[ 810.] Nécessité que l'intervention fût au besoin coërcitive.-Les objections ne sauraient donc tomber que sur les formes seules dans lesquelles il convenait de faire agréer à la Porte les arrangements stipulés par le Traité de Londres. Dira-t-on qu'il eût été préférable d'engager le gouvernement turc à les offrir aux Grecs de son propre m uvement? Si une telle opinion a pu dans le temps paraître plausible, 1 évènement à prouvé depuis combien elle reposait sur une base fragile. La résistance que la Porte oppose encore jusqu'à ce moment aux intentions bienfaisantes des Puissances en sa faveur, a démontré de la manière la plus irréfragable, qu'une attitude énergique de leur part était seule capable de la faire consentir à son propre salut, et que le principe de l'intervention une fois admis, cette intervention devait être comminatoire et au besoin coërcitive: qu'en effet, il y allait de la dignité des Puissances intervenantes de poursuivre jusqu'au bout la résolution qu'elles avaient prise, et que la Russie, en particulier, n'aurait pu reculer devant ses conséquences, sans compromettre les résultats que lui avait valus la négociation d'Akerman, et renoncer à la considération que cette négociation lui avait acquise tant auprès de la Porte Ottomane qu'aux yeux de l'Europe entière. C'est donc encore une absolue nécessité qui après avoir légitimé le Traité de Londres, a de même légitimé les clauses comminatoires qu'il renferme et les mesures coërcitives qui en ont été la conséquence. Mais ces clauses et ces mesures ont été conçues dans les intentions les plus conciliantes; graduées avec ménagement l'une après l'autre ; tenues en réserve jusqu'à la dernière extrémité; et si l'on parcourt les annales de la politique, on trouvera difficilement une circonstance où l'emploi de la force ait eu lieu avec plus de modération. Conclusion.-Nous voici parvenus au terme de la tâche qu'on s'est proposée dans ce Mémoire; et l'on espère avoir prouvé que l'intervention dans les affaires du Levant, et les formes adoptées pour sa mise à exécution, offraient les sculs moyens par lesquels il fut donné aux Puissances d'éviter la guerre si elle peut l'être, et de conjurer les périls d'une situation qu'elles n'ont point cherchée, mais que les siècles tenaient depuis longtemps en réserve, et qui a été imposée à la politique moderne par la plus inévitable des lois, celle de la nécessité. L'avenir est dans les mains de Dieu. Si, malgré les mesures arrêtées par la prévoyance, des complications inattendues devaient éclore dans le Levant, le Traité de Londres aurait du moins servi à en circonscrire la sphère, à en limiter la durée, à en concentrer l'action sur un seul point de l'Europe, et cet évènement n'aurait servi qu'à donner une nouvelle preuve de cette vérité de tous les temps. C'est qu'il est pour les gouvernements, comme pour les individus, des positions indépendantes de la volonté humaine, où n'ayant que l'option des maux, c'est encore un prix glorieux que d'avoir su choisir le moindre. MY DEAR HILL, To Lord Hill. London, 1st February, 1828. You will have heard that, in consequence of my being employed in the government, I have been under the painful necessity of resigning my office of Commander-in-Chief. I certainly did not contemplate this necessity as being paramount when I undertook for his Majesty the service of forming his government. But even if I had, I don't think that I could have declined endeavouring to perform the service, and it is useless to regret that I did not make the retention of my office a condition without which I would not serve his Majesty as he desired I should. In consequence of my resignation I have been under the necessity of considering of an arrangement to fill the office which I have held; and I have naturally turned towards you. There is no doubt that your appointment will be highly satisfactory to the country as well as to the army; but it has occurred to some members of the government, that considering the place in which you stand on the list, it is better, in relation to the senior officers of the army, some of whom have high pretensions, that you should be Senior General upon the Staff, performing the duties of Commander-in-Chief, than Commander-in-Chief. The only real difference is in the pay, which is not of much importance to you. The late Lord Amherst was never Commander-in-Chief, but always Senior General on the Staff. The Duke of York filled the same situation during the first year of his command. If this proposition should be agreeable to you, let me know by return of post, and come to town as soon as possible, keeping the matter secret until I shall have seen you. I need not assure you that if you should accept this offer, I will give you every assistance in my power to facilitate the performance of your duties. Believe me ever yours sincerely, WELLINGTON. To the King. [ 811.] London, 2nd February, 1828. Mr. Peel will write to your Majesty respecting the desirableness that your Majesty should name an early day for receiving the Recorder's Report. I have likewise to submit to your Majesty the necessity that there should be a council between this time and Tuesday next, in order that Mr. Frankland Lewis may be sworn of your Majesty's Privy Council, previous to his re-election to the House [ 812.] of Commons. If, therefore, your Majesty should fix upon a later date than Tuesday for the Recorder's Report, I request your Majesty's permission to assemble a Privy Council at Windsor on Tuesday, for the purpose to which I have above referred. Which is humbly submitted for your Majesty's pleasure by your Majesty's most devoted subject and servant, WELLINGTON. To the King. London, 2nd February, 1828. Your Majesty is aware of the bad state of the health of the Marquess of Anglesey, and of the relief which he receives from the attendance of Dr. Laffan. It is very desirable that this physician should accompany him to, and attend him in, Ireland; to which I am informed that he would not object, more particularly if such an interest was manifested on the part of your Majesty for his continued attendance upon the Marquess of Anglesey as would justify him in withdrawing himself from his attendance upon his other patients in this country. Under these circumstances it is humbly submitted for your Majesty's most gracious pleasure that Dr. Laffan may be created a baronet, By your Majesty's most dutiful subject and servant, Dean Phillpotts to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY LORD DUKE, British Hotel, Jermyn Street, 2nd February, 1828. After the decided opinion expressed by your Grace, I should be ashamed to trespass on your very valuable time by a single sentence more on the subject of my last note. I take the liberty of enclosing a string of documents to prove that Roman Catholics may, without any violence to their conscience, engage to maintain the civil rights and privileges of the Church of England. To-morrow morning, I will take my chance of finding your Grace disengaged during your breakfast, and I will bring with me some documents to establish the wisdom and necessity of your Grace's intended measure to prohibit the assumption of the titles of sees, &c., by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and priesthood. I am, my Lord Duke, with the greatest respect, your Grace's obliged and most faithful servant, HENRY PHILLPOTTS. [ENCLOSURE.] ON THE AMENDED OATH, and the requirement of an engagement from the Roman Catholics to defend the temporal rights of the Established Church. If any difficulties or objections be anticipated, it may be well to remember :1st. The offer made by the English Roman Catholics* in 1791, previous to the passing of the bill for their relief, as cited in Bishop Horsley's speech in their favour, May 31, 1791. "They say that they think themselves 'bound by an oath, which they have already taken, and that they are ready to strengthen the obligation by a new oath, to defend, to the utmost of their power, the civil and ecclesiastical establishment of the country, even though all the Catholic Powers in Europe, with the Pope himself at their head, were to levy war against the King, for the express purpose of establishing the Roman Catholic religion.'" 2nd. The declaration of the Irish Roman Catholicst put forth in 1792, at the time petitions were presented to Parliament, for the concessions that were made at that time. "We desire that no Catholic shall be permitted to vote at any election for members to serve in Parliament, until he shall previously take an oath to defend, to the utmost of his power, the arrangement of property in this country, as established by the different acts of attainder and settlement." (In this, I apprehend, the Church property must be included). Again, we are ready, in the most solemn manner, to declare that we will not exercise that privilege" (the elective franchise) "to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion, or Protestant government in this country.”‡ 3rd. The petition § of the principal Irish Roman Catholic laity in 1805, subscribed by six peers, three baronets, and a numerous body of the first commoners. In this petition, they take credit for having "solemnly sworn, that they will not exercise any privilege, to which they are or may become entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in Ireland." They further "most explicitly declare, that they do not seek or wish, in the remotest degree, to injure or encroach upon the rights, privileges, immunities, possessions, or revenues, appertaining to the bishops and clergy of the Protestant religion, as by law established, or to the churches committed to their charge, or to any of them." All these precedents and documents show, that there is no objection, in principle, on the part of the Roman Catholics, to the enactment of the strongest oaths to be taken by them in defence of the civil establishment of the Protestant Church. But, unfortunately, the history of Ireland, during the last few years, shows how utterly worthless such oaths are, as restraints on the Irish Roman Catholics. To the petition of 1805, cited above, which takes credit for the petitioners, on account of the oaths already taken by them for the defence of the Church, and which makes such ample promises, to the same effect, is subscribed the name of “Daniel O'Connell, Dublin,” a man, who, in spite of all his vaunted oaths and promises, has laboured incessantly for years past to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion, and to bring destruction on the Protestant Church esta *Offer of English Roman Catholics in 1791. + Declaration of Irish Roman Catholics in 1792. This is cited from Dr. Majauri's evidence before Commons, 1825, p. 269. § Irish petition of 1805. The petition was printed, with notes, by Keating and Brown, 1805. blishment. In one of his very last speeches before he left Ireland, he vaunted the example of America, as a country without a Church establishment. I repeat, therefore, that proper and decent as it is to amend the oath of Roman Catholics, it is, so far as the Irish are concerned, a provision of very little value. The Earl of Westmorland to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. DEAR DUKE, Hastings, Sunday, 3rd February, 1828. I have sent you the papers with many thanks; I hope you had no inconvenience from the delay, but there was no post yesterday. I think the papers perfectly satisfactory to prove that in our Cabinet there was no idea of force, and Mr. Canning's last letter to Count Lieven is as corroborative as any other of the papers. There is an observation in Lord Bathurst's handwriting on your Memorandum at Petersburg, which says: "This will be argued as a support of the Treaty." But in my judgment Lord Bathurst sees that in a wrong view; the words are "the acceptance of the mediation, as the single and indispensable condition by which a war with Russia may be avoided." This was during the negotiation at Akerman; but I do not see how telling the Turks that such was the determination of Russia previous to the adjustment of the differences at Akerman at all implicates you or us in the approbation or countenance of such a result, when the whole tenor of your correspondence is to avert it. Yours sincerely, WESTMORLAND. [813.] To the King. London, 4th February, 1828. I submit to your Majesty a letter which I have received from Lord Hertford, in which he recites one which he had received from the Duke of Devonshire, informing his Lordship that your Majesty had written to his Grace and informed him that your Majesty had obtained for him the Order of St. Andrew of Russia. It likewise appears from Lord Hertford's letter that the Emperor had intimated to his Lordship that his Imperial Majesty was disposed to confer that honour upon him, and was prevented by your Majesty's regulations, which had likewise prevented his Imperial Majesty from offering it to the Duke of Devonshire. There is no doubt that your Majesty's regulations do prevent the grant of permission to any of your Majesty's diplomatic |