No. 3.-Visc'. Castlereagh to the Earl of Liverpool. - (Rec. Nov. 1.) (Extract.) Vienna, October 20, 1814. SINCE my conversation with the Emperor, I cannot report to your Lordship that the negotiations here have assumed any more decisive aspect. I communicated confidentially to the Austrian and Prussian Ministers what had passed, also the letter I had addressed to His Imperial Majesty. They both expressed their sense of the part I had taken, and desired to be permitted to put their respective Sovereigns in possession of both the documents that had been delivered to the Emperor. Hitherto no decisive explanation has taken place on the part of Austria upon the confidential overture from Prussia. Both Courts profess a conviction that nothing but a strict and intimate union between Austria and Prussia can preserve their independence, but I have not been yet able to bring Prince Metternich to give an answer to Prince Hardenberg's letter. He has, as I learn, made up his mind, and received the Emperor's authority, on the point of Saxony, and has given a verbal consent to the provisional administration being assumed by Prussia; but nothing yet in writing has passed. To preserve Prince Talleyrand's confidence, and to keep him as far as possible in the course that might aid the other measures, I thought it proper to apprize him of the steps I had taken with the Emperor of Russia, allowing him to read over both the letter and memorandum. He expressed himself fully satisfied with what I had done. In this interview Prince Talleyrand announced to me an intention of presenting a memorandum or note, the object of which would be to state that, although no conferences were held, he must presume the other Powers were not inactive. That he did not object to this, but that, whilst he deprecated unnecessary delay, he thought it right to apprise them beforehand of the points on which France must insist, at least to the extent of protesting, if they did not form a part of the arrangement. Having asked my opinion upon this measure, I did not hesitate strongly to dissuade him from it. I represented to him that the effect of putting forward his opposition on the Polish and Saxon points together, must be, so far as his influence could affect it, to unite Prussia and Russia, and that the result would be that he would lose both objects. Whereas if he postponed or made his resistance on the Saxon question subordinate, he might possibly succeed in checking the overbearing pretensions of Russia. I endeavoured to make him feel how secondary the point of Saxony was: that, as an European question, the aggrandizement of Russia was full of danger, the effect of incorporating Saxony with Prussia was rather advantageous, as giving stability to a State that must be strong to preserve its independence. He pressed for an assurance from me that I would co-operate with him upon the Saxon point in the event of success on the Polish question. I told him that I could not undertake this; that I might wish to modify to a certain extent the views of Prussia upon Saxony, but that I could not separate myself from what that Court should ultimately insist on, without impairing the general concert. That if ample materials were provided elsewhere, I might moderate, but that I could not, after having throughout the whole of our intercourse acquiesced in the Prussian views upon Saxony, now be the party to give them any direct opposition. This reasoning was so far satisfactory to Prince Talleyrand that he desisted from presenting the note he had prepared. I understand from Prince Metternich that he sounded him also on this démarche, and received from him a similar opinion. The Emperor of Russia having ordered General Pozzo di Borgo to attend him at Vienna, he arrived here 2 days since. I have seen him since his interview with His Imperial Majesty, and have every reason to believe that he has given a fair and honest opinion to His Majesty. I thought it advisable to desire General Pozzo di Borgo to apprize Count Nesselrode confidentially that my instructions did not authorize me to be a party to the Emperor's Polish arrangements as at present put forward, and that my authority to treat with respect to the Dutch loan was contingent upon other matters being satisfactorily adjusted. The Earl of Liverpool. CASTLEREAGH. No. 4.-Visc. Castlereagh to the Earl of Liverpool. - (Rec. Nov. 4.) (Extract.) Vienna, October 24, 1814. IT was agreed that the Austrian and Prussian Ministers should meet the following day (Sunday) at my house, and I have the gratification to state that the result was satisfactory. Prince Hardenberg expressed himself satisfied with the explanations he had received on the point of Saxony, reserving to himself to reply to Prince Metternich's reasoning against the total incorporation of Saxony with Prussia. He stated strongly his objections to entrusting so important a fortress as Mayence to Bavaria alone; but was ready to reserve these points for further discussion (satisfied that they could not impede the desired union), and proceed at once to act in concert with Austria and England upon the Polish question. The measures to be jointly adopted with this view were then discussed, and they desired me to prepare a memorandum of the result, a copy of which I now inclose, on which they mean to take the pleasure of their respective Sovereigns. The Earl of Liverpool. CASTLEREAGH. (Inclosure.)-Memorandum. THE question of Poland and the Treaties affecting it having been brought in the fullest manner under the deliberate consideration of the Emperor of Russia, any further hesitation in bringing His Imperial Majesty to a distinct decision can be productive of no possible advantage, and may lead to an injurious interpretation of the determination of his allies thereupon. It is conceived to be of the utmost importance, even before His Imperial Majesty proceeds to Buda, that he should be apprized of the serious purpose which his allies entertain of pressing upon His Imperial Majesty what they consider themselves, as well by their Treaties as by the general principles of policy and justice, entitled to claim from His Imperial Majesty. That they should further inform the Emperor that immediately on His Imperial Majesty's return to Vienna, they propose to make another attempt to settle this question amicably and confidentially with him; in the event of succeeding in which they flatter themselves to be enabled very speedily to bring to a satisfactory arrangement the other affairs of Europe, and would for that purpose desire a further adjournment of the Congress. If, on the contrary, they should unfortunately fail in arriving at the conclusion which they so much desire, they will in that case feel it their duty to suffer the Congress to meet as now fixed, before whom the subject must be entered upon formally and officially. It is proposed, in order that the Ministers of the 2 Powers should be fully prepared to submit to the Emperor their final determination on his return, that they should forthwith meet to settle the minimum of concession on the part of the Emperor that would satisfy their claims. That, in laying this determination before the Emperor, in the names of their respective Courts, they should explain to him that for the sake of preserving unimpaired the harmony which had throughout distinguished the alliance, they had reduced their proposals within the narrowest possible limits; that in the event of being compelled to adopt a different course, they must be considered as fully entitled to propose other and more extended terms. That it may be desirable, even in this confidential overture, to propose to the Emperor alternatives on the political branch of the question, in order to keep it always in view that it is Russia alone, and not the other Courts, which really forms the obstacles to Polish liberation. In the event of the question becoming one of discussion in Congress, it is suggested that the proceeding may properly originate in an official note from the Austrian Minister, separately or conjointly with the Prussian, addressed to the Minister of Russia, and claiming from that Power the execution of the Article of the Treaty of the 27th of June, 1813, and that the said note, after fully exposing the views, rights, and sentiments of the said Powers, should conclude by offering to the Emperor's option one or other of the following alternatives: 1. The complete and entire reunion of Poland under an independent Sovereign, as it existed previous to the first partition, to the accomplishment of which arrangement, if it shall be acceptable to the Emperor, Austria and Prussia are ready to make the requisite sacrifices. 2. If the Emperor objects to this measure, as involving too great a sacrifice of territory and dominion on the part of Russia, the Courts of Austria and Prussia are willing to consent to a similar measure, as applicable to the Kingdom of Poland as it stood in 1791, when it gave itself a free Constitution under Poniatowski. 3. Or if the Emperor of Russia shall reject the erection of Poland, upon a territorial scale however modified, into a kingdom really independent, and should prefer adhering to the principle of partition, then the 2 Powers (protesting against his right to act with respect to his division of Poland in defeasance of the stipulation of the Convention of 1797) are willing to agree to adhere to the said principle of partition, provided the same be equitably applied, and with a due regard to the security, in a military point of view, of their respective States. In execution of which principle they propose that the Vistula throughout the Duchy of Warsaw to Sendonier should be the Russian boundary, Prussia receiving Thorn on the right bank, if the Emperor should desire to possess Warsaw on the left. That in addition to the above, Austria should address a separate note to Prussia, claiming her intervention under the Treaty of September, 1813,† by which she engages to see the Treaty of June, 1813, executed à l'amiable. That copies of these several notes should be laid before Congress, and that the several Powers of Europe should be invited to support the said overture, and to declare to the Emperor of Russia to what extent and upon what conditions Europe in Congress can or cannot admit His Imperial Majesty's pretensions to an aggrandisement in Poland. It is desirable that the Emperor should be made distinctly to understand that, however willing the allies may be to avert so painful an appeal by every possible modification of their just claims, in the spirit of which sentiment they had agreed to the minimum proposed to His Imperial Majesty, yet that when driven to make that appeal in the presence of Europe by the refusal of such a modification, they must then adhere more rigidly to the scale of their just pretensions, and that it would rest with the Powers in Congress assembled to decide upon the measures which should be called for by so alarming an infraction of Treaties, and by an encroachment upon the military security of independent and neighbouring allied States, in contravention of the express stipulations of subsisting engagements. No. 5.-Visc. Castlereagh to the Earl of Liverpool. - (Rec. Nov. 24.) (Extract.) Vienna, November 5, 1814. THE day but one after the return of the Sovereigns from Buda, the inclosed communication was delivered to me by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor of Russia. It was prepared during His Imperial Majesty's absence by Prince Czartorisky, the memorandum being written in concert with him by M. Ansteten, a Conseiller d'Etat in the Bureau. I have reason to believe that Count Nesselrode was not consulted. I should certainly have never presumed to address my first letter with its inclosure to the Emperor, if I had conceived that I imposed on His Imperial Majesty thereby the necessity of a reply. I delivered it after a long audience, as containing the substance of the topics that had been urged. The memorandum it inclosed was not originally written to meet the Emperor's eye; but having been given to Prince Metternich and Prince Hardenberg, I thought it more becoming to submit it to His Imperial Majesty, with the apology contained in the letter, than to have any concealment from him, after the encouragement I had received from His Majesty to explain myself on the subject without reserve. The sentiments of the Emperor's own mind certainly neither led him to feel any particular umbrage at the communication, nor to think of giving an answer to it, till his Polish advisers pressed it upon him, probably with a view of pledging His Imperial Majesty more deeply to their schemes. I believe I mentioned to your Lordship that the Emperor after he had read the letter expressed himself very graciously to me upon it, and afterwards in a conversation with Lord Cathcart, more pointedly expressed his approbation of the franchise, as His Imperial Majesty termed it, with which I conducted myself. That he was persuaded I adopted the same course in other quarters. That he thought he understood perfectly my motives for the course I had taken, namely, that of effecting a compromise; and His Imperial |