The Sun.
London, England, 1824-02-17 00:00:00

THE HOLY ALLIANCE AND SWITZERLAND.

ARA U, FEB. I.—lt is impossible that persons,
who have paid any attention to the controul exercised for 'some
years past by the Holy Alliance over the Governments of
Switzerland, should net hare asked themselves what are the
causes of that conduct. If there did not exist in Switzerland any
Journal capable of exercising the least influence in neighbouring
States—if there did not exist any writer occupying himself on
the affairs of other countries, why has the Holy Alliance order-
ed the liberty of the press to be sacrificed in all the cantons
where it was established ? If the men who sought an assylum
in the Helvetic territory had no connexion with each other—if
they were for the most part men living in obscurity, and inca_
pable of bringing about any political results, either in Switzer-
land or elsewhere—in fine, if they carried on no dangerous cor-
respondence with their countrymen—if they formed no plots,
why have they been proscribed ? Is it credible that Kings and
Emperors, each of whom have 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 of sub-
jects, should league together to persecute some obscure indi-
viduals, whose names, perhaps, never reached their ears ? Is
it not more natural to suppose that these men were forming in-
trigues in the country which afforded them an asylum, and that
they were preparin g in sevetnew revolutions ? Certainly the latter
is the most simple hypothesis, and therefore we find it adopted
by men who will not take the trouble of reflection, or who se-
cretly approve of the Holy Alliance when they dare not support
its principles openly.
The Holy Alliance acts in a manner so uniform and so con-
stant, as to give ground for believing that all the members who
compose it are animated with the same spirit, and tend to the
same end. This manner ofjudging—just in one point of view
—would be incorrect in another. There exists in each of the
members of the Holy Alliance, a common will, which tends to
maintain despotism wherever it is found, and to give it a defi-
nitive establishment where it has only an incomplete existence.
But besides this general tendency, there is in every government
a particular inclination which leans to its personal aggrandize-
ment, or to the satisfaction of its hatred or individual prejudices.
It is from the combination of these two causes that have sprung
all the events of which I have spoken to you in a preceding let-
ter, and those of which I have yet to speak.
Switzerland has not always been what it is now. The Ger-
man Cantons were long part of the Austrian dominions : the
Cantons where the French language is spoken formerly belong-
ed to Savoy or to France. In conquering its independence,
Switzerland did not pass under the yoke of a new master. Now
it is a fact known in European diplomacy, that the pretensions
of the house of Austria never die. It is enough that this Power
has once had possession of a territory, and has recorded this
possession in its archives, to entitle it to claim eternal pro-
prietorship, and to urge it to take all occasions to recover what
it had lost. The rivalship which existed between this family
and the house of Bourbon served as a guarantee to Switzerland,
so long as the old diplomacy of Europe prevailed ; but this fa-
mily rivalship having been weakened by the principles of the
Holy Alliance, each power endeavours to turn to advantage this
suspension of royal hatreds and antipathies. Austria, in the
mean time desires to create an occasion for exercising her preten-
sions to the greatest portion of Switzerland. On her side, Savoy
has not forgotten that she was once mistress of Geneva, and the
Canton of the Pays de Vaud. It is known that she has already
announced her pretensions to the city and the territory of the
first of these cantons. She founded these pretensions partly
upon her former possession, and partly on the necessity of op-
posing a strong barrier to the aggrandizement of France on the
side of Savoy. To this motive of ambition are added the
hatred which a Government always preserves towards a popu-
lation which has shaken off its allegiance, and the antipathy of
a Catholic and bigotted Court towards a republic which was the
cradle of the Reformation, together with all the prejudices of
an ignorant Government against an enlightened people. This
hatred of the Sardinian Government against Geneva is such,
that the laws of the country, and
privileges Savoy to persons of all other
i t ev
whiche even chews
ace i tsel f
granted
by
nations are specially refused to the inhabitants of Geneva.

any
French
partl roiyeelrvn::::ntterritory,
appears to form no pretensions to
but its prejudices and the
of eG
different catastrophes which it has undergone, make it regard
with a sort of terror the existence of a people who have not a
master. The vicinity of Austria and Savoy may excite its fears
for the invasion of a part of its territory—a misfortune, how-
ever, which it does not seem much to dread ; but the spectacle
of a people who can live without commotion, without taxes,
and without an expensive Court, inspires it with a most serious
alarm. The men, therefore, of whom this Government is com-
posed, do not conceal their fears with respect to Switzerland.—
One of them, who has always enjoyed the favour of the 310-
narch—who has just been raised to the dignity of a peer—and
who appears never to have been foreign to the secrets of the
Court, has not hesitated to publish in a Ministerial Journal,
4; that the Governments of the Swiss Cantons are only great
municipalities, which exist by the tolerance of the Holy Alliance,
and that the legitimate power over this country belongs to the
Monarchs of the neighbouring States." This kind of mani-
festo against the independence of Switzerland inspired at first
all the citizens who have any foresight of the future with a terror
which is not yet extinguished.
But of all the motive,' which have brought about the perse-
cutions that have recently taken place in the Helvetic territory,
the principal, doubtless, is the wish cherished by each member
of the Holy Alliance to extinguish within his own dominions
every idea of liberty, and every feeling of independence. Who-
ever with any degree of attention observes the events which are
occurring on the continent of Europe, will be convinced that
in the greater number of States there no longer exists any kind
of guarantee for those who dare to express opinions contrary to
the official opinions of the Government under which they live.
It is not merely by legal prosecutions and judicial judgments,
by sentences of death, or by confiscations, that the means of
reaching them are found. They are also attacked indirectly in
their children, who are deprived of education ; in their relations,
who are dismissed from any offices they may happen to fill ; in
their fortunes, if they have any property to lose. But such
persecutions would be insufficient, if there existed in the centre
of Europe a territory in which an independent man, unjustly
persecuted, could find an asylum for himself and his family.
The object of the Holy Alliance is to prove to all the world
that there is no sanctuary on this earth for any one who dares
to think and to say that absolute power is not the first of
blessings.
What matters it, according to this system, whether the men
who are persecuted in a foreign territory are innocent or guilty
—whether they do or do not exercise an influence over their
coternporaries—whether they be young or old, healthy or
infirm ? The persecutions which they experience have
for their sole object to prevent the mischief which it is
supposed they might cause. The intention is to terrify all men
on the continent who possess any feeling of independence.
The choice of the victims may therefore be made at hazard,
or abandoned to the passions and caprice of inferior agents. Ac-
cordingly, were it worth the while to explore the particular
motives for placing On the list of proscription the greater num-
ber of the men who had been banished from Switzerland, it
would be founcrthat almost in every case, those motives have
no connection whatever with the policy of the Governments
composing the noly Alliance. In one canton, for example,
,the father of a numerous family will be proscribed, because,
though born a Catholic, he allows his children to be brought up
in the Religion of his Protestant wife, which the priest is sure
to regard as sinful. In another, aged men :re proscribed
solely because among their friends are men whom the agents
oldie Holy Alliance dislike, but against whom they have no
mean% of instituting any personal persecution.
While the Holy Alliance thus seeks to intimidate its own
subjects by persecuting them on a foreign territory, some of
'she members of that Alliance satisfy their individual pasaions
•'thy humiliating the Governments of Switzerland, and partici'.
Nllarly by endeavouring to reader them contemptible in. the -eyes

of their own subjects. Among all the transactions which have
for several years occurred in this country, none are more noto-
rious than the existence of diplomatic notes addressed to the
Cantons, to procure the expulsion of certain foreigners. Seve-
ral of these foreigners were particulary connected with the mem-
bers of the Governments under which they lived, and some had
even been invited by those Governments to Switzerland. When
those menacing notes were carried into execution, and the
foreigners had removed, the agents of the Holy Alliance threw
all the odium of the measures on the Governments of the Can-
tons. They denied in public notes what they had demanded
in secret ones, convinced that amongall the Governments of the
Cantons not one would have the courage to publish the latter
notes in justification.
The ultimate object of all those manoeuvres is easily divined.
If this scheme of degrading the Swiss Governments in the
opinion of the people should be successful—if they should
be rendered objects of distrust and hatred—if, on the other
hand, the suppression of the liberty of the press should
prevent the formation of any kind of public spirit—finally,
if the citizens could be deprived of every means of knowing
the real situation of affairs—then would the country be com-
pletely prepared for an invasion or a partition as soon as it
should appear that such an aggression might be attempted
without danger.
Before the success of the Holy Alliance in Spain, its Mini-
sters acted in a manner somewhat clandestinely in Switzerland.
They merely insinuated their orders in the form of advice, and
never reduced them to writing. If written notes were required
from them, they said they had not yet received orders to pre-
sent them. If their advice was not followed, they indulged in
menaces, which were also unwritten. Now they act more
openly. Their orders and their menaces are communicated in
writing, and they prohibit the Governments to whom their
notes are addressed from publishing them.
The greater part of the Governments which compose the Holy
Alliance have had, or still have, in Switzerland, special agents,
who are directed to act according to the particular views of
those Governments. The French Government has, for a long
time, maintained a Count de B--t and a Marquis de Ch--
in Switzerland. The business of these agents is to instigate the
Italian exiles to undertake any hazardous enterprise, and to
promise them the support of some of the principal members of
the French Chamber of Deputies. The men to whom these
propositions were to be addressed, were far from wishing to en-
gage in plots against any Government ; but had they even che-
rished the designs imputed to them, the mission of the
Marquis and the Count would have been equally unsuc-
cessful, for the character of those spies was well known
in Switzerland before their arrival. The Sardinian Go-
vernment has for its agent a man who was once a captain
of cavalry, who put off the cuirass to put on the cas-
sock, and who has added to the boldness of his late profes-
sion all the cunning and intriguing spirit of the present. The
character of a Catholic priest enables this agent to exercise a
powerful influence over the population. Austria is served by a
M. de H.— who was born a Protestant, but who, though
long incorporated with the Jesuits, was allowed to preserve ex-
ternally the appearance of his former religion. He did not
publicly embrace the Catholic religion until he was unmasked
by a Professor of Law in the Grand Council of Berne, of which
he was a member. The Prussian agent is F. B , who
was for 25 years the agent of the Bourbons. His intrigues have
so completely covered him with disgrace, that when the Prus-
sian Government wished to give him a public mission in Swit-
zerland, the Cantons remonstrated against receiving him.
Russia has employed some of her Colonels ; but the men who
come from that country are so completely objects of distrust,
that their missions are not of long continuance.
Such are some of the least obscure of the subaltern agents of I
the Holy Alliance, who have been employed in the preparation
of proscription lists—lists which the Ministers have adopted
without giving themselves any farther trouble, except that of
adding any new names which happened to be particularly odi-
ous to some of them.

ST. JAMES'S HAY MARKET, Feb. 14.
0. Hay 31 10s Od to 51 lOs Od Clortr, 411630 d to 6101 011
New Hay 01 os Od to 01 Os od Straw 21 2s Od to 21 lOs 04
SMITHFIELD.
Old Hay 4l lOs Od to 51 5s Od--Arerage, 51 As 04.,
Straw
Clover 5l los Od to 61 6s Oa--Average, 61 os
W 11 IT EC H APE 1..
Hay 4l 101 od to 51 lOs Od-Average, 51 Os 04.
Now ditto Ol Os Od to 01 Os Od----Average, 01 os Oa
Straw
Clover 5l Os Od to 6! Ws 011--Ayerage. 51 185 04

I'liloE 01 HOPS, per C‘“., Feb. 16.
Gnowru, 18/3

Kent Pockets 81 10s to 101 Os to 121 Os
East Kent, Canterbury 171 —I to —los
Sussex Pockets 810 s to 91 9s to 101 5s
Essex. Pockets 81 Os to 101 Os to 111 11s
Farnlnun, tine, 161 Os to 211 Os—Second, 111 Os to 161
Kent Ba,gs, 81 Os to 91 9s to 101
Sussex 13 4Ss, 71 Ms to 81 8s to 91 Os
Essex Bags, 71 los to 91 Os to 101 Os