I would now add that I received at the same time a communication from the Under-Secretary Mr. Hammond in your Lordship's name, stating that it was desired the messenger should return immediately to Turin. I, therefore, had not occasion to direct your Lordship's attention to the many previous despatches I had written to the Earl of Clarendon on points connected with this affair. But having since had an opportunity of examining the most important of my previous communications on this subject, I should be doing great injustice to the Duke of Modena, if I did not request your Lordship's special attention to my despatches of August 23, 1856, and November 25, 1857, giving an account of different conversations I had with His Royal Highness. I shall not further trouble your Lordship with any opinion of my own on the many very important questions raised by Count Cavour's note. It seems to me better, in the actual circumstances of my position here, that my successor should, under instructions from your Lordship, give to these questions his early attention, uninfluenced by any observations of mine, which now must necessarily be incomplete; but I am convinced your Lordship will feel that such matters can only be treated in the same spirit as in those previous communications with the Duke of Modena, to which I have referred. However ready the Duke of Modena may be to listen to friendly counsel, as to the evil effect of any abuse in the exercise of the power conferred by a state of siege, supposing such abuses to exist, yet we can never forget that His Royal Highness is an independent Sovereign, and as such owes no account whatever, either to the Government of Sardinia or of England, and as little certainty to the Government of France with reference to the exceptional measures of a repressive character he may consider necessary for the public security against an organized system of political assassination. I have, &c. The Earl of Malmesbury. NORMANBY. P.S.-It seems probable that it escaped the notice of Count Cavour in making the communication he announces, to Paris, that the State of Modena has never had any diplomatic relations with the different Governments in France since the year 1830. This would of course make diplomatic representations on such a subject difficult. N. (Inclosure.)-Extract from the "Messaggere di Modena" of April 28, (Translation.) 1858. IN some Italian as well as foreign journals, a pretended correspondence from Modena has been quoted, in which it is stated that a village, called at one time Lutona, and at another Lantona, had been placed in a state of siege, in consequence of a denunciation made by the parish priest to the Government, to the effect that the population was disaffected towards it, and that after thirty individuals had been arrested in this village, the police offered a reward of 1,500 francs to any one who would denounce the persons who had been distributing the "Piccolo Corriere d'Italia" in that locality. To this spurious correspondence we beg to make the following rectifications: There is no such place in the Modenese States (Proper) as Lutono or Lantona; but in the district of Massa there exists a village called Antona, at which it is true that some few individuals were arrested in the month of March last. Since the period when the town of Carrara was replaced in a state of siege in October of last year, with a view to the protection of the lives of its peaceable inhabitants, no other city or village in these dominions, not excepting the fabulous place Lutona, has been subjected to this exceptional state of things; nor has any serious disturbance taken place anywhere else: consequently the statements relative to the state of siege at Antona, and the reward of 1,500 francs, are totally false. An account which has been given in several papers of the discovery at Carrara of a considerable quantity of arms, is equally undeserving of belief. The real fact is, that two or three weapons were found by the police in a certain rock in which they had been hidden by some malefactors after the commission of one of those acts of assassination which were of but too frequent occurrence in the Carrara district previous to the declaration of this state of siege; and the discovery in question was made in consequence of the revelations of a man confined in prison, who pointed out the arms when conducted by the police to a spot which he had previously indicated. The same importance is likewise to be attached to the barefaced inventions by which the Piedmontese journals, which are either Republican or systematically opposed to every description of constituted government, try to disfigure the object in view, as well as the means by which tranquillity has been restored to the town of Carrara. These papers relate horrors and barbarisms utterly incredible in themselves; but the writers are aware that whilst, on the one hand, by repeating over and over again these barefaced lies, they succeed at least in inspiring doubts; on the other hand, such doubts are not always effectually dissipated, it being in the nature of Conservative Governments to preserve silence, rather than to enter into an indecorous discussion with such enemies as those in question. From the foregoing, or rather from the long series of lies above alluded to, it is easy to understand how in foreign countries Italy is made to appear to the uninformed a political volcano in a state of [1858-59. XLIX.] 2 Q perpetual eruption, merely upon the strength of a few arrests taking place, or a few prohibited weapons or pamphlets being discovered: for, at once, assassins are represented as patriots; a few individuals are designated as the masses of the people; magazines of arms are represented as existing, where, in fact, there were only the weapons hidden by murderers; and correspondences, popular aspirations and lamentations are fabricated by these journalists, and made to apply to any locality which it may suit their purposes to represent as being in a disturbed state. Without having the pretension to be considered as enjoying a greater degree of tranquillity than the other populations of Europe, we believe ourselves to be as well off in this respect as they are; and it is not right that we should be judged of by the interested exaggerations of those who, placing their hopes upon revolution, look with hatred on the prosperity and concord of those who govern and those who are governed. No. 10.-The Marquis of Normanby to the Earl of Malmesbury. (Received July 12.) MY LORD, Florence, July 7, 1858. I HAVE received a private letter from Count Forni, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Modena, in which his Excellency states the favourable prospect for the future of the Duchy of Massa-Carrara, which he conceives to have been derived from the discoveries made during the late criminal proceedings before the military tribunal. The well-disposed have been shown the extent to which the organization of secret political societies within the district had left the lives of all exposed to the danger of assassination, whilst the disclosures made to the Government have caused the conspirators to feel that this is no longer a moment when they can execute their evil designs with impunity. Count Forni adds that he takes the first opportunity of informing me that so soon as the trials of the few other persons still in custody shall be concluded, it is the intention to raise the state of siege in the district; and that he trusts tranquillity may not again be disturbed, provided, as he has reason to hope, the neighbouring Government will co-operate in the maintenance of order. The Earl of Malmesbury. I have, &c. NORMANBY. CORRESPONDENCE respecting the Affairs of the Duchies of Holstein, Lauenburg, and Schleswig,-1858, 1859.* SIR, No. 1.—The Earl of Malmesbury to Sir A. Malet. Potsdam, August 13, 1858. WITH reference to your despatch of the 6th instant, reporting the presentation by the Hanoverian Envoy of a communication to the Diet signifying the dissent of his Government from the decision of the Joint Committees in the affair of the Danish Duchies, I have to acquaint you that I had a long conversation on this subject with Count Platen, the Hanoverian Prime Minister, during the Queen's stay at Hanover. Count Platen deprecated all intention to be unfair to Denmark, and stated that his communication was simply directed against the Diet, whose proceedings were informal. I impressed upon his Excellency that Great Britain had no direct interest in the dispute, and wished to avoid all appearance of interference; but I added that we were indirectly concerned in the possible complications which might arise if troops were moved. Count Platen declared that there was no chance of this, as the Diet was essentially a pacific body, but that it would insist on the total suspension of all constitutional action in the Duchies during the negotiations. His Excellency foretold that hereafter Schleswig would appeal to a European Conference against the Treaty of 1852, on which prophecy I considered it unnecessary to make any remark. Sir A. Malet. SIR, I am, &c. MALMESBURY. No. 2.-The Earl of Malmesbury to Mr. Elliot. Foreign Office, October 18, 1858. In reply to your despatch of the 16th ultimo, giving a reported description of a conversation which I held with Count Platen at Hanover, I have to state that the account of it is entirely erroneous. To Count Platen and other Ministers with whom I had the honour to converse in Germany during my attendance on Her Majesty, I always held the same language on the subject of the Danish dispute. I invariably stated that Her Majesty's Government considered the Holstein part of the question a purely German one, and only indirectly interesting England, inasmuch as the occupation of Holstein might produce European complications in which we should be involved; that we had recommended the Danes to yield on several points, and would continue to do so; and that we trusted they would be met with a fair spirit, and not with the predisposition to establish a quarrel, which doubtless the extreme party in Germany desired. *Laid before Parliament, 1864. I distinctly stated that on the Holstein point the Diet was the legal tribunal. With respect to any controversy regarding Schleswig, I could not admit its jurisdiction, and, should such arise, it must be referred to the European Powers who signed the Treaty. It is useless to speculate now upon the future force of the Treaty of 1852. With the exception of Prussia, all the other Powers signed it with satisfaction, and it is undoubtedly the intention of Her Majesty's Government to abide by it. Should circumstances hereafter arise which would clearly prove that an abrogation or modification of that Treaty would be desirable, the Contracting Parties must be the improvers or abolitionists of their own work. One great political principle must ever rule the conduct of a British Minister who makes British interests his chief guide, namely, the integrity of a Danish Monarchy; and it appears to Her Majesty's Government that the greatest security for this fact is that the Danish Government should act fairly by its subjects, and respect those Treaties which were intended to secure their happiness. This is the language which you will hold to M. Hall after you have stated exactly what my conversations were with the Prussian and Hanoverian Governments on the Danish question. The Hon. H. G. Elliot. I am, &c. MALMESBURY. No. 3.-The Earl of Malmesbury to Her Majesty's Ministers at Courts in the Germanic Confederation. Foreign Office, October 20, 1858. THE communication which it is understood that the Danish Representative at Frankfort has recently made to the Diet has necessarily formed a subject for the serious consideration of Her Majesty's Government. I have already had occasion to inform you that the question at issue between Denmark and the Diet is one which in its present phase is considered by Her Majesty's Government as purely German; but Her Majesty's Government, while they disclaim any desire or pretension to interfere with proceedings purely local, such as the internal action of the Diet, feel that they may fairly be allowed to address a friendly communication on this subject to the Governments who act as principals in the present stage of the affair. It is not the object of Her Majesty's Government, in making this communication, to reason upon the particular points in discussion between the Diet and Denmark. The solution of these difficulties, within the sphere of negotiation, rests with the parties interested. But it is in view of the sphere being extended beyond |