doomed woman. We must try to save her against her will and against her tendencies; you cannot therefore be too firm in insisting upon the fulfilment both of the letter and spirit of the Four Articles. The Torres Vedras prisoners must be sent for immediately, and I would rather that an English ship of war were sent to fetch them than that they were left to the carelessness and delays of a Portuguese ship of war, such as it probably would be, with ostensible orders for despatch, and secret instructions to be slow. I should wish, therefore, that you and Parker should determine at once to send off the Sidon, or any other vessel of suitable dimensions, which Parker can spare, to bring these people back, and the ship should be off immediately. She ought to carry out orders open and unsealed, and none others, to the Governors of Angola and Benguela, to collect and give up all the prisoners at once, in order that they may be brought back. A list of them should be sent, and the ship should carry medical means for such as may be suffering from wounds or sickness, and bedding and other accommodation for them.

The honour of the British Crown and the good faith of the British Government is pledged to the strict fulfilment of the Four Articles, and there must be no exceptions. You will see that the tone of the debate last night was not a bit more favourable to the Queen, her present Ministers, and the Cabral party than the discussion which took place before. Moncorvo came to me this morning, and was evidently nettled at the things which were said, but I told him that Parliamentary privilege has no limit.

Portugal was not the only case in which-nonintervention being laid down as the Whig rule-intervention was the exception. The war between Monte Video and Buenos Ayres had long been the curse of La Plata, and not only injurious to the belligerents themselves but to the trade of the world. The Speech from the Throne, while Sir Robert Peel was still in office, announced an alliance between the French and English Governments for the purpose of suppressing it. This alliance was maintained by Sir Robert's successor, although Lord Palmerston clearly intimated to the French that the game of Algiers was not to be played over again in the river Plate; and, though the agents of

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the two Governments differed wherever their instructions enabled them to differ-the French showing a decided partiality for the Monte Videans-the final result was successful, and peace and commerce once more expanded their wings in that quarter of the world.

In 1834 Prince Talleyrand had incidentally remarked to Lord Palmerston that Spain had always been to France in the same relation which Portugal had stood to England. Monsieur Guizot is known to have repeated the same sentiment in 1847, and, further, to have indicated that such close dependence was one of the principles of French foreign policy. It is not, therefore, a matter of wonder that the prospect of the succession of the Infanta with the Duc de Montpensier to the throne of Spain alarmed English statesmen, the only alternative being Montemolin, son of Don Carlos, symbol of absolute monarchy, and condemned beforehand by the Quadruple Treaty to be expelled the country by foreign forces. Portugal, meanwhile, torn by violent factions, offered a sorry prospect to those who desired her independent stability. Thus it happened that the idea of a union of Spain and Portugal under a Portuguese Prince, after the death of the Spanish Queen, found some favour. The view taken, was that a great free State extending from the Pyrenees to Lisbon would in all future times be a counterpoise to France, and thus save Belgium and the Rhenish provinces from the invading propensities of the French democracy. It was also asserted that the Progressists in Spain were ready to hold up their hands for the Prince of Portugal as a successor to Queen Isabella. Lord Palmerston, however, did not at all fall in with this plan, as is shown in the following letter:

Broadlands: August 9, 1847.

My dear John Russell,-With regard to the possible union of Spain with Portugal, or, rather, the incorporation of Portugal with Spain, it may be said that if Spain is not now

by itself a great free State forming a counterpoise to France, and securing by that means Belgium and the Rhenish provinces, it is not because Spain is not large enough in territory, population, and natural resources; nor would the acquisition of Portugal give her, in this respect, any means the want of which cripples her at present, neither can it be said that by such incorporation Spain would be freed from controlling dangers in her rear which prevent her from facing France boldly to her front; because as long as Portugal is closely connected with England, Portugal would be a help and not a clog to Spain in the pursuit of such a policy. There seems no reason, therefore, to think that Spain, after having swallowed up Portugal, would be a bit more politically independent of France than she is or will be, without having so absorbed her neighbour, and, consequently, the probable result of such an annexation would be, that some fine day England would not only find Spain become a satellite of France, but would lose all the counterbalancing resources which, in such a case, Portugal, as a separate State, would afford us. Those advantages are many, great, and obvious; commercial, political, military, and naval, and if we were thus to lose them, some of them would not be mere loss, but would become formidable weapons of attack against us in the hands of a hostile Power. For instance, the naval position of the Tagus ought never to be in the hands of any Power, whether French or Spanish, which might become hostile to England, and it is only by maintaining Portugal in its separate existence, and in its intimate and protected state of alliance with England, that we can be sure of having the Tagus as a friendly instead of its being a hostile naval station. Only fancy for a moment Portugal forming part of Spain, and Spain led away by France into war with England, and what would be our naval condition with all the ports from Calais to Marseilles hostile to us, St. Malo, Cherbourg, Brest, Rochefort, Corunna, Vigo, the Tagus, Cadiz, Carthagena, Port Mahon, Toulon, and with nothing between us and Malta but Gibraltar, the capture of which would be the bait which France would hold out to Spain to induce her to go to war with us. If, on the contrary, the Tagus were at our command, we should occupy an intermediate position greatly impeding the naval movements of France and Spain. Perhaps, if the scheme of an Iberian Republic could be realised, such a State might be more likely to remain independent of France than a Spanish Monarchy promises to be; but such a republic would soon fall back to be

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a monarchy, and could not be created without sweeping away two existing dynasties allied to us by treaty engagements, and for which France would certainly take the field.

Among the other matters which engaged the attention of the Foreign Office at this time was the violence done by the Holy Alliance' to the Republic of Cracow.

In November 1845, a conspiracy was discovered in Posen to restore the independence of Poland. An advance was made in the early part of the following year upon the city of Cracow, and the Senate applied to Austria, Prussia, and Russia for their intervention. Austrian troops shortly after occupied the city, but were quickly expelled, and Russian troops, coming to their assistance, recaptured it. Although the independence of the Republic had been guaranteed by the Treaty of Vienna, the three protecting Powers proclaimed its annexation to Austria in November 1846, and thus accomplished the extinction of the last remnant of Polish nationality.

Lord Palmerston says to Lord Normanby:

:

Nov. 19, 1846.

I have prepared an answer about Cracow, which I shall send off to Vienna without waiting for Guizot. Our answer is, that we don't admit the necessity of doing what the three Powers are going to do; and that we deny their competency to do it, and protest against it as a clear violation of the Treaty of Vienna. It comes very awkwardly at the present moment. Metternich has no doubt long intended it, and thinks the time propitious when England and France have differed, and when he thinks each would be willing to gain his support about Spain by being easy with him about Cracow.

Guizot will make a show of resistance, but the fact is that even if France and England had been on good terms, they have no means of action on the spot in question, and could only have prevented the thing by a threat of war, which, however, the three Powers would have known we should never utter for the sake of Cracow. The measure is an abominable shame, and executed by the most hollow pretences and the most groundless assertions.

I suspect that Prussia consents to it unwillingly; that

Austria is urged on by her own covetousness and hatred of freedom and independence, even in name, and is pushed on by Russia, who wants to have an example set, which may hereafter be quoted by her as an excusing precedent when she swallows and assimilates the kingdom of Poland.

Foreign Office: Jan. 21, 1847.

My dear Ponsonby,-I have seen Hummelauer and have had a preliminary conversation with him and Dietrichstein. He is to send me his papers to read. I have told him that if he is able to show that Cracow was the source of danger to the Austrian dominions, and if I am authorised to publish the proofs, that may go far to mitigate public opinion here; though, of course, the question will still remain why the three Powers did not previously consult England and France, and the other parties to the Treaty of Vienna; and the stronger the case the three Powers can make out for the necessity of some alteration in the political condition of Cracow, the less reason there was for fearing that they should not obtain the consent of those other Powers to some reasonable and fair arrangement.

Dietrichstein, Brunnow, and Bunsen stayed away from the House of Lords when the Queen made her speech, and I think that they were right, as it might have been unpleasant for them to have stood by to hear their Courts taxed with having violated a treaty.1

During the first Session of 1847, Mr. Hume moved a resolution condemning the conduct of Russia, Prussia, and Austria in the affair of Cracow, and declaring that the payments to Russia by Great Britain on account of the Russo-Dutch Loan should be discontinued on account of her violation of the Treaty of Vienna without any previous communication with this country. A long discussion followed, one prominent feature of which was an eulogium of the conduct of the three despotic Courts by Lord George Bentinck as the leader of the Tory party. In a letter to Lord Normanby, Lord Palmerston

1 The extinction of the free State of Cracow has appeared to me to be so manifest a violation of the Treaty of Vienna, that I have commanded that a protest against that act should be delivered to the Courts of Vienna, Petersburg, and Berlin, which were parties to it.' (Extract from Queen's Speech, January 19, 1847.)