No. VII.--Note from the prince de Starhemberg to Mr. Secretary Canning, dated London, Jan. 12, 1808, Received the 13th. The undersigned has the honour to inform his excellency the secretary of state for the foreign department, that in consequence of orders from his court, the present circumstances oblige him to demand passports for himself and all the individuals of the Austrian mission at London. The undersigned purposes to make use of them as soon as he shall have received from the French government the passports which he demanded by the messenger whom he dispatched yesterday. The undersigned, &c. LOUIS PRINCE DE STARHemberg. No. VIII.-Letter from Mr. Secretary Canning to the prince de Starhemberg, dated Jan. 13, 1808. Sir, Having received information that Mr. Adair has actually quitted Vienna, in consequence of an intimation from the Austrian government; I have the honour of requesting that you will have the goodness to acquaint me what is the latest date, at which you have reason to believe that Mr. Adair was still at Vienna. I have, &c. GEORGE CANNING. No. 9.-Note from the prince de Starhemberg to Mr. Secretary Canning, dated London, Jan. 13, 1808. In answer to the note which the undersigned has just received from his excellency the secretary of state, he has the honour to inform his excellency, that the last dispatches which he has received from his court, were of the 30th of October, and that no mention was made in them of the departure of Mr. Adair. The undersigned &c. LOUIS PRINCE DE STARHEMBERG. No. X.-Note from Mr. Secretary Canning to the prince de Starhemberg, dated Jan. 13, 1808. The undersigned, his majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, has the honour to inclose to the prince de Starhemberg, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from his majesty the emperor of Austria, the passports which he, has demanded for himself and for the Austrian mission at this court; having it at the same time in command from the king his master, to express his majesty's deep regret, that the circumstances of the time, and the orders of his court, should have imposed on the prince de Starhemberg the necessity of demanding them.-The undersigned &c. GEORGE CANNING, PAPERS RELATIVE TO RUSSIA. No. I.-Note from General Budberg to his 'excellency lord Granville Leveson Gower, dated June 1807. My Lord, Accept my best thanks for the promptitude with which you had the goodness to transmit to me the dispatches which I have received, together with your excellency's letter of the 11th (23rd) instant. The reports which your lordship mentions are well founded. On the 9th (21st) instant, an armistice was concluded, which was yesterday ratified by both parties. The two armies remain nearly in the same positions, and hostilities will not recom-' mence until a month after the denunciation of the armistice. Sensible that is of the utmost importance to you to transmit this intelligence as speedily as possible to your court, I lose not an instant in re-dispatching the messenger whom your excellency has sent to me.-In respect, my lord, to the interview which you request of me, it would give me great pleasure to comply with your wishes if it were possible for me to foresee at what place the emperor will stay even for a few days; but as we are still upon our journey, I must wait for the first opportunity of taking his imperial majesty's commands, in order to invite you to rejoin me, where I may then be. I have the honour to be, &c. A. DE BUDBERG. No. II.-Note from his excellency lord General,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of the intelligence of the armistice which was signed on the 21st of this month, and although I implicitly confide in your excellency's assurances, I cannot pass over in silence the prospect of a solid and per manent peace, which, from the tenour of your publick letter to the governor of Riga, your excellency appears to believe will be the result of that measure. The reciprocal engagements between the courts of London and St. Petersburgh, the known principles and the firmness of his imperial Majesty, the verbal assurances of the emperor which I have just transmitted to the king my master, were so many pledges, that it is not now a question (according to public rumour) to negotiate for a separate peace, but for a general one; and whatever doubts I may have entertained on this subject, your excellency's letter to general Buxhovden has completely done away. The just and enlightened was authorized in believing, that by continuing to sacrifice himself for others, be would ultimately incur a risk of compromising the safety of his own empire, without being enabled to hope that he might ever fulfil the original object of this war.The conduct which your government has held during these latter times is moreover of a nature completely to justify the deter manner in which your excellency views the situation of Europe, convinces me that you could not expect a peace would be either firm or lasting, which did not include every power at war,and which was not founded upon an equitable basis. My court will be ready to concur in negotiations so formed, since it made war for the sole purpose of obtaining a secure and permanent peace. But your excellency will nevertheless permit me to ex-mination which the emperor has now taken. press all the regret I feel, at being still unable to make known to my government the basis, upon which it is proposed to ground negotiations. At the moment when negotiation is carrying on with the enemy, it is most essential that unlimited confidence should subsist between the allied powers. Upon this principle it is that the court of London has ever acted, and it would be, superfluous to recall to your excellency the eagerness testified by the British ministry last year to communicate to the Russian-The pecuniary succours which England ambassador the whole of the correspondence with the French government. I wait with impatience your excellency's summons to repair to his majesty. Nothing can afford me greater pleasure than to repeat in person the assurances of the esteem, and high consideration with which I have the honour to be, &c. G. L. GOWER. No. III.-Note from general Budberg to his excellency lord Granville Leveson Gower, dated Tilsit, 13th (30th) June❘ *1807. Sir, and Ambassador, I have received the letter which your excellency did me the honour of addressing to me yesterday; and, having laid it before the emperor, my august master, I hasten to transmit to you the answer which his imperial majesty has commanded me to return to it.-The firmness and perseverance with which his majesty during eight months maintained and defended a cause which he had reason to suppose common to all sovereigns, are the most certain pledges of the intentions which animated him, as well as of the loyalty and purity of his principles.- Never would his imperial majesty have thought of deviating from that system which he has hitherto pursued, if he had been supported by a real assistance on the part of his allies. -But having, from the separation of Austria and of England, found himself reduced to his own forces, having to combat with the forces of France united to the immense means of which she has the disposal, and in the critical position at which affairs had arrived, his majesty The diversion on the continent which England has so long since promised has not to this day taken place; and if even, according to the latest advices from London, it would appear that the British ministry has at length decided on ordering the departure of 10,000 men to Pomerania, that succour is in no wise proportioned, either to the hopes which we were authorised in entertaining, or to the importance of the object to which these troops were intended to be destined. constantly afforded to the powers of the continent at war with France, might in some degree have supplied the want of English troops. Not only did the British government decline facilitating the loan which the imperial court had intended to negotiate at London; but when it at length decided on offering some subsidy to the continental powers, it appeared that the sum destined for this purpose, so far from meeting the exigencies of the allies, would not even have covered the indispensable expences of Prussia.-In fine,the use which has been made of the British forces in the Mediterranean has not been more conformable than the rest to the unity and the connection with which it was indispensable to act in the operations of Russia and England. In lieu of attempting an expedition on the continent of Italy, with a view of reconquering the kingdom of Naples, or else in lieu of uniting these forces to those of Russia which were designed to compel the Porte to a reasonable peace, one part of the English troops stationed in Sicily directed their course towards an entirely different destination, which the British government had not even judged proper to communicate to the court of Russia. It is a point not to be contested, that, by following one or the other of the courses which I have just cited, the English troops in the Mediterranean would have been of an infinitely greater utility to the common cause, by compelling the enemy to divide his forces, which would have enabled Russia to have sent to her main army those reinforcements, which she was under the necessity of employing on the Danube, to support her army destined to make head against the Turkish forces which might be collected in that quarter. From this statement, I am willing to believe that your excellency will be persuaded, that in such a conjuncture, it only remained for the emperor my master to look to the glory and to the security of his empire, and that if the present crisis does not produce every result which might be expected, if the powers equally interested had displayed vigour in the same proportion as they have exhibited tardiness and irresolution in all their operations, no blame can on this account be attached to Russia.-But, at the same time, the emperor my master offers his mediation to his Britannick majesty to make his peace with France, having the certainty that it will be accepted by the latter power. I have the honour to be, &c. A. DE Budberg. No. IV.-Note from M. Alopeus to Mr. Secretary Canning,dated London, 20th July (1st August) 1807. The undersigned, minister plenipotentiary from his majesty the emperor of all the Russias to his Britannick majesty, has received the orders of his court to notify to the British ministry, that a treaty of peace was concluded at Tilsit on the 25th June (7th July) between Russia and France. -His imperial majesty of all the Russias, having on this occasion, proposed his mediation, for the purpose of negotiating and concluding likewise a treaty of peace between England and France, and the emperor Napoleon having, by the 13th article of the afore-mentioned treaty of peace, accepted that mediation, the object of the present note is to offer it in like manner to his majesty the king of Great Britain.-Long since acquainted with the pacifick sentiments of his Britannick majesty, the emperor of all the Russias flatters himself the more, that he will embrace this opportunity of restoring peace to all nations, and of insuring repose to the present generation; since that, in many conversations which his imperial majesty has held with the emperor of the French, he has had reason to be convinced, that he is sincerely desirous of the re-establishment of a maritime peace, upon equitable and honourable principles.-The emperor of all the Russias not only offers his interposition for the attainment of so desirable a result; but he would even be ready to promise the support of all the forces of his empire, for insuring the performance of VOL. X. all the stipulations of peace, when once it shall have taken place between England and France. By this guarantee, his Britannick majesty will obtain that which he has ever appeared to desire, and may without distrust follow the bent of his humane and pacifick sentiments.-The undersigned, in requesting Mr. Canning, principal secretary of state of foreign affairs, to apprize him as soon as possible of the determination which the cabinet of St. James's may judge expedient to take in consequence of this offer of mediation on the part of his august master, avails himself of the opportunity of renewing to his excellency the assurances of his highest consideration. M. ALOPEUS. No. V.-Note from Mr. Secretary Can ning to M. Alopeus, dated 5th August 1807. The undersigned, his Britannick majesty's secretary of state for foreign affairs, has lost no time in laying before the king his master the official note presented to him by M. Alopeus, minister plenipotentiary of his majesty the emperor of all the Russias; in which M. Alopeus, by order of his court, notifies to the British government the conclusion at Tilsit, on the 25th June (7th July) of a treaty of peace between Russia and France, and announces at the same time, the offer of the mediation of his imperial majesty, for the conclusion of a treaty of peace between Great Britain and France, and the acceptance of that offer by the French government. The undersigned has it in commaud from the king his master to declare, that the emperor of Russia does justice to the sentiments of the king, when his imperial majesty expresses his reliance on the king's disposition to contribute to the restoration of a general peace, such as may ensure the repose of Europe. Ample proofs of that disposition have recently been afforded by his majesty, as well in the answer returned, in his majesty's name, to the offer of the mediation of the emperor of Austria, as in the willingness expressed by his majesty to accede to the convention concluded at Bartenlein, on the 23d of April, between the emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia, and in the instructions which the undersigned transmitted by his majesty's command, upon the first intelli gence of the late disastrous events in Poland, to his majesty's ambassador at the court of St. Petersburgh, by which instructions that ambassador was directed to signify to the ministers of the emperor of Russia, his majesty's perfect readiness to I enter in concert with his august ally, into any negotiation which the emperor of Russia might think it expedient to open for the restoration of a general peace. These sentiments and this disposition his majesty continues invariably to maintain.--The undersigned is, therefore, commanded by his majesty, to assure M. Alopeus, that his majesty waits with the utmost solicitude for the communication of the articles of the treaty concluded at Tilsit, and for the statement of those equitable and honourable principles, upon which his imperial majesty expresses his belief that France is desirous of concluding a peace with Great Britain. His majesty trusts that the character of the stipulations of the treaty of Tilsit, and of the principles upon which France is represented as being ready to negotiate, may be found to be such as to afford to his majesty a just hope of the attainment of a secure and honourable peace. In that case his majesty will readily avail himself of the offer of the emperor of Russia's mediation.-But until his majesty shall have received these important and necessary communications, it is obviously impossible that the undersigned should be authorized to return a more specific answer to the note presented by M. Alopeus.-The undersigned, &c. GEORGE CANNING. DECLARATION OF THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, RELATIVE TO THE WAR WITH DENmark, dated sept. 25, 1807. His majesty owes to himself and to Europe a frank exposition of the motives which have dictated his late measures in the Baltick. His majesty has delayed this exposition only in the hope of that more amicable arrangement with the court of Denmark, which it was his majesty's first wish and endeavour to obtain; for which he was ready to make great efforts and great sacrifices; and of which he never lost sight even in the moment of the most decisive hostility. Deeply as the disappointment of this hope has been felt by his majesty, he has the consolation of reflecting that no exertion was left untried on his part to produce a different result. And while he laments the cruel necessity which has obliged him to have recourse to acts of hostility against a nation, with which it was his majesty's most earnest desire to have established the relations of common interest and alliance; his majesty feels confident that, in the eyes of Europe and of the world, the justification of his conduct will be found in the commanding and indispensable duty, paramount to all others amongst the obligations of a sovereign, of providing, while there was yet time, for the immediate security of his people--His majesty had received the most positive information of the determination of the present ruler of France to occupy, with a military force, the territory of Holstein:-for the purpose of excluding Great Britain from all her accustomed channels of communication with the continent; of inducing or compelling the court of Denmark to close the passage of the Sound against the British commerce and navigation; and of availing himself of the aid of the Danish marine for the invasion of Great Britain and of Ireland.Confident as his majesty was of the authenticity of the sources from which this intelligence was derived, and confirmed in the credit, which he gave to it, as well by the notorious and repeated declarations of the enemy, and by his recent occupation of the towns and territories of other neutral states, as by the preparations actually made for collecting a hostile force upon the frontiers of his Danish majesty's continental dominions, his majesty would yet willingly have forborne to act upon this intelligence, until the complete and practical disclosure of the plan had made manifest to all the world the absolute necessity of resisting it. His majesty did forbear, as long as there could be a doubt of the urgency of the danger, or a hope of an effectual counterac tion to it, in the means or in the dispositions of Denmark.-But his majesty could not but recollect that when, at the close of the former war, the court of Denmark engaged in a hostile confederacy against Great Britain, the apology offered by that court for so unjustifiable an abandonment of a neutrality which his majesty had never ceased to respect, was founded on its avowed inability to resist the operation of external influence, and the threats of a formidable neighbouring power. His majesty could not but compare the degree of influence, which at that time determined the decision of the court of Denmark, in violation of positive engagements, solemnly contracted but six months before; with the increased operation which France had now the means of giving to the same principle of intimidation, with kingdoms prostrate at her feet, and with the population of nations under her banners.-Nor was the danger less imninent than certain. Already the army destined for the invasion of Holstein was to one universal usurpation, and of combining them by terror or by force in a confederacy against the maritime rights and political existence of this kingdom, it became necessary for his majesty to anticipate the success of a system, not more fatal to his interests than to those of the powers who were destined to be the instruments of its execution. It was time that the effects of that dread which France has inspired into the nations of the world, should be counteracted by an exertion of the power of Great Britain, called for by the exigency of the crisis, and proportioned to the magnitude of the danger.-Notwithstanding the declaration of war on the part of the Danish Government, it still remains for Denmark to determine, whether war shall continue between the two nations. His majesty still proffers an amicable arrangement. He is anxious to sheathe the sword which he has been most reluctantly compelled to draw. And he is ready to demonstrate to Denmark and to the world, that having acted solely upon the sense of what was due to the security of his own dominions, he is not desirous, from any other motive, or for any object of advantage or aggrandisement, to carry measures of hostility beyond the limits of the necessity which has produced them. assembling on the violated territory of neu- too far advanced towards its accomplishtral Hamburgh. And, Holstein once occu-ment, of subjecting the powers of Europe pied, the island of Zealand was at the mercy of France, and the navy of Denmark at her disposal.--It is true, a British force might have found its way into the Baltick, and checked for a time the movements of the Danish marine. But the season was approaching when that precaution would no longer have availed; and when his majesty's fleet must have retired from that sea, and permitted France, in undisturbed security, to accumulate the means of offence against his majesty's dominions.--Yet, even under these circumstances, in calling upon Denmark for the satisfaction and security which his majesty was compelled to require, and in demanding the only pledge by which that security could be rendered effectualthe temporary possession of that fleet, which was the chief inducement to France for forcing Denmark into hostilities with Great Britain;—His majesty accompanied this demand with the offer of every condition which could tend to reconcile it to the interests and to the feelings of the court of Denmark. It was for Denmark herself to state the terms and stipulations which she might require.—If Denmark was apprehensive that the surrender of her fleet would be resented by France as an act of connivance; his majesty had prepared a force of such formidable magnitude, as must have made concession justifiable even in the estimation of France, by rendering resistance altogether unavailing.-If Denmark was really prepared to resist the demands of France, and to maintain her independence; his majesty proffered his cooperation for her defence - naval, military and pecuniary aid; the guarantee of her European territories, and the security and extension of her colonial possessions.-That the sword has been drawn in the execution of a service indispensable to the safety of his majesty's dominions, is matter of sincere and painful regret to his majesty. That the state and circumstances of the world are such as to have required and justified the measures of self-preservation, to which his majesty has found himself under the necessity of resorting, is a truth which his majesty deeply deplores, but for which he is in no degree responsible.-His majesty has long carried on a most unequal contest of scrupulous forbearance against unrelenting violence and oppression. But that forbearance bas its bounds. When the dealready but sign was openly avowed, and DECLARATION OF THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN AGAINST RUSSIA, DATED DECEMBER 18, 1807. The declaration issued at St. Petersburgh by his majesty the emperor of all the Russias, has excited in his majesty's mind the strongest sensations of astonishment and regret.-His majesty was not unaware of the nature of those secret engagements which had been imposed upon Russia in the conferences of Tilsit. But his majesty had entertained the hope, that a review of the transactions of that unfortunate negotiation, and a just estimate of its effects upon the glory of the Russian name, and upon the interests of the Russian empire, would have induced his imperial majesty to extricate himself from the embarrassment of those new counsels and comections which he had adopted in a moment of despondency and alarm; and to return to a policy more congenial to the principles, which he has so invariably professed, and more conducive to the honour of his crown, and to the prosperity of his dominions.--- |