The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-10 00:00:00

IMPORTANT STATE PAPER.

DESPATCH FROM PRINCE 'METTERNICH TO
COUNT DE BOMBELLES, AT BERNE.

VIENNA, FEB. 27, 1841.—An extraordinary Diet has
been convened at Berne ; and, in our opinion, the ques-
tion upon which it has to decide is the most important of
any which the Diets of the Confederacy have had to treat
on since the regeneration of Switzerland in the year 1815,
for it Will depend upon the decisions of this meeting
whether the compact which forms the bond of union be-
tween the Swiss cantons from that date is to be looked
upon as still subsisting, or as extinct.
'' Such, in fact, and no other, is the position of the
question. One of the members of the League has been
culpable in a notorious material violation of it. Some of
the cantons who entered into the covenant in common with
Arg 'via complain of its having been transgressed by the
let er canton, and call upon the collected body of the
confederacy to enforce the fulfilment of the dispositions of
the covenant, since, at the same time that it imposes cer-
tain duties upon all the confederates, it certainly gives
each reciprocally an equal right to require that the
obligations entered into by all parties should be acted up
to. From the moment that the central force of Switzer-
land, thus invoked, has either no desire or no power to in-
sure respect to that bond upon which the rights and the
duties of the cantons and their own existence are based—
from that. moment the national compact would be nothing
I but a dead letter, and would certainly not be obligatory
on any of the original participators in it, any further than
each party might deem agreeable to its interests and wishes
for the moment.
" This position of things is a very serious one; and it
awakens in a vary great dr grce the solicitude of his gr icious
Majesty the Emperor. I will not mention to your Excel-
lency here the painful feelings excited in his Majesty's
mind by the total overthrow of the religious establishments
which have received their existence, or in part their for-
tune, from the illustrious ancestors of the Emperor. I
have already expressed my opinions upon this subject in
a late communication to your Excellency, and I have no-
thing to add to what I there said. Nor will I lay before
your Excellency the judgment formed by the Emperor as
a Catholic Sovereign and a friend of right respecting ac-
tions which inflict a deep wound upon all religious senti-
ment, and which will for ever remain a melancholy memo-
rial of the erroneous path into which violent party spirit
and a contempt for principle may lead men. History
will bestow upon these deeds the meed of justice, while
at the same time all impartial witnesses of teem—Protes-
tant as well as Catholic, already condemn them. Swit-
zerland, however, is en independent State, and we do nut
arrogate to ourselves the right to press our opinions upon
her with regard to whatever, either good or bad, may be
done upon her territory.
" The question, however, which at present lies before
the Diet for decision has unquestionably one side, which
has to do with the general political position of Switzerland,
and it is in this respect that the Emperor has commissioned
me to lay a few considerations before your Excellency,
which your Excellency will urge in the same spirit
with which they were dictated—namely, in that of kindly
disposed friendship, a feeling cf which most cer-
tainly Austria has given too numerous and too
convincing proofs for its sincerity to be doubted by any
one. When the events of the year 1814 annihilated the
act of mediation forced npon Switzerland, the Four Courts
of Vienna, Berlin, London, and St. Peteraburgh, actuated
by the principle of regard for the independence of all
States, confined their influence and operation upon
the internal concerns of Switzerland to placing
at the disposition of cantons their friendly counsel
and well-intentioned intervention, for the purposes
of reconstructing for them one common mother country.
The work was completed in a spirit of impartiality
and wisdom. Newly-established rights the very
existence of the canton of Argovia is a Using instance
of the fact—found favour and protection by tne side of
the old right, as far as the latter was still possible to
be maintained ; a national bond embraced within it
the several cantons, without in any way injuring their
sovereignty in any of its essential attributes. Justice,
and an equality of rights and duties, formed, in a word,
the basis of the new bond between the sovereign can_
tone ; and it would be natural, consequently, that the
ecclesiastical establishments of tee Catholic Members of
the League should be taken into consideration under the
full impression of this feeling, and that, considering their
value to the people, and the fact of their having fallen in
part under the rule of authorites of another faith, they,
should be placed under the protection of the common co-
venant of the confederacy.
" The Imperial Court preserves in its archives the de-
clarations of the representatives of the Swiss nation as to
their satisfaction at the restoration of their mother country,
and their gratitude for the part Austria has taken in the
good work.
" And, although at the time when Europe was
assembled at the Congress of Vienna the last stroke
had not been given to the newly.formed Swiss con-
stitution, the Powers were sufficieetly acquainted
with the ground plan upon which it was to be con-
structed to be assured that a political body, based upon
just and wise foundations, which on that account offered
every guarantee for the peaceful continuation of its ex-
istence, would take up its place in the great union of all
the European States ; and it was in consequence of this
conviction that Europe, in its final decisions, presented to
Switzerland a number of advantages which might well de-
serve the eternal gratitude of the Swiss people. The fun-
damental convention then concluded—a convention
which the representatives of the country have yearly cor-
roborated by solemn oath—it is now the purpose of a party
in the country to destroy; and as it conceives itself un-
able, on account of the opposition it meets with, to obtain
its ends by the regular and legal means, it strives to eff,.ct
them by depriving the pact of its efficacy, and thus allow.
ing it, as it were, to fall into oblivion and decay. The de-
cisions come to in Aarau upon the 13th January are a
very decisive advance in pursuance of this system.
" It is precisely now the being deprived, after this
fashion, of the bond of its political unity, which, in our
opinion, would be the greatest misfortune which
could befal the Swiss nation, for no other bond
would take the place of this, but only that hatred
and those bitter feelings which are natural when a
covenant is made between several 'parties, and one or
other of them breaks it with violence, without its
being possible for redress to be obtained. It has
been said, and repeated again and again, that the
European Powers were not the guarantees of the Swiss
compact of 1815, and that they consequently had just as
little right to trouble themselves about its maintenance as
they would be authorised to prescribe laws to any other in-
dependent State with respect to its internal constitution
One point, however, is forgotten in this line of reason-
ing ; and that is, that in a State compact of this kind, the
document of alliance between these States in their posi-
tion with regard to other counties bears not only the
character of a constitutional, but also of a political
act, the continued existence or non-existence of
which is of interest to al foreign States, generally
speaking, but more especially to those which stand
in nearer and more immedia'e connection with the
United States in question. Let us admit that Europe
has no right to compel Switzerland to maintain its compact
of 1815; but no one can ever contest the right to ask,
what is Switzerland? Whate is that bond by which 22
sovereign cantons were bound together in political unity ?
Where is that central power which, legally established by
the combined body of the Swiss cantons, represented the
nation in its relation with regard to foreign State. ?
" As yet these questions were all answered by the con-
vention cf 1815. But from the vary day upon which this
act shall have ceased in fact to be of legal validity, and
' upon which, instead of being a bond cf union between the
Swiss, it becomes an apple of discord,—from that day, we
cannot say of a truth wbere the foreign Powers are to
look for a basis for their relaions with the body of the
Swiss State. We, as good and well intentioned neigh-
bours of Switzerland, arc desirous, out of our most inti-
mate conviction, that the dereatia of the twenty-two can-
tons, shortly about to be assembled at Berne, should take
there reflections into serious consideration before coming
to decisions which, at all events, comprise the future des-
tinies of Switzerland. In our opinion they have only the
choice between two paths—either to maintain the cove-
nant by act and deed, as it exists by right, with the re-
servation that, if teeeisary, it should be revised in a legal
and regular manner, without the violation of a-my right,
or to let it go, leave it to annihilation, and thus give tree
course to every attempt and every passion. General
anarchy and the complete dissolution of the Swiss Confe-
deracy would, we fear, be the termination of this path.
Can any true Swiss patriot, whatever be his political or
religious creed, at all doubt, under such a position of
things, as to the choice of the path to be pursued ?
" Whatever may happen, however, Austria will never
recede from the basis. of those principles which it has
always professed. Fully impressed with all respect for the
independence of other States, Austria has by no means the
intention of interfering in the internal concerns of Switzer-
' land. But at the same time this Power assumes to itself
the right of judging from the point of view of its own in-
terests the influence which the further development of
these matters may exercise upon the relations subsisting
between the two States. Should the unity of Switzer_
land, for instance, be torn asunder, or placed in doubt by
the destruction of the compact, Austria would consider
itself bound to look upon the banner of the one or the ether
part of the disunited bond, by preference, as that of the
Swiss nationality, or should it be, what God forbid, that
a civil war should break out in Switzerland, or that the
oppressions exercised towardstahneahthisoliNeisa
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the opinion of the imperial Court, and the attitude
assumed by re under the circumstances of the
present creels
iu Switzerland. Your Excellency is commi,sioned, at the I
same time, and most especially, to cemmunieate the present
despatch to the Pr2sident of the Vorort, in order that ho
may himself be impressed with the conviction, and may, it
so he please, inspire his constituents with the same, that
the Austrian Court, under the complicated circumstances
of the moment, entertains no sentiment which is not of a
friendly neture towards Switzerland, and in conformity
wi'h all the rules of the strictest right—no sentiment which
we could hesitate for a moment to profess aloud before the
assembled Swiss confederacy, as befere all Europe."

Ma. T. DIBDIN.—A paragraph has appeared
in the Standard, British Queen, and some other papers,
stating that her Mnjesty bad been grac:ously pleased to
confer a pension on the son of the famous Dibdin. We
regret to say there is no truth in the statement. The pre-
valence of the report, however, shows the public feeling,
and Lord Melbourne would do himself credit by paying
some regard to it.

THE DUKE OF BEATIFORT.—We are haPPY
to hear that his Grace ha; quite recovered from the effects
of his late accident, and With able to go out with his hounds
last week.