Be it known unto all men by these presents, that whereas Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, on the one part, and His Majesty the King of Denmark, on the other part, being already connected by ties of friendship, have judged it proper that an alliance should be contracted between their respective Royal Houses, by a marriage agreed to on both sides, between His Royal Highness Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Duke of Saxony, Prince of SaxeCoburg and Gotha, &c., &c., eldest son of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra Caroline Maria Charlotte Louisa Julia, eldest daughter of His Royal Highness the Prince Christian of Denmark;

The two high betrothed parties, as also His Royal Highness the Prince Christian of Denmark, and Her Royal Highness the Princess Louisa Wilhelmina Frederica Caroline Augusta Julia, His Royal Highness' Consort, having declared their consent to such alliance; in order, therefore, to attain so desirable an end, and to treat upon, conclude, and confirm the Articles of the said marriage, Her Britannic Majesty on the one part, and His Majesty the King of Denmark on the other, have named as their plenipotentiaries, that is to say :

Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,

Augustus Berkeley Paget, Esquire, Her Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to His Majesty the King of Denmark;

And His Majesty the King of Denmark, His Excellency Carl Christian Hall, His Majesty's Privy Councillor of Conferences, President of the Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Grand Cross of the Order of Dannebrog, decorated with the Cross of the Dannebrog, Grand Cross of the Royal Swedish Order of the Star of the North, of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olaf, of the Royal Sicilian Order of Constantine, of the Royal Spanish Order of Charles the Third, of the Persian Order of the Sun and Lion, of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, of the Royal Italian Order of St. Mauritius and St. Lazarus, and of the Tunisian Order of Nichan Eftikhar;

Who, after having communicated to each other their respective full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed upon and concluded the following Articles:

ARTICLE I.

It is concluded and agreed that the marriage between His Royal Highness Albert Edward Prince of Wales, Duke of Saxony, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, &c., &c., eldest son of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra

at Warsaw, and the Poles of the kingdom of Poland enjoyed privileges fitted to secure their political welfare.

Since 1832, however, a state of uneasiness and discontent has been succeeded from time to time by violent commotion and a useless effusion of blood.

Her Majesty's Government are aware that the immediate cause of the present insurrection was the conscription lately enforced upon the Polish population; but that measure itself is understood to have been levelled at the deeply-rooted discontent prevailing among the Poles in consequence of the political condition of the kingdom of Poland.

The proprietors of land and the middle classes in the towns bore that condition with impatience; and if the peasantry were not equally disaffected, they gave little support or strength to the Russian Government.

Great Britain, therefore, as a party to the treaty of 1815, and as a power deeply interested in the tranquillity of Europe, deems itself entitled to express its opinion upon the events now taking place, and is anxious to do so in the most friendly spirit towards Russia, and with a sincere desire to promote the interest of all the parties concerned. Why should not His Imperial Majesty, whose benevolence is generally and cheerfully acknowledged, put an end at once to this bloody conflict by proclaiming mercifully an immediate and unconditional amnesty to his revolted Polish subjects, and at the same time announce his intention to replace without delay his kingdom of Poland in possession of the political and civil privileges which were granted to it by the Emperor Alexander I., in execution of the stipulations of the treaty of 1815?

If this were done, a National Diet and a National Administration would, in all probability, content the Poles, and satisfy European opinion.

You will read this despatch to Prince Gortchakoff, and give him a copy of it. I am, &c.

your Lordship's despatch in silence. His Excellency then stated that, acting in a spirit of conciliation, he would offer no written reply to the observations of Her Majesty's Government. He would entrust the duty of conveying his sentiments on this occasion to me, and he would request me to show him the draft of my report before forwarding it to your Lordship. The Vice-Chancellor also stated his wish to be enabled to submit my record of his expressions to His Majesty the Emperor along with your Lordship's instruction, in order that His Imperial Majesty might have at once a complete view of this exchange of opinions between the two Governments.

To these proposals on the part of the Vice-Chancellor I acceded.

Prince Gortchakoff then read over your Lordship's despatch aloud.

The first and second paragraphs of your Lordship's despatch affirm the deep concern with which Her Majesty's Government contemplate the deplorable condition of Poland at this conjuncture, and the unsatisfactory results which Her Majesty's Government anticipate from the mere triumph of the Russian forces over the parties in arms against the Imperial authority.

Here the Vice-Chancellor remarked that the concern expressed by Her Majesty's Government was more than shared by the Emperor and his Government. The heart of His Imperial Majesty was painfully affected by the effusion of blood contingent on this unhappy revolt, by the diminution of material welfare which is inseparable from civil commotion, and by the contemplation of resentments which might possibly survive these incidents, but for which the Imperial Government could not hold themselves responsible.

The following paragraphs of your Lordship's instruction define the position of Poland in relation to the stipulations of the treaties of 1815. On this point the Vice-Chancellor reserved his opinion for after-statement. His Excellency proceeded at once to the eighth paragraph of the despatch, in which your Lordship affirms that the immediate cause of the present insurrection was the conscription lately enforced upon the Polish population.

The Vice-Chancellor contended that the recent measure of military recruitment was the pretext, not the provocation, of the revolt. The Polish insurrection, said his Excellency, was the result of a conspiracy deeply laid and widely organized in foreign capitals, from which he could not except London. The explosion had merely been accelerated by

the military levy. Of the origin, develop. ment, and objects of that conspiracy, the Imperial Cabinet had been well informed. It was a democratic and "anti-social" movement, conceived in the pernicious notions of which Mazzini was the author and the symbol, and in these designs the Poles had been enlisted by flattering their natural illusions, which pointed to very different objects from those which the practical policy of English statesmen regarded to the severance of Poland from the Russian Crown, to national independence, to the restoration of the limits of 1772. Far from being the cause of the present outbreak, the military recruitment had been undertaken in order to avert it and all the calamities which had ensued upon it, to remove the inveterate promoters of disturbance, and to open a fair course for the benevolent measures projected by the Emperor. The insurrection had only included the mechanics of the towns, the indigent nobles, and the rustic clergy. The landed proprietors and great nobility had collected for security under the guns of the citadel of Warsaw; the peasantry were decidedly on the side of Government, moved by a sense of the benefits which the Imperial Government had conferred on their order, and disgusted by the exactions imposed upon them by the roving bands of marauding insurgents. Some of the upper classes might, indeed, join in the patriotic delusions of national restoration in its ancient boundaries, but their eyes only remained sealed to the absurdity of such expectations in consequence of the countenance given to them by foreign Governments. Some of these persons might take part in the movement, but the Governments which afforded such countenance would hereafter regret the results of a policy which could only enlarge the circle of suffering and misfortune.

Reverting to the previous paragraphs of your Lordship's despatch respecting the position of Poland under the treaties of Vienna, and associating them with the subsequent passages in which your Lordship sets forth the motives and claims of Great Britain to interfere as one of the signing parties to these engagements, the Vice-Chancellor expressed himself as fol

lows:

Laying open the treaty of Vienna, his Excellency pointed to that passage in Article I. by which it is stipulated that the national institutions to be accorded to the several members of the Polish nation shall be regulated by the form of political existence which their respective Governments shall judge it to be useful and convenient to grant to them.

Here I called the attention of the ViceChancellor to the use of the term "representation," as well as that of" national institutions."

The Vice-Chancellor resumed. His Excellency remarked that under this Article the Russian Government remained the absolute arbiter of the form in which the representation and national institutions of Poland should be framed. The Emperor Alexander I., using his indisputable prerogative in a liberal and even in an enthusiastic sense, had, some time after the conclusion of the treaty referred to, spontaneously granted to the kingdom of Poland a representative constitution which had not proved consistent with the peace and welfare either of Poland or Russia. That constitution had never been imparted to foreign powers as involving the execution of international engagements. We all know under what circumstances it had perished. What the Emperor Alexander did in the plenitude of his power, his successor in the exercise of the same power could revoke. The present Emperor, ever faithful to the principles of government which he applied in Russia, had applied these principles in Poland too, and perhaps in a larger measure than had been granted in any other portion of his dominions. The political constitution proclaimed in Poland in the year 1861 embodied a complete autonomy,-national institutions with a modified representation adapted to the form of political existence in force under the Imperial Government. Poland was now ruled by institutions purely Polish. There was a directing Minister, a Pole, entertaining national sentiments of the most decided character; a council of administration composed of Poles; a council of state containing Poles taken from the several ecclesiastical and civil orders of the community, and embodying some representative elements, in which general laws for the welfare of the kingdom were elaborated; there were provincial, district, and municipal councils in descending order, all purely elective, charged with the local and material interests of the country. This national representation was not cast in the same mould as that which was designed by the Emperor Alexander, or that which existed in England, but it formed, nevertheless, a system of national and representative institutions adapted to the condition of Poland and its relations with Russia. Her Majesty's Government, composed of practical statesmen, the representatives of a practical nation, would not surely contend that there was only one valid and useful form of political institutions equally applicable to all countries, that, namely, which existed in England,