, if it be your Lordships' pleasure to do so, I would wish to have it pass through this House with as little delay as possible.
LORD BROUGHAM said, that he only rose for the purpose of making a single observation. He wished merely to remark, with regard to the assertion that there were 50,000 Frenchman ready to assist in an outbreak in this country, that he believed it to be without the shadow of a foundation.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE said, that he had given no opinion as to the truth of the assertion, but he had merely mentioned it as an announcement that had been made.
The EARL of MALMESBURY said, that he was sure that there was not a person in that House who did not agree with him in feeling most grateful to Her Majesty's Government for the prompt and judicious step that they had taken on this subject. As an instance that such a measure was not uncalled for, he would beg to read a passage from a speech made by a person named Harney within the last few days. [The noble Lord read the passage, which alluded to the willingness expressed by foreigners to assist in any struggle that might be considered necessary in this country.] At the same time it was right to state that there was a large number of foreigners of the most respectable class, among whom he might mention such names as Prince Louis Buonaparte and M. Gaudin, who had offered their services to the authorities to be swown in as special constables.
Bill read 1a.

AFFAIRS OF ITALY.
LORD BROUGHAM*: I rise to move for copies of any correspondence between
*From a pamphlet published by Ridgway.

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Her Majesty's Government and the Court of Turin relative to the late process in Lombardy; and I confess that I look with a deep concern to all that has lately passed, not only in the north of Italy—but when I cast my eye over the south of Europe at large, and yet more when I survey the north of Europe, and regard the late changes in its ancient polity, the prospect strikes me with alarm, almost with dismay. I had hoped, vainly I doubt hoped, that Heaven might vouchsafe to let me close in the midst of general repose a life begun under far other auspices—begun amidst changes—disastrous changes, "perplexing monarchs"—the overthrow of time-honoured institutions—the dispersion of whole communities—the emigration of privileged classes—the confiscation of provinces—the crash of thrones—the desecration of altars—the rude and sudden disruption of the ties that cement nations—the violent alteration of all the landmarks by which national dominion is defined. To these tempestuous days there succeeded a happy calm; and I had fondly imagined our earthly course might have been run ere yet the storm should again rise. But now I fear me this lot is not reserved for us. I everywhere observe all the elements of mischief, and turn which way we will the repose of the world seems in peril. The point in which danger seems most imminent, though perhaps not most alarming, is that quarter to which my Motion refers, and with that I will therefore begin.
By the Congress of 1814, and the Treaty of Vienna concluded next year, Austria's possession of Lombardy was acknowledged and confirmed—a possession of three centuries' duration. The Pope was confirmed in his temporal sovereignty of the Ecclesiastical States; and the succession to the kingdom of Sardinia was confirmed to the Carignan branch of the house of Savoy, the reigning monarch having no sons, and his half brother, Charles Felix, only daughters. By virtue of the same arrangement, by force of the self-same treaty, Genoa ceased to be a commonwealth, and was delivered over to the Sardinian crown. Against that measure I raised my voice in Parliament, with others, abler and better men, the Whitbreads, the Romillys, the Plunketts, the Horners of those days. Genoa, we complained, had been stripped of her independence; of a republic, she had been made the province, the outlying and dependent, and vassal province of an ab-
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solute monarchy. Thus the title of the Sardinian king to Genoa, his most valuable possession, rests upon the self-same ground on which Austria's title to the Milanese reposes—or rather on a far inferior basis; because Austria had held Lombardy for three hundred years, ever since Charles V.'s death—Sardinia has held Genoa only for thirty. Lombardy had never been a commonwealth, but always a grand duchy since the thirteenth century—Genoa had ever been a republic until the nineteenth. So that while Lombardy only passed from one prince to another three hundred years ago, and that other's title was acknowledged in 1815—Genoa passed from a free and independent State to that of vassal under an absolute monarch, and she made this change for the first time only in 1815. Such is the Sardinian king's title to his dominions; and now let us see what is his conduct towards those neighbours who have under the same arrangement received ample confirmation of a title, which that arrangement has not continued and confirmed, but begun and created in Charles Albert. Nothing, I will affirm, can exceed the violent injustice of that conduct, except, perhaps, it be the fraudulent pretexts with which it has been covered or coloured, and the perfidy of the declarations preceding or accompanying it. First, he makes war upon his neighbour the Austrian Emperor, on the ground of having what the French, in the jargon of their Propaganda, term a Mission, a vocation to liberate enslaved nations, holding out the right hand of protection to all people who revolt against their lawful sovereign, as the Convention did by their famous decree of 19th Nov. 1792, which lit up the flames of war all over the world. In this, his capacity of Missionary, he preached, needlessly to the Milanese he preached, the sacred duty of insurrection, issued a manifesto to promise his aid, and fulfilled that promise, one of the few he ever kept, by marching an army into Lombardy. On the 22nd March, in answer to a remonstrance of the Austrian ambassador, touching the threats of the Turin journals, Charles Albert solemnly declared his fixed resolution to maintain all the relations of amity with his imperial neighbour. At that hour when that declaration was made, he had signed the manifesto promising his aid to the Milanese insurgents—and on the next day, the 23rd of March, it was promulgated! When complaint was made, and, I presume, astonishment expressed by the Austrian ambas-

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sador, the excuse given was one which I trust the republicans of Milan will not fail to mark. Republican principles, forsooth, were becoming rife in Lombardy, and his Sardinian Majesty did not know that they might not extend into Piedmont, peradventure into Genoa, and shake his royal authority; therefore he felt justified in marching his troops. So that by this notable discovery in public law, if I am sovereign of a State, and the subjects of a neighbouring prince take any course which I deem perilous for the peace of my dominions, I have a right not to protect those dominions from that peril, but to march and seize the dominions of my unoffending neighbour. Because the Lombards revolted against Austria, Charles Albert has a right, not to put down a revolt whence peril to his own States might arise, but to join the revolt, help the insurgents, attack Austria, and seize on her possessions.
My Lords, I have little fear of this unprincipled man succeeding. The Milanese must know him too well to render that possible. Of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom he cannot possibly become master—for Venice has already ceased to form part of it—she has restored her ancient republic, as she had a right to do: no one can complain of the form of policy she has chosen to establish—she may find advantages in it, advantages which are wisely purchased by submitting to its undeniable vices. A republic has some undeniable virtues: it gives power to call forth the resources of a State, beyond any other form of government—it enables merits of all kinds to become known and to rise—its habitual fermentation moves, peradventure convulses, the whole mass of society, and makes the scum rise to the surface, including with much that is utterly worthless, some particles of value—all these virtues has a republic; but one thing I firmly believe to be, and to be of necessity, wanting in a republic, Liberty it has not—Liberty can never flourish under its shade; for whereas in monarchies, how despotic soever, the subject can be safe in his remoteness from the tyrant, in a republic he is surrounded by tyrants, each of whom domineers in the name of the people. Venice may prefer this notwithstanding, and she has a right to please herself; but whether she continues republican, or having tried the experiment, she prefers liberty to that fancy and becomes monarchical, she will assuredly not take the fancy of preferring the rule of Charles Albert, and so
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he can only hope to take the Lombard kingdom without the Venetian augmentation. But will he succeed even thus far? I greatly doubt it. I can hardly suppose that he is so much less known on the Lombard side of the Alps than he is in the northern regions of Europe; I can hardly think that his former history is so unfamiliar to his near neighbours as to render his yoke a matter of desire among them. And if there be any one, either here in England or elsewhere, who has been vainly speculating upon the possibility of erecting a Sardo-Lombard kingdom, whose crown this man shall wear—let him lay aside the silly expectation, for he may be assured that the story of 1820 and 1821 is not forgotten in Northern Italy. Yes! This is that Carignan who having enticed many to join in a conspiracy against his kinsman, the Sardinian Monarch, and so far succeeded in his plot as to proclaim the Spanish constitution of 1812, suddenly took fright; whose nerves failing him as peril approached, he fled from Turin, and, to save his worthless life, betrayed his dupes, and they suffered death as his accomplices. Outlawed on his flight, he soon after endeavoured to make his peace and gain a pardon. For this purpose he went to Spain, which was then the theatre of war;—it may be fancied that he went to oppose the French invasion, and to fight in defence of the Spanish constitution, which he had himself proclaimed in Piedmont—no such thing—he joined the forces of the Duke D'Angouleme, sent to put that constitution down—he was engaged at the Trocadero; and having gained his pardon by this new act of treachery and apostacy, he was suffered to revisit Turin; where he afterwards succeeded to the Crown by virtue of the Treaty of Vienna—the same treaty which confirmed Austria in the possession of her Lombard dominions. These things cannot be forgotten in Milan; but so neither are they forgotten in Genoa. If any one supposes the Commonwealthsmen of the republic of Doria and Columbus are enamoured of Sardinian rule, or forgetful of Charles Albert's history, he is miserably mistaken: that king will find it a hard matter to attempt liberating the Milanese from the mild and merciful authority of Austria on the one hand, and prevent the Genoese from attempting to shake off his far more galling yoke on the other. Their movements have already affected his nerves in the accustomed manner. It was his fears, awakened by these sturdy republicans, that

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drove him to all the concessions he has yet made. With the habitual falsehood which is his second nature, he has taken credit for those things which were wrung from his terrors. Step after step as he quailed before the Genoese, he yielded to their demands, and now, casting his eyes across the Alps, to the revolt of Paris, falsely called the French Revolution, he again takes fright, and pays court to the handful of republicans who sway the capital of our neighbours, by attacking their Austrian adversaries in Lombardy.
My Lords, when I thus speak of France, as truth requires, and duty compels me, I freely admit the right of that people to humble themselves before a handful of men in Paris—I dispute not the right of five and thirty millions to bear the dominion of twenty thousand; and of the other things which the chiefs of these men are now doing every day in the name of the whole people, we have no right to complain—their fruits, their bitter fruits will be gathered by themselves; my prayer is that they may be less bitter than I dread and believe. But having referred to the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy, I may be allowed to add, that if, by any amicable arrangement, any wise concessions of Vienna to Milan, the Lombards could obtain the inestimable blessing of a constitutional monarchy, and if they were fit for that form of government to which centuries of varied experience have trained us, to which Italians are necessarily alien and unsuited—no one could more heartily rejoice than myself. But my joy would be mingled with another feeling, knowing the Italians as I do, and knowing representative government as I do—the feeling of wonder; and, in the meantime, I am bound to say, much offence as the declaration may give to some in Italy, and a few here more zealous than knowing, that, with all the ills attendant on subjection to a foreign dominion, the Austrian rule in Italy has been one, generally speaking (for exceptions there are), mild, and to the people wholesome—that the inestimable blessing of an admirable police has been secured by it—that a tranquil and regular government has been uninterrupted—that an administration, which improved the condition of the people, protected their industry, augmented their wealth and their comforts, controlled all feudal and aristocratic oppression, has been the unvarying lot of the Lombards under the sway of the Austrian Crown. If its yoke is exchanged
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for another scheme of polity, I fervently hope they may find the administration of Italians as honest, as moderate, as conducive to internal peace, and to individual freedom—but I far more wish it than expect.
In casting my eyes over the late history of the Italian Peninsula, there is another actor in its scenes, whose feelings I envy less than those of the Sardinian King, though I may respect them more—I allude to the Holy Father, the most ancient prelate of the Christian Church—chief of the Romish Hierarchy—Sovereign of its temporal States. Consulting his love of popular applause far more than the peace of Christendom, he, who assumes to be the head of the Religion of Peace, chose to be the first mover of those convulsions which have all over Europe placed that peace in jeopardy. Better had he discharged his duties as a temporal Prince—better—far better performed his functions as a Christian prelate, had he paused before the insurmountable difficulties which of necessity must obstruct the path of a Sovereign Pontiff, when he is pleased to make himself a patron of political change—a Coryphaeus in revolutionary movements. He is to give the Romans a republican government. Parliamentary reform, general elections in the patrimony of St. Peter, present some difficulty to the mind. A Commons' House of Parliament is hard to figure there; an Upper Chamber of Cardinals is of yet more difficult conception. But a limited Monarch, a constitutional Sovereign, who partakes of the Divine nature, who is of an infallible class of beings; and if infallible in Church matters, how separate them from temporal?—such a phenomenon, I own, does strike one with confusion; but yet more puzzled is one to divine how his Holiness is to communicate his infallibility to his Ministers—to his responsible advisers. The Holy Father had far better have well weighed all these difficulties before he took the plunge by which he has shaken the repose of the world, in order to gain the strange anomalous title, and reap the suspicious praise, of a reforming Pope. But supposing his difficulties overcome—suppose the same supernatural influence to which he is supposed to owe his election, should help him to untie the knot—yet he has gone beyond merely yielding to his mob at home; he should have thought three and thrice times ere he did that. But how much more did it behove him to pause before he took the

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field, and sent his bad troops and worse captains, to make war against the Emperor? He, the head of the Christian Church, is the first to break the peace of the world. He, who owes his triple crown to the Treaty of Vienna, is the first to draw the sword against it, and to attempt contemning and tearing his own, his only title-deed. He who holds Rome by the same title by which Ferdinand holds Milan, is the first to help with his troops the populace whom his paternal exhortations have stirred up to insurrection, preaching the apostolic doctrine that none should be subject to the powers which be of God—that revolt against rulers is a duty. His Holiness's soldiers have actually joined those insurgents, and captured an Austrian fort, with effusion of blood. This is the venerable Pontiff, this the Holy Father, whom we are desired by our thoughtless lovers of liberty to revere as a friend to mankind. He is a worthy ally of the Sardinian King, and as in their deeds they were conjoined, so it may be that in their fate they shall not be divided. At the Roman Court, by an obsolete but unrepealed law, we can have no representative; but at Turin we of course have the benefit of one to manage our affairs. He is personally unknown to me, though I know his respectable connexions; I trust he was competent from his capacity and Ins experience, to conduct well and firmly our affairs at this critical juncture; and having read Lord Palmerston's solemn warning to Austria to beware how she interfered with foreign States in Italy, and above all with Sardinia, the old ally of England, I conclude we shall find that he gave as strong and specific a warning to Sardinia how she interfered with a yet older and more important ally—namely, Austria. Any interference with her Italian dominions was to be reprobated beyond all other acts, because it imported a direct infraction of the Peace of Vienna—a peace which in its details I, among others, opposed at the time, but which has now fin much above a quarter of a century, beer the corner-stone of all European polity, and has formed as much the statute law of Europe as the treaties of Munster, commonly called the Peace of Westphalia, of old did for a century and a half. To shake its provisions, therefore, is now to shake the whole fabric of European dominion, and the international policy of the civilised world. From any such shock no mar can pretend to foretell the perils that may arise. I must, however, declare,
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that I feel, as regards our own safety, and the security of our institutions, no apprehension whatever; though none can more devoutly than myself pray for the continuance of peace. The frame of society in the rest of Europe runs infinitely greater hazard than ours from any such calamity. Amidst all the sinister events which have of late days darkened the political horizon, there is to be found one bright gleam, and it rests on this highly-favoured isle. We have here nothing to fear from the fate of empires abroad: we defy the arms and the arts of all the world; we are—the events of the last three days, our three days, prove us to be—an united people. If any such experience were necessary, which I deny altogether that it was, to show how universally and how firmly our people of all ranks are attached to the monarchy—the free monarchy under which they have the happiness to live—that experience we now have.
The kind friends of England across the Channel, who were hugging themselves in the hope of seeing their wild and furious example followed here, and who were proclaiming — even in the Government papers—the certain downfall of that monarchy whose representatives their provisional chiefs were daily labouring to conciliate—have now seen how utterly false were their hopes—as false as their stories circulated six weeks ago, that this city was in the hands of a republican mob, and that the Queen and Her Consort had betaken themselves to flight. Possibly they had been deceived by the traitors who resorted from hence, and chiefly from Ireland, to present the trumpery, the flimsy congratulations of a wretched handful of rebels, that have the courage to threaten revolt, and the magnanimity to talk big without any action. These traitors, mean in their capacity as they admit themselves to be, mean in their attempts to redeem their ample pledges, as their whole craven but prudent conduct proclaims them to be, endeavoured to import from Paris some promise of assistance, some prospect of helping them in levying war against the Crown of these realms; and they have brought back from their journey not the declaration of any responsible Minister—not the word of any Government, or any pretended Government, or anything like a Government, or anything calling itself, perhaps falsely calling itself, a Government—but the threats of clubs without names—the promises of men on behalf of num-

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bers that never instructed them to promise for them—the bravadoes of persons utterly obscure, who used the authority of others that never gave any powers of the kind—the promises of those who had neither the will nor the power to perform. I disdain all reference to such clubs, or such persons. Enough for me to observe that the Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Provisional Government gave the treasonable emissaries a plain, a downright, and all but a rough rebuke for their impertinence. I approve highly of this answer. It was the next best thing which M. Lamartine could have said, next best to what he certainly ought to have said, and what an experienced Minister, and one free to act as he pleased, would have said—"Are you come from the British Embassy? For if not, go about your business—I only know Lord Normanby as representing England." With this qualification I approve the answer given; but I do not at all join in the extravagant joy—the silly raptures of many—at this answer having rebuked the Irish traitors. On the contrary, had M. Lamartine been so wanting in common sense as to credit their stories—had he heed led away by the wild fables of the republican press and the Irish treasonmongers—had he fancied that the Irish were slaves, helots smarting under the English lash—that England never goes to theta but to get recruits for her feeble Army, and money for her bankrupt Exchequer—that the Irish pay nearly all our taxes—(I would they paid a tenth part of them)—that Irish affairs never engage the attention of Parliament (when hardly anything else is discussed by us, and some are becoming repealers on account of the Irish monopoly of our legislation)—had the French Minister, listening to all these glaring falsehoods, sent back the traitors with a promise of help to their rebellion—it is my firm belief, that the dominion of England, and the Government of Ireland, would have been made doubly strong—and that as all this island are united against the attempts to destroy our united empire—so all, or nearly all, the sister island would have speedily become banded in the same holy league. Not only Protestant, not only Orangemen—who are already to a man, our firm, our brave, our powerful allies—but even the bulk of the Catholics, the disaffected themselves, when thus threatened with the hateful embrace of a foreign Power, would have been stunned into a sense of their duty, and returned to patriotic courses.
I must not be understood to blame M. Lamartine for not at once refusing all intercourse with the traitors—he was not a free agent in the matter—he was, like all his colleagues, acting under the eye and under the control of the Paris multitude. For those who have the hard lot so to suffer such thraldom, have a right to our sympathy, and must not be visited with severe blame when they yield to the pressure that overpowers them. But if they have a right to our pity, they have not the same right to our confidence. If I am asked whether I do not confide in such men as my esteemed friend M. Arago—the most illustrious name among the philosophers of the age—in M. Dupont de L'Eure, one of the most virtuous of the old republicans, and, unlike some of the new school, wholly uncorrupt and incorruptible—whose hands like those of the old race, unlike some of their successors, have ever been clean —in M. Garnier Pages, an estimable man and an able financier (though I wish he had not fallen into the vulgar error of supposing that the credit of England depends on her commercial monopoly)— asked if I do not trust these men, I answer—Certainly. I have as much trust in them as I can have in any men acting in the hands of the multitude that is, exactly none at all. Then do I trust the republican party at large? My answer is another question, "Where is that party to be found?" Danton said, nearly sixty years ago, "You've got a republic, but there are no republicans." The same thing may be with very much more accuracy said now; and when it was said to M. Ledru Rollin (of whom I wish to say nothing, in order that I may speak no evil), he replied, "True; France is not now republican, but France must be made republican"—a speech which 1 heard with unmingled horror; for it was on this very text that the Convention and the Committees in 1792, 3, and 4, made their bloodthirsty discourses—it was for the purpose of compelling France either to become republican, or from terror to be quiet, that the guillotine worked; that the purest blood in the country was shed like water; that proscription, pillage, fire, murder, raged through the land, and wrapped it in misery and devastation. Nevertheless, France has the incontestable right to adopt this system—if she pleases, to renew these scenes. Now, as then, she may, through terror — through the dread of massacre — be compelled to crouch beneath a succes-

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sion of vulgar tyrants, domineering in the usurped name of the people, and extirpating all liberty in the abused name of freedom. I hope better things from that noble country—from that gallant and generous people. I hope that Paris may not long be content to receive the law from an armed mob, and that, if it does, France will not receive the law from Paris. This I know, that if she does hug her chains—if she does prefer her present condition to the comparative happiness she enjoyed under her constitutional King, her example will never prove dangerous by wearing an inviting aspect in her neighbours' eyes. Casting their eyes towards France they behold the utter ruin of all trade; the end of all ordinary and gainful labour; the substitution in its room of a fantastic scheme utterly impracticable, but if it could be executed, utterly ruinous both to the workman and the capitalist, and the community at large; the money market reduced to despair; all credit cut up by the very roots; public funds reduced from 75 to 35; Bank stock fallen from 3,000 to 990 in price; the Government wholly without power to check the most violent popular excesses, impotent even to protect an ambassador's sacred person, and confessing to him their not having three men at their disposal; that Government, in order that its ephemeral existence may linger on between life and death till the Assembly meets, reduced to subsist on violent stimulants, pandering to the passions of the rabble by a succession of daily claptrap measures; seizing one day on the savings of the poor in order to give Louis Blanc the means of paying labour by his most fantastic plans; another day seizing on railways in order to clutch some ready money, and emptying the till under the false pretence of better administering the affairs of the companies; then threatening to seize all the banks, and monopolise paper circulation in a country where hitherto specie alone was current; about to deluge the country with 100,000,000 sterling of assignats, to the utter destruction of all private property—nay, stooping as low as to strip the traveller of his money, and make him take worthless bank paper in exchange*—all these things have the Government done in its provisional state; and
*Lord Brougham denied positively his having been so stopped and searched; he had been kindly furnished with a permit; but he knew of 51,500 francs being seized from one traveller not so provided.
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all these things which have plunged France into wretchedness, and which now threaten her utter ruin, are seen by us and by all her neighbours. Hence let no one be alarmed at a republic being established on the other side of our Channel; and that it will be established there you must not suffer yourselves for a moment to doubt. A republic is, for the present at least, the fate of France. The existing Government may be upset by any one who can lead 10,000 of her gallant troops (deeply discontented as they are) against the Paris mob; but in the circumstances of the country and of Europe the experiment of a republic must needs be tried. As Louis XVIII., when the army of my gallant Friend (the Duke of Wellington) restored him in 1815, for the second time, his immortal victories in the south having restored him the year before, instead of being called as before Louis le bien aimé, became now l'inevitable—so the republic, a second time installed, is truly and for a season inevitable.
Through that stage France must needs pass: it is her pleasure and it is her fate. But we need not have any fears of its example spreading—of her arts or of her arms we need have no fear. Neither under the old monarchy, nor under the Convention, when her armies were marshalled to victory by the genius, the skill, the gallantry of my illustrious friend General Carnot; nor when the Empire led them to conquest; nor when she flourished of later times under the illustrious Victim of the late change, now an exile within our dominions; above all, of the republican charms and republican attire of France we assuredly have no reason to entertain any dread. Neither her armies nor her treasures are ever to be feared by a free State like ours. Neither of her emissaries nor of her warriors have I any dread; but that is because my confidence in our security reposes, not on our own arms or our own treasures: it has a far deeper and and more ample basis—the affections of the people—to be won by constant good offices; to be retained by unvarying good faith — Non arma, neque thesauri, regni proæsidia unt, verum amici—such friends as you had helping you against madmen and traitors within the last few days—such friends as England, ay, and Ireland too swarms with—Amici quos neque armis cogere, neque auro parare queas; officio et fide pariuntur.
My Lords, it was my bounden duty thus

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to address you; but I cannot conclude without setting right an error committed by many, acted upon by some—the notion that strangers—Englishmen especially—are insecure in France. This is wholly groundless: some mob proceedings in the provinces have, to the great displeasure of all classes, the Government included, taken place against English workmen. Generally speaking, I can affirm Paris to be quite as safe for our countrymen as for the natives; and I devoutly hope that to all classes the restoration of authority in the rulers, by rendering the police effectual, may soon make life and property universally secure.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE said, that he trusted his noble Friend would not regard him as being guilty of any disrespect if he abstained from following him into the details of his speech, and into circumstances which it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to regard with the greatest caution. His noble Friend had alluded to the number of false reports which had been spread abroad as to what had been passing on the Continent. He agreed with what had fallen from his noble Friend on the subject, and could fully confirm his statement; indeed, in a paper of this morning he had seen a statement that his noble and learned Friend had applied to the French Provisional Government to be naturalised as a French citizen, and that many other English Peers intended to follow his example and to emigrate. After the speech they had just heard, their Lordships could not but believe that the report was entirely destitute of truth, and their minds would be relieved from any apprehension on the subject. He fully agreed with his noble and learned Friend that the steps taken by the Sardinian Government against Austria were deeply to be regretted. With respect to the invasion of the Austrian territory, he was willing to wait until he knew what the circumstances really were that attended it before he was prepared to use such strong language as had been uttered by his noble and learned Friend. It was a proceeding most deeply to be lamented, and which had been most strongly protested against by Her Majesty's Minister at Turin, and he pointed out the consequences to which it might lead. He was not then prepared to say anything which would commit Her Majesty's Government to the following out any particular course; at the same time, he did not conceive that Her Majesty's Government
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were bound to resist by force this intervention of the Sardinian Government. The remonstrances to Austria heretofore alluded to, were not exactly to guard against the same line of conduct as had been pursued by Sardinia, but of a very different nature. The interference of Austria with the independent Italian States was understood to be with the intention of preventing the sovereigns of Italy giving constitutions to their subjects. When such intentions of Austria were made known, Her Majesty's Government did consider it advisable to use strong terms of remonstrance to the Austrian Government. In the same way Her Majesty's Government advised the King of Sardinia, ineffectually it was true, but still to induce him, to delay his invasion of the Austrian provinces. He did not see any objection to the production of the papers, or such parts of them as could be communicated without injury to the public service.
House adjourned.