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seriously endangered by the internal transactions of another state. But as they regard the assumption of such right as only to be justified by the strongest necessity, and to be limited and regulated thereby, they cannot admit that this right can receive a general and indiscriminate application to all revolutionary movements, without reference to their immediate bearing upon some particular state or states, or be made prospectively the basis of an alliance. They regard its exercise as an exception to general principles, of the greatest value and importance, and as one that only properly grows out of the circumstances of the special case; but they at the same time consider that exceptions of this description never can, without the utmost danger, be so far reduced to rule, as to be incorporated into the ordinary diplomacy of states, or into the institutes of the law of nations.

As it appears that certain of the ministers of the three Courts have already communicated this circular dispatch to the Courts to which they are accredited, I leave it to your discretion to make corresponding communication on the part of your Government, regulating your language in conformity to the principles laid down in the present dispatch. You will take care, however, in making such communication, to do justice, in the name of your Government, to the purity of intention, which has no doubt actuated the august Courts in the adoption of the course of measures which they are pursuing. The difference of sentiment which prevails between them and the Court of London on this matter, you may declare, can make no alteration whatever in the cordiality and harmony of the alliance on any other subject, or abate their common zeal in giving the most complete effect to all their existing engagements.

I am,

&c.

CASTLEREAGH.

4. DECLARATION OF THE MINISTERS AND PLENIPOTENTIARIES OF THE EMPERORS OF AUSTRIA AND RUSSIA AND OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA BY ORDER OF THEIR MONARCHS AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE CONFERENCE OF LAIBACH, MAY 12, 1821.5

Europe knows the motives for the resolution taken by the allied Sovereigns to snuff out conspiracies and put an end to the troubles which

Translated from Archives diplomatiques pour l'histoire du tems et des états, II, 390-397; 8 British and Foreign State Papers, 1201; Angeberg, op. cit., 1811.

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threaten the existence of this general peace, whose establishment has cost so much in effort and sacrifice.

At the very moment their generous resolution was accomplished in the Kingdom of Naples, a rebellion of a still more odious character-if that was possible-broke out in Piedmont.16

Neither the bonds which for so many centuries bound the reigning House of Savoy to its people nor the benefits of an enlightened administration, under a wise prince and paternal laws, nor the sad perspective of the evils to which the country had just been exposed were able to restrain the designs of the perverts.

The plan of a general overturn was traced. In this vast combination against the repose of nations, the conspirators of Piedmont had their assigned rôle. They were hastening to fulfil it.

The throne and the state have been betrayed, oaths violated, military honor contemned, and the forgetting of all duties has speedily brought the scourge of all disorders.

Everywhere the evil has presented the same character, everywhere a single spirit directed these baleful revolutions.

Not being able to find a plausible motive to justify them, nor national support to sustain them, it is in false doctrines that the authors of these overturns seek a defense, it is on criminal associations [Carbonari] that they found a more criminal hope. For them the salutary empire of laws is a yoke that it is necessary to break. They renounce the sentiments which inspire true love of country, and, putting in place of known duties the arbitrary and indefinite pretexts of a universal change in the constituted principles of society, they prepare calamities for the world without end.

The allied Sovereigns have recognized the dangers of this conspiracy in all their extent, but they have penetrated at the same time the real weakness of the conspirators through the veil of appearances and declamations. Experience has confirmed their presentiments. The resist

16 The Piedmontese army on March 10, 1821, declared that it "could not abandon the King to Austrian influence," which "impeded the good intentions of the Prince to satisfy his peoples, who desire to live under the reign of laws and to have their rights and interests assured by a liberal constitution." They looked to Victor Emmanuel to realize these intentions, in which case they would "defend the person of the King and the dignity of his crown against any enemy." Victor Emmanuel abdicated on March 13, Charles Albert of Savoy, Prince of Carignan, becoming regent on the same day and simultaneously promulgating the Spanish constitution of 1812. (Archives diplomatiques, II, 16-35.) With Austrian aid the ensuing revolution was ended on April 10-11 by the occupation of Turin and Alessandria.

ance which legitimate authority has encountered has amounted to nothing, and the crime has disappeared before the sword of justice.

It is not to accidental causes, it is not even to the men who fared so badly on the day of combat that we can attribute the ease of such a success. It rests on a principle more consoling and more worthy of consideration.

Providence has struck terror to consciences so culpable, and the disapproval of the peoples, whose fate is compromised by the makers of trouble, has made the arms fall from their hands.

Solely intended to combat and to repress rebellion, the allied forces, far from supporting any interest of their own, have come to the aid of subjugated peoples, and the peoples have considered its employment as an aid in favor of their liberty and not as an attack against their independence. From that time war ceased; from that time the states which suffered the revolt have been no more than states friendly to the powers, which have never desired anything but their tranquility and their well being.

In the midst of these grave events and in a situation so delicate, the allied Sovereigns in accord with their Majesties the King of the Two Sicilies and the King of Sardinia have considered it indispensable to take the temporary measures of precaution indicated by prudence and prescribed by the common safety. The allied troops, whose presence was necessary for the re-establishment of order, have been stationed at suitable places, with the sole view to protecting the free exercise of legitimate authority and to aiding the preparation under this agis of the benefits which must efface the traces of evils so great.

The justice and disinterestedness which have presided over the deliberations of the allied Monarchs will always regulate their policy. In the future as in the past they will always have the purpose of preserving the independence and the rights of each state, as they are recognized and defined by existing treaties. The result of even a movement so dangerous will still be, under the auspices of Providence, the confirmation of the peace which the enemies of the peoples seek to destroy and the consolidation of an order of things which will assure to the nations their repose and their prosperity.

Penetrated by these sentiments, the allied Sovereigns in closing the conferences of Laibach have desired to announce to the world the principles which have guided them. They are determined never to recede from them, and all the friends of good will see and constantly find in their union an assured guaranty against the attempts of disturbers.

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It is with this purpose that their imperial and royal Majesties have ordered their plenipotentiaries to sign and publish the present declaration.

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5. FINAL CIRCULAR OF THE CONGRESS OF VERONA ADDRESSED BY ORDER OF THE THREE SOVEREIGNS OF AUSTRIA, PRUSSIA AND RUSSIA, TO THEIR LEGATIONS NEAR DIFFERENT COURTS."

Sir:

VERONA, December 14, 1822.

You were informed by the documents sent to you on the closing of the conferences of Laibach in the month of May, 1821, that the reunion of the Monarchs and their cabinets would take place in the course of the year 1822, and that they would then consider the term to be fixed to the measures which, on the proposals of the Courts of Naples and Turin, and with the consent of all the Courts of Italy, had been judged necessary to reaffirm the tranquility of the peninsula after the baleful events of the years 1820 and 1821. This reunion has just taken place, and we are therefore going to inform you of its principal results.

....

After the convention signed at Novara on July 24, 1821,18 the occupation of a military line in Piedmont by a corps of auxiliary troops had been finally fixed to last a year, subject to examination by the reunion of 1822, if the situation of the country should permit its cessation or render its extension necessary. It has been recognized that the aid of an allied force was no longer necessary for maintaining the tranquility of Piedmont.... And it has been decreed by a new convention that the departure of these troops from Piedmont shall commence December 31 of this year and will be definitely ended by the transfer of the fortress of Alessandria on September 30, 1823.

Archives diplomatiques pour l'histoire du tems et des états, III, 538-544; Comte d'Angeberg (Leonard Boreyko Chodzko), Le Congrès de Vienne et les traités de 1815, 1817; 10 British and Foreign State Papers, 921-925.

18 Archives diplomatiques, II, 180–193.

On the other hand, his Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies has declared to the three Courts participating in the convention signed at Naples October 18 that the actual state of his country would permit him to propose a reduction in the number of the auxiliary troops stationed in different parts of his kingdom. The allied Sovereigns have not hesitated to lend themselves to this proposal, and the army of occupation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies will be reduced to 17,000 men in the shortest possible time.

Thus is realized, to the extent that events have responded to the desires of the Monarchs, the declaration made at the close of the congress of Laibach: "That, far from wishing to prolong beyond the limits of a strict necessity their intervention in Italian affairs, their Majesties desired sincerely that the state of things which this painful duty imposed upon them should cease as soon as possible and would never occur again." Thus vanished the false alarms, the hostile interpretations, the sinister predictions which ignorance and bad faith had caused to resound through Europe in order to mislead the opinion of the peoples upon the frank and loyal intentions of the Monarchs....

The purpose of the Congress of Verona, as designed by a positive engagement, would have been fulfilled by the resolutions adopted for the relief of Italy. But the Sovereigns and Cabinets in assembly have not been able to refrain from regarding two serious complications whose development had constantly occupied them since the meeting of Laibach.

An event of great importance broke out toward the end of this last meeting. What the revolutionary spirit began in the western peninsula, what it tried in Italy, it has succeeded in accomplishing at the eastern extremity of Europe. At the time when the military revolts of Naples and Turin yielded to the approach of a regular force, the brand of insurrection was hurled into the midst of the Ottoman Empire [Greek revolution].... The Monarchs, determined on repulsing the principle of revolt in whatever place or under whatever form it might show itself, hastened to punish it with an equal and unanimous reproof....

Other events worthy of all solicitude on the part of the Monarchs have fixed their attention on the deplorable situation of the western peninsula of Europe. Spain undergoes the fate reserved for all countries which have the misfortune to seek good in ways which never lead to it. To-day it describes the fatal circle of its revolution, a revolution which deceived or perverted men pretend to represent as a benefit, even as the triumph of an enlightened century. . . .

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