France having accepted the modifications proposed by Lord Palmerston in the plan of mediation, he writes to Lord Ponsonby at Vienna on the 20th:

F. O.: November 20, 1847.

You will see that the French Government are willing to agree to our proposal as to the offer of mediation between the contending parties in Switzerland. The explanations which

they wish us to accept, and to which we have no objection, are, that the Jesuits should be withdrawn, by the joint concurrence of the seven cantons and of the Pope. All we require is, that the foundation of the arrangements should be that the Jesuits should be removed from the whole of the territory of the Confederation, because we are now quite convinced that things have now gone so far, and popular feeling has been so strongly roused against them, that unless they leave Switzerland entirely there is no chance of peace in that country. The next explanation of the French is, that they understand the separate sovereignty of the confederated cantons to carry with it the result, that no change can be made in the Federal compact without the consent of all the cantons, and they hold that this principle ought to be admitted by the Diet. We think this reasonable, and are willing to agree to it as the foundation of the settlement which is to be proposed. The French, thirdly, say that, in agreeing to our proposal that the refusal of the joint offer of mediation, if it should be unfortunately refused, is not to be used as a pretext for armed interference, they must make this reserve, that all parties are to remain after such refusal possessed of all the rights in regard to measures with respect to Switzerland which they at present possess. To this we can, of course, make no objection.

The French agree to the conference being in London, and we hope that P. Metternich will not object to this. I do not think that we should willingly consent to join a conference to be held anywhere but here.

Meanwhile, however, the capture of Freyburg by the forces of the Diet under General Dufour brought the war to an abrupt termination, and obviated the necessity of the proposed mediation. Lord Palmerston's object had been gained, and the delay had been of incalculable service to the cause of Swiss independence.

BRITISH POLICY IN SWISS AFFAIRS.

9

Sir Stratford Canning, who was on his way to his post at Constantinople, had been instructed by Lord Palmerston to take Berne on his way, where his character and abilities might be of service in enforcing the counsels of the English Foreign Office. Lord Palmerston writes to him :

F. O.: December 18, 1847.

I hope you may be able to persuade the Diet to give up their vindictive measures against their opponents at Freyburg and Lucerne. It really would be very disgraceful of them if they made such a bad use of their victory; and they might remember that the wheel of fortune has many turns, and that it might happen that, in some future change of things, the measure which they now mete out to others might be measured back again to themselves. At all events, such confiscations and punishments leave enduring resentments and perpetuate party animosities, without any counterbalancing advantage, except to the individuals who thus transfer to themselves the property which rightfully belongs to others. Besides, there is not in this case a shadow of a principle to justify their proscriptions. If a set of Russian, or Polish, or Galician nobles revolt against their sovereign, they are clearly on the wrong side of the law; and if they fail, they must abide by the consequences. If a Polignac violates the constitution of his country, and fails in his attempt, he may partly be made to pay in person and in fortune the penalty of his illegal acts. But in the case of Freyburg and Lucerne there was no violation of the laws of the canton. There was a decision taken by the sovereign authority of the canton which the Federal Government thought at variance with the Federal obligations and engagements of those cantons; but this cannot, by any fair construction of words, be called high treason. Treason means the violation of some duty towards the sovereign power of the state of which the accused is citizen or subject; but such a crime cannot be committed by the government of a sovereign state towards the confederates of that state. Freyburg and Lucerne were not subjects of the Confederation, and could not be guilty of high treason towards it.

There being still some danger of an Austrian intervention, Lord Palmerston sent the following to Lord Ponsonby :

F. O.: December 21, 1847.

It seems to me, from Canning's accounts of his conversations with Ochsenbein,' that the Swiss will pursue a more moderate line of conduct than at first appeared likely; and it seems quite certain that they will afford the four Powers no valid reason for interference. At the same time, I wish you to lose no opportunity of endeavouring to dissuade Metternich from any attempt of the kind. He could not interfere without France doing so too; and whatever may be the professions or even the sincere intentions of Louis Philippe and Guizot, he may depend upon it, as sure as he is alive, that any interference of France in the internal affairs of Switzerland would turn to the account of France, and would be adverse to the interests of Austria.

In fact, if French troops were to enter Switzerland, they would sympathise with the Liberals, and not with the party which Metternich would wish to favour. If there is one maxim of policy which Metternich ought to hold by more than another, it is to keep the French out of Switzerland and out of Italy; but if Austrian troops enter one or the other, French troops will follow, and Austria will rue the day when she paved the way for such a military movement by France.

Spain was once described by the Duke of Wellington as the only country where two and two did not make four, and the unexpected events of which it has so often been the theatre might appear to justify the assertion. Few of them, however, have been so whimsically sudden, or so uselessly mischievous, as that which towards the end of the year 1846 startled and irritated England under the name of the 'Spanish Marriages.'

Queen Isabella and her sister the Infanta were young and unmarried. To secure the succession it was necessary to find them husbands. The question in debate was, who these were to be.

It had been the settled policy of England--as indeed of the other European Powers-ever since the War of the Spanish Succession, to provide against the contingency of a union of the crowns of France and Spain, in the person of one sovereign or in the same

1 President of the Diet.

THE SPANISH MARRIAGES.

11

line, and the Treaty of Utrecht gave solemn expression to this agreement. The rulers of England felt that, bad as it was for her in the last century to find herself engaged in differences and wars with Spain, not upon Spanish but upon French grounds, it would be still worse now, when France occupied 500 miles of the opposite coast of Africa with a large naval station at Algiers. It was held, therefore, to be a great and paramount object with us, that Spain should be completely independent, and that her policy should not be founded upon French considerations; so that if ever we found ourselves at war with France, we should not merely on that account find ourselves involved in war with Spain also. Lord Palmerston, therefore, when he succeeded Lord Aberdeen at the Foreign Office, reiterated the views which had been expressed by his predecessor, and which had elicited from the French Government distinct pledges that no son of Louis Philippe should marry Isabella, or even the Infanta until the succession to the Spanish throne had been secured by the Queen becoming a mother. These pledges were in the autumn of 1846 broken both in their letter and spirit. It was suddenly announced that the Queen would marry her cousin, Don Francisco, and that her sister would on the same day become the wife of the Duke of Montpensier, the youngest son of the King of the French. Apart from the discreditable breach of faith which characterised this intrigue, the peculiar foulness of the transaction lay in the fact that the French King and his Minister had ascertained that there could be no issue of the marriage between the Queen and her cousin, and calculated on securing by a disgusting fraud that which they were solemnly bound by their own engagements to prevent. Yet Guizot's ideas of right and wrong, of honour and dishonour, had become so warped by his feelings of antagonism to Lord Palmerston, that, regardless of the universal condemnation which his conduct and that of his master elicited both in England and throughout Europe, he

actually boasted to the French Chamber, when they met, that the Spanish marriages constituted the first great thing France had accomplished completely singlehanded in Europe since 1830. Retribution, however, soon fell on all concerned, and the objects aimed at were not attained. Montpensier's wife never came to the throne, while Louis Philippe had to descend from his own. The fall of his Government and of his dynasty was undoubtedly hastened by the position of isolation, distrust, and contempt in which they were placed by this act and by the feelings which it provoked among the French people themselves as well as abroad. England only suffered in this respect, that from the date of this transaction the close alliance between the two countries was broken-distrust succeeded to confidence, causing, indeed, one of those periodical invasion scares to which the English people are liable-and the absolutist courts of Europe took advantage of this state of things to carry out their high-handed proceedings in Poland and elsewhere.

The following letter is amongst the first private papers of Lord Palmerston after his return to office. It is interesting, because we see in it the germ of his policy as to Italy, which found so many detractors and defenders. He foresaw that if Rome remained as it was, a French army would eventually enter it. He foresaw also, that if Italy remained as it was, a war between France and Austria was inevitable :

:

Foreign Office: July 30, 1846.

My dear John Russell,-I send you a copy of the Memorandum which, in 1831, was presented to the Pope on behalf of the five Powers, and which was defeated by adverse influences, although the recommendations which it contains were entirely approved by Cardinal Bernetti and others in authority at Rome.

The matter is really one of great and serious importance, and has bearings much more extensive than at first sight might appear. Italy is the weak part of Europe, and the next war that breaks out in Europe will probably arise out of Italian