promise you on the faith of an old officer and faithful subject, that I shall fulfil all the orders I receive from my august Sovereign, who gives none but for your happiness.

CHARLES FREDERICK LECOR,

Declaration of the King of the Two Sicilies.

"Ferdinand I. by the grace of God, King of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, &c. &c. &c. "Desiring to confirm the privileges granted by us, and the Monarchs our illustrious predecessors, to our well-beloved Sicilians, and to reconcile the inviolability of these privileges with the unity of the political institutions, we have by the present law sanctioned, and do sanction as follows:

"Art. 1. All civil and ecclesiastical employments in Sicily beyond the Straits shall, conformably to the capitularies of the Monarchs our predecessors, be conferred exclusively on Sicilians, without the other subjects of our states on this side the Straits being ever entitled to pretend to them, in the same manner as the Sicilians cannot form any claim to civil and religious employments in our other dominions abovementioned. We place among the number of the places exclusively to be given to Sicilians, the Archbishopric of Palermo, though our august father, Charles III. reserved the disposal of it to himself, in the great charter which he granted to the Sicilians.

Art. 2. Our Sicilian subjects beyond the Straits shall be admitted to all the great dignities of the kingdom of the Two Sici

lies, in proportion to the population of the island.

"The population being a quarter of that of all our dominions, the fourth part of our Council of State shall be composed of Sicilians, and the other three quarters of subjects of our other dominions.

"The same proportion will be observed for the places of our Ministers and Secretaries of State, the first dignities of the Court, and the places of our representatives and agents at foreign Courts.

"Art. 3. Instead of two Sicilian Consultatori, who, according to the concession of our august father, were members of the ancient Junta of Sicily, there shall be always in the Supreme Council of the Chancery of the Two Sicilies a number of Sicilian Counsellors, according to the proportion fixed in the preceding article.

"Art. 4. Offices in our army and navy, our royal household, will be conferred on all our subjects, without distinction of the part of our dominions of which they are natives.

Art. 5. The Government of the whole kingdom of the Two Sicilies shall be always about our person. When we shall reside in Sicily, we shall have as Governor in our states on this side of our Straits a Prince of our family, or another personage of distinction, whom we shall choose among our subjects.

"If it is a Prince of the Royal Family, he shall have with him one of our Ministers of State, who shall correspond with the Ministers and Secretaries of State who shall reside near our person, and who shall have with him, be

sides, two or more directors, to preside in those sections of the offices of the Ministers and Secretaries of State which we shall think fit to leave on the spot for the administration of that part of our dominions. If the Governor is not a Prince, he shall be himself invested with the character of Minister Secretary of State, shall correspond directly with the Ministers and Secretaries of State whom we have with us, and shall have two or more directors for that purpose.

"Art. 6. (Makes the same regulations as the 5th, in respect to the government of Sicily, when the King resides on, this side of the Straits.)

"Art. 7. These Directors, in both cases, shall be chosen promiscuously among all our subjects, as was fixed relatively to Sicily for the ancient offices of Consultator, of Conservator, which are replaced by the said di

year the part of Sicily in the permanent expenses of the state, and we shall regulate the manner of its partition; but this 'annual part can never exceed the sum of 1,847,687 ounces and 20 tari, which was fixed in 1813 by the Parliament as the certain revenue of Sicily. No greater sum can by any means be imposed without the consent of Parliament.

"Art. 11. There shall be deducted every year from the said quota a sum which cannot be less than 150,000 ounces, which shall be applied to the payment of the debt bearing no interest, and of the arrear of interest of that which does bear interest, till the entire extinction of both: when these two debts are extinguished, this sum shall be annually employed in forming a sinking fund for the Sicilian debt.

"Art. 12. Till the general system of the civil and judicial administration of our kingdom of the Two Sicilies shall be promulgated, all the branches of justice and administration shall continue on the same footing as heretofore.

"We will and ordain, that the present law, signed by us, certified by our Council and our Minister of State Affairs of Grace and Justice, countersigned by our Council and the Chancellor Minister Secretary of State, enrolled and preserved in our general Chancery of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, be published throughout the kingdom, with the ordinary solemnities, by the competent authorities, who shall draw up a proces verbal, and see to the execution of it. Our Chancellor, Minister of kingdom 2 D

the

of

AHODES

HOUSE

OXFORD

of the Two Sicilies, is specially charged with this publication. "Caserta, Dec. 12, 1816. (Signed) "FERDINAND. "The Minister of Grace and Justice, "MANHESE TOMMASI. "The Minister Secretary of State, Chancellor, "TOMMASO DI SOMMA."

Copy of a Dispatch from his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to Lord Viscount Sidmouth, dated 5th of June, 1816, viz.

A Statement of the Nature and Extent of the Disturbances which have recently prevailed in Ireland, and the Measures which have been adopted by the Government of that Country in consequence thereof.Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 14th June

1816.

To the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Sidmouth: Dublin-Castle, 5th June 1816.

My Lord;-I have had the honour of receiving your Lordship's letter of the 27th day of April, enclosing an Address from the House of Commons to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, praying that his Royal Highness will be graciously pleased to direct that there be laid before the House a statement of the nature and extent of the disturbances which have recently prevailed in Ireland, and of the measures which have been adopted by the Government of that country in consequence thereof; and 1 proceed to obey the commands which your Lordship has signified to me

in that letter, that I should enable his Royal Highness to comply with the Address of the House of Commons.

Though I have, as your Lordship is well aware, apprized you from time to time of such events connected with the internal interests of Ireland as have been most worthy of notice, and of the measures which I have adopted with a view to restore and maintain the public peace, it may be satisfactory that I should (instead of referring your Lordship to the detail of my separate letters) embody the substance of them in this general dispatch.

It is not, I presume, wished that I should extend the statement which is required from me beyond the period at which I as

sumed the administration of the affairs of this country; and I shall, therefore, only shortly and generally refer to events which occurred during the government of my predecessor, or to the measures to which he had recourse.

The Insurrection Act was passed by the Legislature in the year 1807; it was not enforced on any occasion during the three years for which it was at that time enacted, and the state of Ireland was considered to be such in the year 1810, as not to render necessary the continuance of this act, and indeed to admit of its repeal a very short period before that to which its duration was limited by law.

In the early part, however, of January 1811, in consequence of the numerous outrages committed in the counties of Tipperary, Waterford. Kilkenny, and Limerick, by bodies of men who assembled

in arms by night, administered unlawful oaths, prescribed laws respecting the payment of rents and tithes, plundered several houses of arms, in various instances attempted, and in some committed, murder; it was considered expedient to issue a warrant for a special commission, to be held in the counties before-mentioned, and in the cities of Waterford, Kilkenny, and Limerick, for the trial of such of the offenders as had been apprehended. From the evidence adduced at the Special Commission, it appeared that many of the outrages to which I have referred were committed by two combinations, very widely extended among the lower orders of the Roman Catholic population, which assumed the name of Caravats and Shanavests, respectively, and between which a violent animosity subsisted, the cause of which was not very satisfactorily accounted for. As feuds of the same kind, not growing out of religious differences, occasionally exist (though seldom to the extent to which this appears to have prevailed), I have inserted in the appendix to this dispatch a portion of the evidence which was adduced on one of the trials, from which some information may be collected with respect to the origin and object of the combinations, by which the peace of the country was at that time disturbed.

In the county of Tipperary nine persons were tried: two for murder, and seven for attempts to murder; five were tried for robbery of arms, and twenty-two indicted and tried under the acts which generally bear the name of the Riot and Whiteboy Acts, for

assuming the name of Caravats, and appearing in arms; six were sentenced to death, twenty-seven to transportation, whipping, and imprisonment, and three acquitted.

In Waterford twelve persons were tried; seven for attempts to murder, one for stealing arms, and four for burglary and robbery: they were all found guilty, and sentenced to death.

It was not thought necessary to proceed to Limerick in execution of the commission; and there were no trials of importance in Kilkenny.

Notwithstanding, however, the number of convictions in the counties of Tipperary and Waterford at the special commission, and the severe examples which were made, they do not appear even in those counties to have produced any lasting effect, or to have materially checked the bad spirit which prevailed in them.

In the early part of 1813, and during the whole of that year, many daring offences against the public peace were committed in these and in other counties, particularly Waterford, Westmeath, Roscommon, and the King's county, the nature of which sufficiently proved that illegal combinations, and the same systematic violence and disorder against which the Special Commission of 1811 had been directed, still existed.

The offences against the public peace, committed in the counties which were the seats of disturbance, partook of the same general character; reports were constantly received of attacks on dwelling-houses for the purpose 2 D 2

of

of procuring arms, and the frequency of these attacks, and the open and daring manner in which they were made, were sufficient proofs of the desire which generally prevailed amongst those concerned in the disturbances to collect large quantities of arms, and thus possess the means of prosecuting their ulterior objects with a better prospect of success. Several instances occurred, in which the houses of respectable individuals were attacked, even in the open day, by large bodies of armed men; and others, in which the military, acting under the directions of magistrates, met with considerable resistance. It is worthy of remark, that in the many successful attacks which were made upon houses with the view of depriving the proprietors of their arms, it rarely occurred that any other species of property was molested by the assailants.

The principal objects of hostility, or rather the principal sufferers on account of their inadequate means of defence, were those persons who, on the expiration of leases, had taken small farms at a higher rent than the late occupiers had offered; and all those who were suspected of a disposition to give information to magistrates against the disturbers of the peace, or to bear testimony against them in a court of justice, in the event of their apprehension and trial. In some counties, particularly in Westmeath and Roscommon, the most barbarous punishments were frequently inflicted upon the persons of those who had thus rendered

themselves obnoxious, and upon the persons of their relatives.*

From the general terror which these proceedings occasioned, it became almost impossible to procure satisfactory evidence against the guilty. It frequently happened that the sufferers from such atrocities as I have alluded to, when visited by a magistrate, would depose only generally to the facts of their having been perpetrated, and not denying their knowledge of the offenders, would yet steadily refuse to disclose their names, or describe their persons, from the fear of future additional injury to themselves or their relatives. Even where the parties offending were deposed against and apprehended, there was frequently the greatest difficulty in effecting their conviction, from the intimidation of witnesses, and in some cases of jurors.

I fear few instances can be found of late, in the counties which I have mentioned, in which it has been possible for witnesses, having given evidence in favour of the Crown, on any trial connected with the disturbance of the peace, to remain secure in their usual places of abode.

In the latter end of the year 1813, a meeting of the magistracy of the county of Westmeath took place, at which eighteen of that body attended. They addressed a