The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-01 00:00:00

NAPLES AND SICILY.

The following notes have passed between Mr.
Temple, the British Minister at Naples, and M. For-
tunato, the Neapolitan Minister for Foreign Affairs :

- .
" 10 HIS EXCELLENCY THE CHEVALIER FORTUNATO.
" Najites, Sept 16.
" The undersigned, her Britannic Mjesty's Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, has the
honour to inform his Excellency the Chevalier Fortu-
nato, Minister, Secretary of State, President of the
Council, charged with the Portfolio of Foreign Affairs,
that he has been instructed by his Government to state
to his Excellency, that tho part which the British Go-
vernment has, by various circumstances, and by the
repeated invitation of the Neapolitan Crown, and in
more recent times, taken in the affairs of Sicily, and the
sincere interest which her Majesty's Government feels
in the welfare and prosperity of the kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, ir. duce her Majesty's Government to address
the Government of Naples on the present occasion, in the
full confidence that his Sicilian Majesty and his Govern-
ment will do justice to the friendly feelings by which this
comraunication is dictated.

" The diplomatic agents of the British Crown were
urgently invited last year by his Sicilian Majesty to
employ their good offices, as reprensentatives of the
British Government, for the purpose of endeavouring
to bring about an amicable adjustment of the differences
which unhappily prevailed between his Majesty'a Go
vernment and his Sicilian subjects, and the British
agents were authorised by her Majesty's Government to
comply with his Sicilian Majesty's request. But the
British agents and her Majesty's Government well knew
that the discontent among the Sicilians, which had given
rise to the disturbances which had then broken out in
Sicily, was deeply rooted, general, and of long standing,
and that it had been occasioned by the prevalence for a
long course of years of many practical abuses, which
owed their existence, and their continuance, to the sus-
pension of the ancient Constitution of Sicily as it had
been modified and revised in 1812, under the auspices of
the British Government, and with the Royal sanction
and acceptance; and, therefore, the British diplomatic
agents declined to employ their good offices as requested
by his Sicilian Majesty, unless they were empowered to
assure the Sicilians that the Constitution of Sicily, as
revised in 1812, with certain prescribed modifications,
should be put again into action, because they well knew
that unless this was done, the well-founded discontent
which had occasioned the disturbances could never be
expected to cease.
"A variety of circumstances, well known to the
Neapolitan Government, rendered usslese the efforts by
which at different periods, in 1848 and 1849, the British
Government sought to effect, upon the bases above men-
tioned, a reconciliation between his Sicilian Majesty and
his Sicilian subjects. Sul ce it to say, that upon the last
occasion, in March last, her Majesty's Government, in
conjunction with the Government of France, recom-
mended tho Sicilians to agree to the conditions offered
to them by the King in his proclamation at Gaeta of
the 28th of February last, although her Majesty's Go-
vernment could not but acknowledge that the arrange-
ments described in that proclamation fell short of the
provisions contained in the Constitution of 1812, to
which the sanction and assent of the Crown of Naples
had been solemnly given. Unfortunately at that mo-
ment the exasperation produced by the events which had
taken place at Messina in the preceding September still
prevailed in the minds of those who had the conduct of
affairs at Palermo, the arrangements proposed by the
proclamation of Gaeta were refused, and preparations
were made for defending Palermo to the last extremity.
It is astreat satisfaction to her Majesty's Government to
know that the effusion of blood and loss of life which the
attack and defence of Palermo would have occasioned,
both to the King's troops and the people of Palermo, and
the grievous calamities which such a conflict would most
probably have brought down upon all the inhabitants of
the city, were averted by the friendly interposition of a
British subject, and of her Majesty's civil and naval
officers, and that by their means the authority of the King
was :re. established at Palermo peaceably and without the
shedding of a single drop of blood. But the people of
Palermo submitted thus peaceably to the authority of the
King because they were assured that the King would
faithfully observe the promise which on his Royal word
he had made, that a general amnesty should be granted
to his Sicilian subjects ; and,
considering the share
which British officers had in bringing
arrangement,-her Majesty's about this peaceful
Government thinks itself
entitled to express its confident hope that the Royal pro-
mise will not be broken, and that the amnesty one thefaith of which the Palermitans submitted will b
ob-
served by the Government of his Sicilian Majesty.
"Her Majesty's Government, moreover, remembering
the part which Great Britain was called to take in tb-p.
remodelling of the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, canadt
refrain from submitting to the :consideration of his
Sicilian Majesty, and of his Government, that the
Sicilian people cannot be justly deemed to have forfeited
their ancient and acknowledged right to that Constitu-
tion by reason of the efforts which they have made to
recover the practical enjoyment of it; and her Majesty's
Government would further beg to represent that a
continued suspension of those ancient and indisputable
rights of the Sicilian people would necessarily perpes
tuato and aggravate that evident discontent which has
of late made Sicily the theatre of such calamitous con-
flicts, and that thus the connexion between Sicily and
Naples would ha liable to be severed by contingencies,
either domestic or foreign, the possibility of a hich the
sagacity of the Neapolitan Government must render
it unnecessary for her Majesty's Government to point
out.

The undersir."nt d avails himself of this opportunity
to renew to his ExeJlleney the assurance of his most
distinuishod consideration.

Wzuwl Unrix."