unfounded impressions that revolutionary plots are in agitation. On the other hand, the same agency may be employed to represent to the people that their sovereigns are insincere in their promises of concessions, and thus the people, being stimulated to use force for the purpose of securing political reforms, the very acts to which they may have been delusively led on may be converted into a pretext for depriving them of the objects of their legitimate expectations.

It will be your duty to counteract, as far as possible, these sinister efforts. You are instructed to say to the Minister that the direction of the progress of reform and improvement is still in the hands of the sovereigns, but that it is now too late for them to attempt to obstruct reasonable progress; and that resistance to moderate petitions is sure to lead ere long to the necessity of yielding to irresistible demands. That it is better for a Government to frame its measures of improvement with timely deliberation, and to grant them with the grace of spontaneous concession, than to be compelled to adopt, on the sudden, changes perhaps insufficiently matured, and which, being wrung from them by the pressure of imperious circumstances, invert the natural order of things, and being of the nature of a capitulation of the sovereign to the subject, may not always be a sure foundation for permanent harmony between the Crown and the people.

To the popular leaders with whom you may have intercourse, you should use language of the same tendency and arguments drawn from the same considerations. You should tell them that force put upon the inclinations of their sovereigns will produce ill-will and repugnance, which must lead their rulers, on their part, to be constantly looking out for an opportunity of shaking off the yoke which they may have been obliged to bear. That mutual distrust will thus be created between the governors and the governed. That this distrust will break out in overt acts on each side, intended perhaps defensively by those by whom done, but regarded as offensive by the other party. That open discord will thence ensue, and foreign interferenco may be the ultimate result.

It was imbued with these sentiments that Lord Palmerston scanned the horizon, and one of the first matters to attract his attention was the state of Switzerland. He naturally viewed with the greatest concern the possibility of any such interference by the Great

Powers with that free confederacy as might compromise her political independence, or endanger the position which she held as the home and refuge of liberty on the Continent. His influence, as will be seen, contributed very materially to avert any such intervention.

To understand the events which were occurring in that country, it is necessary to remember that, up to the commencement of the present century, the condition of a Swiss canton was like that of a feudal lord with an aggregate of seigneurial and subject properties. It had two councils, great and small, but the real powers of government were all exercised by the small or executive council, while the great or legislative council had neither initiative, independence, nor publicity of debate. In 1846, of the 2,400,000 inhabitants of Switzerland, about 900,000 were Roman Catholics, and the remainder Protestants, while each of the twentytwo cantons had an equal voice in the Diet whatever the disparity as to size, wealth, or, we may add, intelligence. In the Catholic cantons the clergy enjoyed great privileges and power, and the people generally were in a state of ignorant submission to their directions.

The French Revolution of 1830 gave an impetus to a movement towards more liberal and popular institutions, and the Radical party became speedily opposed to the Conservative. The Roman Catholic priests and Jesuits in three of the small cantons took, as might have been expected, an active part on the Conservative side, and were incessant workers in a series of counterrevolutions.

The introduction of the Jesuits into the important canton of Lucerne, which had, up to the year 1844, been free from their noisome presence, put the torch to materials which had thus long been piling up ready for the flame. The seven Roman Catholic cantons found it necessary, if they wished to resist the decrees of the rest of the Federation, to form themselves into a

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separate league-offensive and defensive. This new Confederacy took the name of the Sonderbund.'

On the 20th of July, 1846, the Federal Diet voted the Sonderbund illegal, and decreed, on the 3rd of September, the expulsion of the Jesuits from the four cantons of Lucerne, Schwytz, Freyburg, and Valais, in which they were established. A civil war was the inevitable consequence.

Meanwhile, however, the French Government had proposed that England, France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia should make a collective declaration recommending the arbitration of the Pope in the dispute about the Jesuits-proposing a conference for modifying the Federal compact, and announcing to the Swiss Diet that if they refused these propositions and proceeded with the war, the five Powers would consider the Confederation as no longer existing-in other words, a proposal to compel the Swiss by force of arms to adopt the views of the Great Powers. Lord Palmerston, on behalf of the British Government, refused to accept this proposal. He stood at first alone, because the rights of Prussia over Neufchatel prompted her to interfere, although, as a Protestant Power, she felt no sympathy for the seceders; and the Austrian, followed by the Russian, was not more with him than the Frenchman. The view that Prince Metternich took was, that the neutrality of Switzerland could only be respected so long as she was one Federal Republicher neutrality being founded on her Federal constitution; but the view of Lord Palmerston was, that her independence would be equally necessary and equally right whether she was federated or not. Metternich and Guizot were both jealous of Switzerland becoming a united and, therefore, powerful military state. They, accordingly, secretly aided the seven cantons, and, in the words of Lamartine, almost treated the Diet as a 'faction.'

The matter was, no doubt, for a time one full of anxieties. Mr. Morier had reported from Berne in

October, 1846: 'Altogether it may be safely affirmed, that from this time forth the Federal Bund is virtually dissolved, and Switzerland, as a political body, in a state of decomposition;' and Chevalier Bunsen, Prussian Minister in London, becoming at length alarmed, wrote to Lord Palmerston: 'Don't let the affair slip out of your hands; it is very serious.'

The following letter to Lord Minto, who had gone on a mission to Italy, gives the views of the British Government:

F. O.: November 11, 1847.

If the Diet get possession of the canton of Freyburg and dispose of the Jesuits there, it will go some way towards settling the pending questions, and if the Diet can also get a friendly Government established at Lucerne, and by that means drive the Jesuits out of that canton, I should think that they need not very much care about their remaining in some of the smaller cantons. But the best would be if the Pope would take some step to induce them to evacuate Switzerland altogether.

1

Broglie says that there will be no difficulty in getting the Pope to take some steps about the Jesuits, but then he says that they are not the real object, but only a pretence, and that when they are got rid of some other demand will be made which will be found unreasonable. I say, in reply, yield to-day that which is reasonably asked, and resist to-morrow that which you will be borne out in resisting, but do not let us put ourselves in the wrong to-day merely for fear that we may find ourselves in the right to-morrow. I send you copies of the communication which we have received from the French Government on Swiss affairs; I am going immediately to write an answer. It will be in substance that we are willing to join the other Powers in an endeavour to put an end to the civil war by an offer of mediation, but not willing to meddle with the revision of the Federal compact. But that before the five Powers make a joint offer of mediation, it seems desirable that they should be agreed as to the conditions of settlement which they would think fair between the parties. That our notion is this: We think that the Jesuit question is a political as well as, and much more than a religious question, and that it is at the bottom of the whole of the present quarrel. We therefore propose that the Sonderbund cantons

1 French ambassador in London.

THE JESUITS IN SWITZERLAND.

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should declare themselves ready to abide by any decision which the Pope may make on that question, and that the five Powers should pledge themselves to the Diet to use all their influence at Rome to obtain from the Pope the recall of the Jesuits from the whole of Switzerland, they receiving, of course, compensation for lands or houses which they might be thus obliged to leave. This grievance removed, we should propose that the Diet should renounce all hostile intentions against the seven cantons, and should renew their often-made declaration that they acknowledge and mean to respect the sovereignty of the separate cantons of which the Confederation is composed. This done, the Sonderbund having no further pretence for their union, that union should be dissolved, and then the whole matter is settled. The Swiss would then go to work, in the manner prescribed by the Federal compact, to make any alterations or improvements in that compact which they might wish or want. I do not expect that the five Powers will agree to this scheme; for Austria, France, and perhaps Russia take part openly with the Sonderbund, and Guizot's despatch only repeats the proposition made by the Sonderbund, and rejected by the Diet, and any proposal to that effect made by the five Powers would of course share the same fate. Guizot's object, of course, is to try to put the Diet apparently in the wrong, so as to afford him and Austria some kind of pretext for violent measures afterwards. The draft of note is a paraphrase of the manifesto of the three Powers last year about the extinction of Cracow. I could not possibly put my name to such a paper, and I wonder how Guizot would defend himself to the deputies for having put his name to it.

And on November 17 he writes to the same:

Guizot will have to choose between us and the three Powers; for I conclude that his draft of note was suggested by Austria. Russia will follow Austria; and the Prussian Government have at once accepted his plan. Broglie, however, says his own personal and private opinion is with us; and it seems to me that public opinion in France would not go along with Guizot in the course he has proposed to us. We shall lie on our oars till we get an answer from Paris to the despatch which went thither last night. In the meantime, if the Pope would take any steps about the Jesuits, he would increase the chances of peace; but they have gone too far in Switzerland to admit of a settlement on the principle of the mere recall of the Jesuits from Lucerne.