§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEI move, my Lords, that this House, at its rising, do adjourn to Thursday, the 19th of April.
LORD BROUGHAMBefore the Motion for adjournment is put. I have to make an earnest request of my noble Friend opposite—that in any negotiations going on between Austria and Sardinia, no act will be done by Her Majesty's Government, by which this country may be committed before we meet again, and from which mischief of an irreparable nature may follow. If any treaty is to he entered into, I trust that this country may leave the business of the mediation between Austria and Sardinia to France; because we stand on a totally different footing from France in respect to those countries. This 228 is not the occasion for entering into a discussion of that question; but I may observe, that I am rejoiced to find that there has in this House been no empty bragging and boasting respecting recent events in Piedmont, like that by which another Assembly seem about to signalise their dying hour—declaring that they would give to the Government the most sincere and active co-operation in case it should think proper to undertake any measures to protect the integrity of Piedmont, which is no more threatened at this moment than the integrity of Russia or the integrity of England. I am desirous that the feelings of the House I have the honour to address should not be misrepresented out of doors, and particularly in the neighbouring nation of France. I am, therefore, very anxious to state that it is utterly and wholly—that it is positively and entirely, and in every particular false, what has been stated in some of the newspapers of the day, affecting to give an account of our proceedings. It is represented, that when I stated, as my noble Friend also stated as a fact, the universal joy and exultation which all parties had expressed upon the late glorious results of the short, and, for that reason, more glorious campaign in Piedmont—it is represented, I say, contrary to the truth, that that observation or statement of fact was received with cries of "Oh, oh!" "No, no!" My Lords, I will appeal to every one present whether it is possible to make a statement so much the reverse of the fact—the cries being an approval and approbation of the fact I had stated. I know that the way in which this House is constructed, is, as I have often said before, extremely apt to mislead those who have the intention, no doubt, of giving as accurate an account as possible of what passes here; and I must in candour say, that as the articulate sounds of some Members of the House are often imperfectly heard, their inarticulate sounds run a less chance of being understood. I am sure the misunderstanding arose from that cause. I have no doubt that was the whole cause of it; but it is the more necessary for me to say this in explanation, because, when that representation goes across the water, we shall hear from certain agitators in France that all the English House of Lords is with them in their lamentations over the late events in Piedmont.
§ House adjourned till Thursday, the 19th April.