ment the indignation excited in your majesty's breast by modifications which were dictated by prudence, and suggested by the affection which I owe to my subjects. Without any other subject of complaint. your majesty thought proper to insult me in the presence of my venerable mother and of the emperor, by appellations the most humiliating; and, not content with this, you require my renunciation without any conditions or restrictions, under pain that I and those who composed my council, should be treated as conspirators. In such a situation of things, I make the renunciation your majesty com. mands, that you may return to the government of Spain in the same state in which you was on the 19th of March, when you made that spontaneous abdication of the crown in my favour. May God preserve your majesty's valuable life for many years which is the prayer of your dutiful son, prostrate__at your royal feet.

Bayonne, 6th May, 1808.

Louisa last evening, containing an account of what the grand duke had said to her, has penetrated and filled us all with the liveliest feelings of gratitude and consolation, and hopes of every thing from these two sacred and incomparable persons, the grand duke and the emperor. But we would not that the duke should remain ignorant of any thing we know; although no one says any thing to us, and although no answer be given to our demands of necessaries. But nothing of this kind gives us any concern. The only thing in which we are interested, is the welfare of our sole and innocent friend, the prince of the peace, who, in his person, amidst the most barbarous treatment, even before this, conspiracy took place, always called, with the greatest emotion, the grand duke, his friend, If I were so happy as to have him here, and the grand duke were near, we should have nothing to fear. He wished for, the grand duke's arrival, pleasing himself with the hope, that his highness would accept his house to lodge in. He had some trinkets to present to him. In short, he thought of nothing else than of that happy moment when he should appear in the presence of the grand duke and the emperor. We are under perpetual apprehensions lest they should kill or poison

him; if they should suspect a design to save him. Is it not possi ble to take some measures for preventing this? The grand duke might march his troops without saying for what purpose, enter the place where the poor prince of the peace is confined, and without leaving a moment's time for any one to fire a pistol, or do any thing else to him, remove his guards (who

would

would think it glorious, and have a pleasure in taking his life) and substitute his own troops, who should be under his own immediate orders, in their place. For, if he be suffered to remain in the hands of those base traitors, and under the orders of my son, the grand duke may be assured that he will be killed. Yes, so long as he is in those sanguinary hands, the head body. guards of my son, we cannot but tremble for his life. For though both the grand duke and the emperor are desirous to save him, they will not give them time. For hea ven's sake, we implore of the grand duke to take measures for the accomplishment of what we request; for if any time be lost, his life is in danger. He would be safer in the paws of blood-thirsty lions and tygers. My son was yesterday after dinner closeted with Infantado Escocquitz, that wicked priest, and St. Charles, the most malignant of the whole. They remained shut up together from half an hour after one to half an hour after three . o'clock. The gentleman who goes with my son Charles, is a cousin of St. Charles's; he is a man of parts, and not ill informed: but he is a vile American; and like the same St. Charles extremely hostile to us : though they all profess friendship for the king my husband, and claim the patronage of the prince of the peace, to whom they say they are related. All the others that go (to Bayonne) with my son Charles, are of the same faction, extremely well qualified to do all possible mischief, and to set forth the most horrible falsehoods in the light of truth. I en. treat the grand duke to pardon my wretched composition; for I am very apt to forget some French VOL. L.

words and idioms, having been ac customed to speak nothing but Spanish for 42 years. I came here to be married when I was only thirteen years and a half old; and although I speak French, it is not with fluency. But the grand duke will comprehend my meaning, and know how to correct the defects of my style. [The date of this letter is not marked, but it must have been the close of April, 1808.]

There are five other notes sent to the grand duke of Berg, written in the hand of queen Louisa, in which the queen of Spain expresses the same anxious concern for the prince of the peace, and speaks with as much freedom of the prince of Asturias. There are two letters on the same subject, the deplorable situation of the prince of the peace, addressed to the grand duke of Berg by Charles IV., and the queen of Etruria. "He (the prince of the peace) is, says the queen, 'covered with wounds and contusions; lan. guishes in prison, and incessantly invokes the awful moment of death. The only one he calls to his recollection is the grand duke of Berg. In him alone, he says, he has any hope of safety."

instant, which I have laid before the king.

Whatever may have been the motives or the causes of the change which your excellency represents to have taken place in the tone of the Russian councils, or whatever may be the probability of the continu ance of the system now apparently adopted; his majesty hails with the most sincere satisfaction the return of those sentiments of friendship and confidence on the part of his august ally, from which his majesty on his part has never deviated, and the cultivation of which is more than ever necessary for their common interests.

Your excellency will lose no opportunity of expressing these sentiments to his imperial majesty and

his minister.

The forbearance and moderation which your excellency has been all along instructed to employ in all your remonstrances with respect to transactions in which the personal character of his imperial majesty was so immediately concerned, and the reliance which you have not failed to express on the returning sense of what was due to his majesty's long-experienced friendship and fidelity, accord perfect ly with the language which you are now instructed to use, and make the whole of his majesty's conduct towards his imperial majesty uniform and consistent. And your excellency cannot too constantly impress upon the Russian minister the topic which you have so judiciously employed in your late conferences, that in the present state of the world, retrospect and recrimination are worse than useless; and that the establishment of future good understanding, and the concert

of measures to be taken with a view to future exertion, are alone the proper subjects of discussion between the two governments.

The points upon which the ques tion of our acceptance of the mediation turns, are

1st, The frank communication of the articles of the treaty of Tilsit, secret as well as avowed.

2dly, A distinct explanation of the basis upon which France proposes to treat, and which appeared to his imperial majesty at Tilsit so just and honourable.

These are the conditions directly stipulated in my note to M. Alopeus, and without which, acceptance of any mediation by his majesty could be nothing else than a complete surrender of his honour and his interest into the hands of the mediator, if not of the enemy.

But to these are reasonably to be added, if not as conditions without which it would be impossible to consent to treat under the auspices of Russia, at least as those which his majesty has a right to require from a friendly power, before he commits himself to its guidance in a question affecting the immediate safety and the future welfare of his dominions :

1st, A disclosure of the general views of policy of the emperor of Russia; and of any engagements into which he may have entered with respect to the different powers in whose fortunes his majesty takes an interest; and

2dly, Some plain and decisive proof of the good understanding subsisting between his majesty and his august ally; such as shall satisfy, not his majesty only, but Europe and the world, of the impartiality with which his imperial majesty has undertaken,

undertaken, and proposes to administer, the duties of his office as mediator.

With respect to the first of the two points which I have stated as absolutely indispensable, general Budberg appears as yet to have gone no farther than to give a verbal assurance that there is not any article, among the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit, stipulating for the shutting of the Russian ports against Great Britain.

But it will immediately have occurred to your excellency, that a distinction might probably be taken in M. de Budberg's mind between a stipulation for the immediate and unconditional execution of a pur. pose, and the agreement to resort to it eventually, under circumstances which might not yet have occurred; and that, supposing the former only to be the sense of M. de Budberg's assurance, that assurance might be literally true, without in fact conveying any thing essentially satisfactory.

The inference to be drawn from this circumstance, is, that the Russian minister should be called upon by your excellency in an official note, not for a simple disavowal only of any single article, but for the communication of the secret articles themselves; or at least of any agreement, actual or eventual, in which the interests of this country or its allies are in any degree concerned.

In the same formal manner, a communication should be required of the basis of peace proposed by France; upon which the Russian minister does not appear to have offered any explanation.

The other two points are not so

strictly connected with the question of mediation. But it is neverthe, less perfectly reasonable that his majesty should require some osten sible proof of the good-will of his august ally, to counteract the ge neral impression which must have been created by late events, of a difference and disunion between them; before his majesty can with a good grace accept those offices at the emperor of Russia's hands, of which impartiality should be the essential character. No proof could be selected, at once so easy for his imperial majesty to give, so grateful to his majesty to receive, so natural in the eyes of the world, and so lit. tle liable to exception on the part of France, as the renewal of the treaty of commerce.

With respect to the remaining point, which your excellency is in. structed to urge, a communica tion on the part of the Russian government of its general views and policy for the future,-you will observe, that his imperial majesty him. self annexed to his conditional ac ceptance of the mediation of the emperor of Austria, a similar de. mand of the communication of the general views of the court of Vienna respecting the future state of Europe.

In the treaty of Barenstein, concluded between his imperial majesty and the king of Prussia, and offered by them to the acceptance of other powers as the basis of a co-operation for the purpose of producing a general pacific arrangement, a distinct and detailed exposition was entered into with respect not only to the powers intended to be comprehended as parties to the treaty, but to all the other powers

of Europe, in whose fate any one of the principal powers could be supposed to be interested.

These examples of what his imperial majesty has done, and what he has required, would sufficiently authorise his majesty's solicitude to obtain a similar explanation on the present occasion.

But there are other grounds for it in the very state and circumstances of Europe, as arising out of the treaty of Tilsit, and the stipulations annexed to it; some of which stipulations are already carrying into execution in a way to excite his majesty's apprehensions, if not for his own interests, for those of his allies.

Is it impossible that his majesty should not think it essential to be informed whether the public articles of the treaty of Tilsit, which recognises the French king of Naples only as king of Naples, is, in effect, contradicted by a secret article, which adds to this title that of the Two Sicilies?

The movements in the Mediterranean, and the surrender of Corfu, naturally give rise to a variety of apprehensions, which it would be for the interest of both countries to quict, or at least to reduce within the bounds of truth.

Has not his majesty the right to require some explanation of the intentions of Russia with respect to Turkey; a power with whom his majesty finds himself at war, and left alone in the war, for no other than Russian interests, and from a quarrel espoused by his majesty for the sake of his ally?

These topics your excellency will urge in your conferences with M. de Budberg, with all the earnestness which their importance requires,

but at the same time carefully avoid. ing a strain of reproach; and even when you are obliged to confess the suspicion of engagements having been entered into, such as his majesty cannot but disapprove, con. ducting your enquiry in such a manner as shall lead M. de Budberg to believe that his majesty is anxious rather to find the means of preventing or remedying the evil, than to discover the grounds of complaint against Russia.

Upon the whole, your excellency will collect from these instructions, that his majesty is as much desirous as ever to cultivate the friendship and alliance of the emperor of Russia; that he conceives the only chance of safety for what remains of Europe to depend upon the renewal of a good understanding between them; that his majesty has never, even under appearances the most unfavourable, altogether.despaired of such a recurrence, on the part of the emperor, to the counsels which are best calculated for his own glory, and for the security of his own dominions, as it is now hoped has taken place; and that his majesty, upon such a change, is eager to forget all that has passed of a nature contradictory to those counsels, or inconsistent with them.

Extract of a Dispatch from the Right

Hon. Lord Granville Leveson Gower to Mr. Secretary Canning; dated St. Petersburgh, 8th Nov. 1807.-Received Dec. 2d.

I had the honour of apprising you by the last messenger, of the difficulty I had experienced in obtain. ing a conference with count Ro manzow. I yesterday wrote a let. ter to him, of which the inclosed is а сору,