The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-21 00:00:00

can have no difficulty in answering these inquiries.

We have always denied, and still deny, the right or pre-
tension of the French Government to impose a member of
any family upon the Spanish nation as the husband of the
Queen, or to control in any manner the decision of a ques-
tion so purely Spanish. But we have felt, and have readily
admitted, that there might be various reasons which should
induce the Spanish Government preferably to select from
the house of Bourbon a Prince for this station. Of these
reasons, the desire on the part of Spain, and the interest of
Spain, to maintain friendly relations with France, mipht
naturally be supposed to possess much weight. We, there-
fore, urged no objection against the proposal of seeking
among the descendants of Philip V. for a husband for the
Queen, provided such choice should be conformable to the
inclinations of her Najesty and the interests of her Govern-
ment. _ _ _ _

We have never offered any objection to the selection of
the Count of Trapani, when it was proposed to united Queen
Isabella to her uncle ; but, when this alliance had become
manifestly odious to the nation, we ventured, although with-
out any English candidate or English preference, to point
out the Infante Don Enrique as the Prince who appeared to
us to be the most eligible, because the most likely to prove
acceptable to the people of Spain.
If it should be found that no descendant of Philip V. can
safely be chosen, consistently with the happines of the
Queen, or with a due regard to the tranquillity of the
country, the Spanish Government, in the exercise of their
independent judgment, must act in such a manner as may
be dictated by a sense of their own dignity and interest ;
and in this case it could be no cause of displeasure to Great
Britain if they were to select a Prince from some other
family.
Whatever might be the disappointment experienced by
France at such a decision, I cannot for a moment admit the
possibility of anything so unreasonable and unjust as an at-
tempt to control the choice of the Queen in a matter of this
kind. The French Government must be perfectly aware that
no marriage which does not accord with the wishes of the
Queen, and receive the assent of her people. can be at all
likely to promote the happiness of the Sovereign, or the
welfare and prosperity of Spain.
France is too deeply interested in the tranquillity of
Spain, and the Court of the Tuileries is too much enlightened
and too just, to entertain the notion of such an interference
as that supposed. It may, therefore, be at once rejected as
impossible. But if, contrary to all reason and probability,
any such project, that is to say, an attempt to control the
wishes and feelings of the Queen and the clearly understood
will of her people, should be contemplated, there can be no
doubt that Spain would not only receive the warmest sym-
pathy of Great Britain, but of all Europe.
I am, &c.,
ABERDEEN.

No. 2.
LORD PALMERSTON TO MR. BULWER.

Foreign-office, July 19, 1846.-
Sir,—There seam to be two questions which at the present
moment prominently attract the attention of those who
take an interest in the affairs of Spain :
The one is the marriage of the Queen. The other is the
political condition of the country.
In regard to the first question, I have not at present any
instructions to give you in addition to those which you
have received from my predecessor in office. The British
Government is not prepared to give any active support
to the pretensions of any of the Princes who are now can-
didates for the Queen of Spain's hand, and does not feel
itself called upon to make any objection to any of them.
The choice of a husband for the Queen of an independent
country is obviously a matter with which the Governments
of other countries are not entitled to interfere, unless] there
should be a probability that the choice would fall upon some
Prince so directly belonging to the reigning family of sonic
powerful foreign state that he would be likely to connect
the policy of the country of his adoption with the policy of
the country of his birth in amanner that would be injurious
to the balance of power, and dangerous to the interest of
other states. But there is no person of this description
among those who are now named asTandidates for the hand
of the Queen of Spain, those candidates being reduced to
three, namely, the Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, and the
two sons of Don Francisco de Paula. I omit Count Trapani
and Count Montemolin, as there appears to be no chance of
the choice falling upon either of them.
As between the three candidates above-mentioned, her Ma-
jesty's Government have oaly to express their sincere wish
that the choice may .fall upon the one who may be most
likely to eo re the happiness of the Queen, and to promote
the welfare of the Spanish nation.
In regard to the second of the above-mentioned ques-
tions, namely, the political condition of Spain, I have not,
any more than upon the first question, any particularin-
structions to give you at the present moment.
That political condition must indeed be the subject of deep
regret and concern to every well-wisher to the Spanish peo-
ple. After a struggle of now 34 years' duration for consti-
tutional freedom, Spain finds herself under a system of go-
vernment alinost as arbitrary in practice, whatever it may be
in theory, as any which ever existed in any former period of
her history.
She has indeed a Parliament by law; but all freedom of
election for the members of that Patliament has been over-
borne by force or by other means, and no sooner does the
Parliament meet, than, upon the first manifestation of any
opinion not in accordance with that of the executive Go-
vernment, the Parliament is either prorogued or dissolved.
There
.is, indeed, by law, liberty of the press; but that
liberty has, by the arbitrary acts of the Government, been
reduced to the liberty of publishing what may be agreeable
to the Executive, and little or nothing else.
There are, indeed, by law tribunals for the trials of per-
sons accused of offences and crimes; but numbers of persons
have been arrested, imprisoned, banished, and even, in some
cases, executed, not only without condemnation, but even
without trial.

This system of violence and of arbitrary power seems in
some degree to have survived the fall of its author, and not
to have been as yet entirely abandoned by the more mode-
rate men who have succeeded him in the Government.
It is greatly to be hoped that the present Ministers in
Spain, or those who may succeed them, will lose no time in
returning to the ways of the constitution and to obedience
to the law. Such a system of arbitrary violence as that
which has been pursued in Spain is likely to create open re-
sistance, even while it is administered by the strong hand
and determined will of the individual by whom it has been
organized; but when it is no longer supported by the energy
of its original author, and when an attempt is made to
continue it under a feebler and less daring direction, no great
degree of sagacity can be required to foresee that it must
lead to outbreak; for, when the Alinisters of the Crown set
at nought the laws which provide for the security of the
people, it cannot be surprising if the people should at length
cease to respect the laws which provide for the security of
the Crown.
It was certainly not for the purpose of subjecting the
Spanish nation to a grinding tyranny that Great Britain en-
tered into the engagements of the Quadruple Alliance of
1835, and gave, in pursuance of the stipulations of that
treaty, that active assistance which contributed so mate-
rially to the expulsion of Don Carlos from Spain. But
her Majesty's Government are so sensible of the inconve-
interfering, even by friendly advice, in the inter-
_ _

au
venience of - ..uty
nal affairs of independent states, that I have to abstain from
giving you instructions to make any representations what-
ever to the Spanish Ministrs on these matters; but, though
you will, of course, take care to express on no occasion.on
these subjects sentiments different from those which I have
thus explained to you, and although you will be careful not
to express those sentiments in any manner or upon any occa-
sion so as to be likely to create, increase, or encourage dis-
content; yet you need not conceal from any of those per-
sons who may have the power of remedying the existing evils
the fact that such opinions are entertained by the British
Government.

I am, &e.

No. 3.
PRINCE METTERNICH TO COUNT D'APPONY.
(Translation.)
Vienna, Jan. 4, 1847.
Monsieur le Comte,—Viscount de Flahault has brought to
my knowledge the dispatch which M. Guizot addressed to
him on the 3d of December last, with orders to give me a
copy. We have since been informed that dispatches of the
same tenor had been addressed by the Minister of Foreign
Affairs to the French missions at Berlin and St. Petersburgh.
Having laid the dispatch in question before the Emperor
our august master, and obtained his commands as to the
answer to be made to this communication, I am authorised
by his Imperial Majesty to address to you the following
manifestations, which form the invariable basis and rule of
his policy. They comprise the sentiments of the Emperor,
which are in perfect accord with those of their Majesties of
Prussia and Russia. His Imperial Majesty attaches to
treaties all the value of sworn faith. He causes them to be
respected, and feels himself entitled to expect that all other
parties signing an engagement will respect on their sides all
that the engagement contains. We do not admit that a
treaty cannot establish rights and charges. We do not ad-
mit, on the other hand, that the rights, or the weight of
the charges they impose upon the contracting parties, may
be carried beyond the limits which the contracted engage-
ment traces for them. We respect independencies legally
established, and we claim, therefore, the right of exacting
that our independence, like that of all states, should be
equally respected. The measure which his Imperial Majesty
has taken, in concert with the Emperor of Russia and the
King of Prussia, with regard to Cracow, has been with a
conviction of the competent rights of his Imperial Majesty
and the duties imposed upon him ;—of his rights, because
the Emperor, in suffering the treaty- of May 3, 1813, to go
into the general proceedings of the Congress, did not intend
to yield to all the other parties who signed that act a right
belonging exclusively to the parties contracting that of May
3 ;—of his duties, because those which his Imperial Majesty
had to fulfil towards the people intrusted by Providence to
his care would not permit him to re-establish a political
body, which, after having contravened for a long
years the conditions in its respect for which its eies of
independence
was founded, has ended in sacrificing the political existence
granted to it to insurrectional projects hostile to all govern-
mental and to social order. The Emperor, while regretting
deeply that there should be any difference of opinion between
the French Cabinet and the three Courts on the subject of
the point of rightliii:N questions flatters himself,
resolutionn
feverth neverthe-
less, less, that their views will meet i
n the common
all the Courts to observe, and cause to be observed, scrupu-
lously, the treaties in their true and literal sense and in their
spirit. Your Excellency will be pleased to bring this present
dispatch to the know ledgeof M. Guizot, copy of it. and remit to him a