intimations would have been sufficient to restore the reign of prudence and moderation, and to prevent a blind fanaticism from exposing the kingdom to those calamities, which it has been our constant endeavour to avert from it.

Confiding entirely in that hope, we thought it our duty to prolong our residence at the place where the allied sovereigns were assembled, in order to second to the last moment, with all our efforts, the determinations which should be taken at Naples, and thus effect the object of our most ardent wishes, as conciliator and pacificator; this is the only consolation which in our old age could compensate our chagrin, the severity of the season, and the fatigues of a long journey. But the persons who have the momentary exercise of power at Naples, overpowered by a malignant few, have been deaf to our voice; and with a view to seduce our people, have endeavoured to deceive them by a false report, most injurious to the great monarchs who are our allies,-that we were in a state of constraint. It is unnecessary to reply to an imputation so false and infamous. As, in consequence of these and other perfidious suggestions, our longer residence in the midst of our allies cannot have the effect which we originally hoped from it, we shall immediately com

mence our journey, to return to our states. In this situation it is a duty we owe to ourselves and to our people, to make known to them our paternal and royal sentiments.

The long experience of a sixty years' reign has given us the means of knowing the inclinations and real desires of our subjects. Confiding in the rectitude of their intentions, we shall, with the aid of the Most High, know how to satisfy their desires in the most just and permanent manner. We declare, in consequence, that the army which is advancing upon our territory must not be regarded by our faithful subjects as an enemy, but as destined solely to protect them, by contributing to consolidate the order which is necessary to maintain the external and internal peace of the kingdom. We order our armies both by sea and land, to look upon, and receive that of our august allies as a force, which is only acting for the real welfare of our kingdom; and which far from being sent to subjugate our people, or to load them with taxes for the support of a useless war, is authorised to make common cause with our armies, for the preservation of tranquillity and the protection of the real friends of their country, who are also the faithful subjects of their king. FERDINAND. Laybach, Feb. 25, 1821.

Neapolitans;

At the moment when the army under my command sets foot within the frontiers of the king

dom of Naples, I feel myself bound to declare openly and frankly the object of my operations.

A deplorable revolution, in the

month of July last, has disturbed your internal tranquillity, and broken the friendly relations which, between neighbouring states, can only rest on the fundamental basis of reciprocal confidence.

The king has made his royal and paternal voice be heard by his people; he has warned you against the horrors of a useless war; of a war, which is not directed against you, and which your own actions alone can bring down upon you.

The ancient and faithful allies of the kingdom have, on their side, also addressed you; they have themselves duties to fulfil to their people; but still they are not strangers to your real and permanent felicity, which you will never find on the road of rebellion, or by proving false to your duties. Reject voluntarily a production which is foreign to you, and trust to your king; your interests and his are inseparably united.

In entering the limits of the kingdom, no hostile intention actuates us. The army under my command will look upon and treat as friends all the Neapolitans who are faithful to their king, and friends of tranquillity. It will maintain the strictest discipline everywhere, and will only consider as enemies those who venture to oppose it.

Neapolitans, listen to the voice of your king, and of his friends, who are also yours. Reflect upon the miseries which you will draw upon yourselves by a vain resistance; be assured that the fleeting ideas with which the enemies of order and tranquillity, who are also your enemies, seek to dazzle you, can never become the source of your prosperity.

Given at our head quarters, at
Foligno, 27th Feb. 1821.

Victor Emanuel, by the grace of God, King of Sardinia, of Cyprus and Jerusalem, Duke of Savoy, &c.

Amidst the vicissitudes which have agitated a great part of our past life, and which have insensibly exhausted our strength and our health, we have frequently contemplated the abdication of the throne.

To this idea, which we have always entertained, was joined the considerations presented to us by the constantly increasing difficul.

time, our constant desire having ties in public affairs at the present always been, to do every thing which might contribute to the happiness of our beloved people.

Having now determined to accomplish this design, we have resolved, after hearing our council of state, to choose and nominate regent of our dominions, our well-beloved cousin, prince Charles Amadena Albert, of Savoy, prince of Carignano, consequently conferring on him all our authority.

And by this act of our royal

and free will, our council being heard, we declare,

That, reckoning from the 13th of March current, we irrevocably renounce the crown, and in the same manner the exercise of our rights of sovereignty, as well over the territories which we actually possess, as those, which by treaties or otherwise may fall to us by right of succession.

We mean it, however, to be understood, that the following reservations shall be the essential conditions of our abdication; viz. :

1. That we shall preserve the title and dignity of king, and the honours we have hitherto en joyed.

2. That there shall be paid to us quarterly, and in advance, an annual pension of 1,000,000 of Piedmontese livres, reserving to ourselves, besides, the property and disposition of our property, moveable and immoveable, allodial and patrimonial.

3. That we shall be free, we and our family, to choose whatever place we shall please for our residence.

4. And also the persons with whom we may desire to live, and whom it may please us to admit into our service and that of our family.

5. That all the acts passed in favour of the Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, our well-be loved consort, and of the princesses Maria Beatrice Victoria, duchess of Modena; Maria Theresa Ferdinanda Feliciti, princess of Lucca; Maria Anna Riucarda Carolina, and Maria Christina Carolina, our well-beloved daughters, shall preserve their full force and vigour.

Done at Turin, in our palace, March 13th.

(Signed)
VICTOR EMANUEL.
CHARLES ALBERT OF
SAVOY.

DI S. MATANZO.

And fourteen other signatures,

Victor Emanuel,

From the first moment that the abdication made by us on the 13th of March last, was known to our illustrious brother the Duke of Genevois, on whom, by virtue of this act, the crown and the sovereignty of our states have devolved, he has constantly manifested to us his ardent desire to see us resume the reins of government, as well on account of the great attachment which he bears us, as because he considered as null or compulsory an act issued in deplorable circum

stances.

But persuaded, as we are, that the great qualities of our brother cannot fail to ensure the felicity of the people whom Divine Providence has confided to our government; moved, besides, by the causes pointed out in our first act, namely, the weakness of our health, which had long since suggested to us the project of quitting the throne-a project which we had the firm intention of carrying into execution as soon as we should have terminated some affairs of high importance; a project in which we are confirmed by the actual state

of affairs, which demands still more assiduity and applicationwe have resolved of our own free will to confirm by this act subscribed by us, and countersigned by our order, by our cousin the Marquis de Saint Marsan, Minister of State, the abdication which we made by the act of the 13th of March, on the conditions expressed in the said act,

earnestly requesting our very dear brother, the Duke de Genevois, to assume the reins of government and the title of king, in order to ensure the felicity of his people.

Given at Nice, the 19th of April, 1821. (Signed)

VICTOR EMANUEL.

Laybach, May 12. The assembling of the allied Monarchs, and of their ministers, at Troppau, determined upon after the events which had overturned the legitimate government at Naples, was destined to fix the particular point of view which it became necessary to assume with respect to those fatal events, in order to concert a common course of proceeding, and to combine, in the spirit of justice, of preservation, and of moderation, the measures necessary for protecting Italy from a general insurrection, and the neighbouring states from the most imminent dangers. Thanks to the fortunate unanimity of sentiments and intentions which prevailed between the three august sovereigns, this first labour was soon accomplished. Principles clearly laid down, and mutually adopted with the most perfect sincerity, led to analogous resolutions; and the bases which were established at the very first ferences have been invariably followed during the whole course of a meeting rendered memorable by the most remarkable results.

con

This meeting, transferred to Laybach, assumed a more decisive character by the presence and the co-operation of the king of the Two Sicilies, and by the unanimous

concurrence with which the princes of Italy acceded to the system adopted by the allied Cabinets. The monarchs were convinced that the governments most closely interested in the destinies of the Peninsula, rendered justice to the purity of their intentions; and that a sovereign, placed in a most painful situation by acts with which perfidy and violence had contrived to associate his name, yielded with entire confidence to measures which would at once terminate this state of moral captivity, and restore to his faithful subjects that repose and that well-being of which they had been deprived by criminal factions.

The effect of these measures soon manifested itself. The edifice which had been reared by revolt-fragile in its superstruc ture, and weak in its foundation; resting only on the cunning of some, and upon the momentary blindness of others; condemned

by an immense majority of the nation, and odious even to the army which was enrolled to defend it-crumbled to dust at the first contact with the regular troops selected to destroy it, and who at once demonstrated its nothingness. The legitimate authority is restored; the factious have been dispersed; the Neapolitan people are delivered from the tyranny of those impudent impostors, who, deluding them with the dreams of false liberty, in reality inflicted upon them the most bitter vexations; who imposed upon them enormous sacrifices solely to gratify their own ambition and rapine; and who were rapidly accelerating the ruin of a country, of which they incessantly proclaimed themselves the regenerators.

This important restoration has been completed, as far as it could, and as it ought to be, by the counsels and acts of the allied sovereigns. Now, when the king of the Two Sicilies is again invested with the plenitude of his rights, the monarchs will confine themselves to the most ardent good wishes for the plans which this sovereign is about to adopt to re-construct his government upon a solid basis, and to secure, by laws and by wise institutions, the true interests of his subjects, and the constant prosperity of his kingdom.

During the progress of these great transactions we saw burst forth, on more than one side, the effects of that vast conspiracy which has so long existed against all established power, and against all those rights consecrated by that social order under which Europe has enjoyed so many Centuries of glory and happiness.

The existence of this conspiracy was not unknown to the mo narchs; but in the midst of those agitations which Italy experi enced after the catastrophe of 1820, and of those wild impulses which were hence communicated to every mind, it developed itself with increasing rapidity, and its true character stood revealed in open day. It is not, as might have been supposed at an earlier period-it is not against this or that form of government, more particularly exposed to their declamations, that the dark enterprises of the authors of these plots, and the frantic wishes of their blind partisans, are directed. Those states which have admitted changes into their political system are no more secure from their attacks than those whose venerable institutions have survived the storms of time. Pure monarchies, limited monarchies, federative constitutions, republics, all are comprehended, all are ingulfed, in the proscrip tions of a sect who brand as an oligarchy every thing, of whatever kind, that rises above the level of a chimerical equality. The leaders of this impious league, indifferent as to what may result from the general destruction they meditate, careless about all stable and permanent organization, aim merely at the fundamental bases of society. To overthrow what exists, for the chance of substituting whatever accident may suggest to their wild imaginations, or to their turbulent passions-this is the essence of their doctrines, the secret of all their machinations.

The allied sovereigns could not fail to perceive, that there was only one barrier to oppose to this