just and moderate dispositions which he has the satisfaction of observing in the tone and the language of the ministers of his Britannic majesty, seconding, in conformity to his desires, the pacific sentiments of which he is more than ever determined to afford proofs to his allies, and even to his enemies, the nations exhausted by the efforts of a war, the interest of which it is as difficult to perceive as its real object is difficult to discover, will thus see a peace, which is called for by all their wants and all their wishes, result from the proposed negotiation.

Irequest, sir, you will accept the assurance of my high consideration. (Signed) Ch. Mau. Talleyrand,

No. IX.

Letter from Mr. Secretary Fox to M. Talleyrand, dated Downing Street, April 20, 1806.

(Translation.)

Downing Street, April 20, 1806.
SIR,

I received the day before yesterday, your excellency's dispatch of the 16th instant.

After having repeatedly read it with all possible attention, I do not find in it any argument sufficient to induce our government to change the opinion which it has already declared, namely, that any negotiation in which Russia is not included as a party, is absolutely inadmissible.

We wish for peace: but we can. not wish for any thing which may be injurious either to the dignity of our sovereign, or to the honour and the interests of the nation. But if we negotiate without Russia, considering the intimate ties by which we are united with that power, we should conceive ourselves open to the reproach of having failed in that

scrupulous fidelity to our engage. ments on which we pride ourselves; whilst, on the other hand, by persist. ing in our demand that Russia be admitted, we do not conceive that we do any thing contrary to that principle of equality to which both of us lay claim. When the three plenipotentiaries are assembled, how can it be thought that any question could be carried by the majority of voices; or even that such an assembly could have any thing in common with a general congress? There would be in fact but two parties in it; on one side, France, on the other, the two allied powers. Moreover, if it is thought so advantageous in an affair of this nature, to have two against one, no objection would be made to your introducing whichever of your allies you may judge most expedient.

Sincerely desirous of avoiding useless disputes, I do not allow my. self to enter into a discussion of the consequences which your excellency draws from the events of the last campaign.

I will only remark, that I do not see any reason why an alliance should be considered as null with regard to the powers who adhere to it, because a power who formerly belonged to it has been detached from it by the misfortunes of war.

With regard to the overture which Russia has made you, we have no knowledge of it; but, whatever may be the nature of it, we are persuaded that that court will never conduct itself so as to commit the acknowledged honour of its character, or to weaken the ties of friendship and of confidence which subsist between England and Russia.

To return to the point; your excellency

excellency mentions that, in the proposed negotiation, you know but of three possible forms of discussion.

The first appears to you inadmissible.

According to what I have had the honour to write to you, you must be convinced, sir, that the third is incompatible, both with our fundamental ideas of justice and honour, and with our conception of the interests of our country. The se cond is not perhaps bad, so far as regards its principle; but besides the delays which it would occasion, it would scarcely be practicable in the present conjuncture.

It is therefore with much regret, that I am obliged to declare frankly to your excellency, that I see no hope of peace at this moment, if yon should not be disposed to negotiate in the manner which we have proposed.

I think myself obliged to add, that this form is essential to us, not only for the reasons which I have had the honour to explain to your excellency, but in so much as any other form might create suspicious that you really entertain the chime. rical project with which you are charged (wrongfully as I willingly be licve) of excluding us from any connection with the continental powers of Europe; and even, that such an idea is less revolting to us than it ought to be, and that it in reality is. It is not necessary to declare to a minister, so enlightened as your excellency, that England can never consent to an exclusion which would degrade her from the rank which she has hitherto held, and which she believes that she may ever hold, among the nations of the world.

The affair, in fine, is reduced to

Letter from M. Talleyrand to Mr.
Secretary Fox, dated Paris, 2d
June, 1806.-Received June 4th.
(Translation.)

SIR, Paris, June 2d, 1806. I have laid before the emperor the last letter, which your excellency did me the honour to write to me. I can only, by his orders, repeat to you, that to require of France that she should treat with you upon the principle of your alliance with Russia, is wishing to reduce us to a constrained form of discussion, and supposing us in a state of humiliation, into which we have never fallen. The enemies of France must not hope to dictate to her either the conditions of peace, or a mode of negotiation contrary to the established usages. Such an attempt with respect to either of these points, would equally affect the French character; and I do not hesitate to say, that to overcome all our repugnance on this point, it would at least require that an English army should havé invaded Belgium, and

should

should be at the point of entering Picardy, by the mouth of the Somme.

I must, sir, again repeat to you, that his majesty is truly desirous of peace; and why should not I add, what we might have said, what we really have said at the rupture of every negotiation for peace, that the continuance of the war has never been prejudicial to the grandeur of France, and that, in time of peace, a great nation can use its power only to maintain itself, and preserve in their present state its relations with the neighbouring countries.

France, sir, does not object to your right of chusing and preserving your allies. In war she has not the choice of her enemies, and she must fight them separately or united, as it may suit their convenience to concert among themselves, for the accomplishment of their views of aggression and resistance, and for the formation of alliances so little conformable to the real interests of their respective countries, that the first clause of them has always been a condition of secresy.

Because we wish, in this case, to follow the form of negotiation which has been customary at all times and in all countries, you conclude that we desire that you should have no connection with the continent. I do not conceive that we ever gave you any reason for drawing such an inference. We cannot hinder any government from forming an alliance with you, and we cannot wish either what is unjust, or what is absurd. It is one thing, that you should form alliances according to your own choice, but it is another that we should concur in them, and aid you in contracting them. But to consent to treat upon the princi

ple of your alliances, and to introduce them into the discussion of the direct and immediate interests that divide us, is doing much more than suffering and acknowledging them; it is in a manner consecrating, cementing, and guarantying them. I have already, sir, observed to you, that we cannot yield upon this point, because the principle is in our favour.

To leave, however, from hence forward, no room for any misunderstanding, I think it my duty to propose to you, 1st, To negociate in the same preliminary forms which were adopted during the administra. tion of the marquis of Rockingham, in 1782; forms, which were not renewed with so much advantage in the negotiations of Lisle, but which were perfectly successful in the negotiations which preceded the treaty of Amiens: 2dly, To establish as a basis, two fundamental principles, the first, which I take from your letter of the 26th of March, namely, "That the two states should have for their object that the peace be honourable for them and their respective allies, and at the same time of a nature to secure, as far as in their power, the future tranquillity of Europe."

The second principle

shall be, an acknowledgment on the part of the two powers of their mutual right of intervention and guarantee in continental and maritime affairs. His majesty, far from being unwilling to make this avowal, delights in raising it to a principle; and, in thus explaining his real intentions, I think I have given you a decisive proof of his pacific dispositions. His majesty is at the same time persuaded, that, in preventing for ever all subject of complaint, uneasiness, and remonstrance on

this point, he has, in a case which is of essential interest to the good of human nature, done his duty as a man and as a sovereign.

I should sincerely regret, sir, that a discussion, began under such favourable auspices, should terminate without the attainment of its object. Should the hopes which I cherish vanish, I shall, at all events, have the consolation of thinking, that the fault cannot be imputed to France, who demands and wishes nothing but what is just and reasonable.

Accept, sir, the assurance of my distinguished consideration.

(Signed) Ch. Mau. Talleyrand.

No. XI.

Letter from Mr. Secretary Fox to M. Talleyrand, dated Downing Street, June 14, 1806.

(Translation.)

Downing-street, June 14, 1806.
SIR,

I received a few days ago your excellency's dispatch of the 2d in

stant.

I cannot understand how, in treating conjointly with England and Russia, you will acknowledge the principle of the alliance subsisting between the two courts; at most you will only acknowledge the fact; much less can I conceive how you can consider yourselves in any degree lowered by this mode of treat ing. We do not by any means pretend to dictate to France, either the conditions of peace, or a mode of negotiation contrary to the established usages.

In 1782, the epoch which your excellency alludes to in your dis. patch, we did not think ourselves in VOL. XLVIII.

a state of degradation, yet when M. de Vergennes informed us that it was necessary for the honour of his court, that we should treat conjointly with France, Holland and Spain, we did not think ourselves in any degree lowered by adopting the mode of negotiation to which that minister appeared to attach so much consequence. Your government is sincerely desirous of peace. In this country the same sentiment prevails; and yet I could very well say of England what your excellency says of France; namely, that the continuance of the war has never been prejudicial either to its glory or to its grandeur; perhaps indeed, it has been so to its real and permanent interests, but it has been equally so to those of France.

With respect to the secret conditions of our alliance with Russia, your excellency is too enlightened not to allow, that in what concerned the war and the propositions to be made to Prussia and Austria, secrecy was absolutely necessary. All that is now at an end; to act in concert for the establishment of the repose of Europe, and for its subsequent preservation, is the principal, and I may even say the only object of our present communications.

After the open disavowal which you have made of the intention falsely imputed to you with respect to our continental connections, no doubt can exist upon that essential point, and it would be the more distressing that difficulty, in form rather than in substance, should prolong a war which the two governments equally desire to terminate.

Let us now come to what your excellency proposes. 3 A

The

The form of negotiation which took place during lord Rocking ham's administration is more particularly present to my memory, as I then held the same office with which his majesty has lately been pleased to honour me. Let France and England change situations, and the form you mention is exactly similar to that which I have proposed.

We then treated with France and Her allies; let France now treat with us and our allies. The basis offered in your second proposition is exactly conformable to the views of our government, provided it be well understood that, whilst we mutually acknowledge our respective rights of intervention and guaranty with regard to the affairs of Europe, we also mutually agree to abstain from all encroachment upon the greater or lesser states which compose it.

I should regret equally with your excellency that this discussion should break off. If we can only act so as not to incur the reproach of a breach of faith towards an ally, who for so many reasons deserves our entire confidence, we shall be content, and the more so as we know that an honourable peace would be no less conformable to the wishes of Russia, than to those of France and England.

I have the honour to be, &c.
(Signed)
C. J. Fox.

No. XII. Communication made by the Earl of Yarmouth to Mr. Secretary Fox, dated June 13, 1806.

A few days after my arrival at Paris from the depôt at Verdun, Mons. Talleyrand desired me to call upon him; having done so, he told me that the French government had

been looking out for some means by which a secret and confidential com. munication might be made, explanatory of the sentiments and views of France, as well as the outlines of the terms on which peace might be restored between the two countries.

Having mentioned the extreme desire of making this communication in such a manner that no publicity might in any case ensue, should the object of it not be obtained, Mons. Talleyrand proceeded to state, in a long argument, which it is useless to repeat, as it forms the substance of several of the French government's dispatches; the reasons which prevent their treating for a general peace jointly with Russia.

He said, that in a dispatch sent some weeks before to Mr. Fox he had been ordered to name Lisle rather than Amiens for the negotiation of a definitive treaty, in order to remove all former discussions, and to facilitate to England the possession of Malta.

I then took the liberty of interrupting M. Talleyrand, to say that, however flattering the confidence he was ordered to place in me might be, yet that, feeling as I did, the interests, and above all the honour of my country, it was impossible for me to be the bearer of a communication having peace for its object, against which I should feel obliged to vote in parliament; and viewing the restoration of Hanover in this light, I could not receive any further communication till I had explicit declaration with regard to his majesty's German domi. nions.

M. Talleyrand then broke off the

conversation,