The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-27 00:00:00

NEUCHATEL.

The Federal Assembly sof Switzerland has been
convoked, it may be remembered, to an extraordi-
nary session, which opens this day, Dec. 27. The
letters of convocation were addressed simulta-
neously to the members of the National Council
and to those of the Council of the States. The
object of this session is declared to be to deliberate
on the Neuchatel affair, which the Federal Council
has taken care to represent as of great gravity and
importance. The proceedings will commence, it
is believed, by the presentation of a report from
the Federal Council, of which a correspondent of
the Debats sends the following summary :
" The report will be conceived in a moderate
spirit. The Federal Council wishes to prove that
it has done all in its power to avoid a conflict which
would inevitably affect Europe, and that it has
shown itself from the first day disposed to make
concessions compatible with the dignity of Switzer-
land. The report will probably discuss the value
of the protocol signed at London on the 24th May,
1852; it will represent that the question of Neu-
chatel was only the pretext for that diplomatic act,
to which it is now desired to ascribe a meaning
,1
which it had not at the beginning; it will insist on
the point that the King of Prussia undertook in the
protocol to leave to France, Austria, Great Britain,
and Russia full time to come to a new arrange-
ment, and the power of taking such steps as might
appear best calculated to conciliate all rights in the '
form which should seem to them most proper, and
at the moment they should consider the most oppor-
tune ; and it will recall the spontaneous declaration
of the King of Prussia engaging himself not to have
recourse during the negotiations to any measure to
establish his rights ; it will probably add that the
protocol of 1852 must be considered as null and
void since the King of Prussia is preparing tohave
recourse to military measures. It is believed also
that the report, entering on another order of ideas,
will affirm that at the beginning of the discussion
the Federal Government offered to submit to the
decision of the great European powers, provided
Switzerland were admitted to the conference, whioh
aPPeared just to the governments of Paris and
London ; that Switzerland has always expressed
herself ready to negotiate on the basis of the eman-
cipation of Neuchatel, and the setting at liberty
of the insurgents taken with arms in their hands;

! that Switzerland has even consented to release the
prisoners, if F, an le would instire her the emanci-
pation of Neuchatel, or if the conditions on which
the emancipation of Neuchatel would be hereafter
effected were plainly stated. The Swiss govern-
ment will give full proof of these affirmations.
Lastly, the report will present and develope the con-
sideration that the insurgents of the month of Sep-
tember proposed to detach the canton of Neuchatel
from Switzerland, in spite of the general treaty of
Vienna of the 9th June, 1845, which conduct in
any case constitutes an inexcusable State crime, to
which the benefit of extenuating circumstances
cannot be applied."
A letter from Vienna of the 21st, in the German
Journal of Frankfort, says :—" It is true the cabi-
net of Vienna has sided with Prussia in the affair
of Neuchatel, and has made every possible effort
to induce Switzerland to make concessions ; still
our ministers regret that Prussia has hitherto spoken
only in a general manner of conciliatory measures.
It cannot be denied that the Confederation has rights
over Neuchatel, and the Swiss organs are unani-
mous in declaring the insurrection of the royalists to
be illegal. One may side with Prussia without
absolutely condemning the pretensions of the Con-
federation, or representing the resistance of the
Federal Council as having been dictated by the
demagogues. For the moment, our chief object
must be to prevent the conflict from assuming a
more menacing form ; and if I am well informed.
the Imperial cabinet will not only exert its influ-
ence in Switzerland, but also in Berlin, in order to
obtain from both parties guarantees calculated to
dispel uneasiness on both sides, and eventually to
prepare a reconciliation."

- '1 Several Prussian officers," says a letter from
Stuttgardt, in the German Journal of Frankfort,
" have been here since the 21st studying the
country of Southern Germany and the Swiss
frontier."

" Tho formation of a Baden corps d'armee, to be
posted on the Lake of Constance," says a letter
from Carlsruhe, in the Zeit of Berlin, " is talked of.
The late military resolutions adopted by the Swiss
Federal authorities are said to have inspired this
measure."

The following is the text of the memorandum
about which so much has been said, which was
addressed by the Prussian Government two or three
weeks ago to its representatives at the Courts of
the four great Powers—France, Great Britain,
Austria, and Russia :

BERLIN, DEC. 8.
Monsieur,—Your excellency has already been in-
formed of the refusal with which the Swiss Federal
Council has replied to the demand for the relief of
the Neuchatel prisoners, which was at the order of
the King our august master, formally presented by
his Minister to the Helvetic Confederation. The
preliminary and unconditional performance of this
request, as you are aware, had been fixed by the
King as the indispensable condition of any subse-
quent negotiation for the definitive solution of the
questions relating to the situation of the principa-
lity of Neuchatel.
The patience which our august master has evinced
for many years with respect to a state of things
which is contrary to his incontestible rights, and pre-
judicial to every principle of legitimate authority, as
well as to the sanctity of treaties, might and ought
to have afforded Switzerland sufficient guarantees
that his Majesty would, in the negotiations which
should eventually ensue, not depart from that lofty
moderation which had directed him in the attitude
he had previously maintained, and which had been
more than once acknowledged by the European
Powers. Urgent and almost unanimous counsels
to that effect were, therefore, addressed to the Hel-
vetic Confederation by all the Cabinets which had
signed the protocol of London ; and the German
Confederation, after having unanimously given its
adhesion to the principles set forth in that protocol,
has, through the medium of the German Govern-
ments which have diplomatic representatives in
Switzerland, strongly supported the demand of
Prussia with regard to the immediate liberation of
the Neuchatel prisoners.
These circumstances have conferred upon the re-
fusal of the Federal Council a doubly augmented
importance. It is evident that, with a lamentable
blindness to its real interests, the Helvetic Con-
federation does not take any account of the inter-
national stipulations, by virtue of which the Prin-
cipality of Neuchatel has been admitted, under
the guarantee of Europe, to become one of the
cantons of Switzerland. Proud of a momentary
success, inspired by principles subversive of all
order and authority, and swayed by the influence
of a revolutionary propaganda, which by its origin
is in great part foreign to the Helvetic territory,
Switzerland forgets, or pretends to forget, the an-
terior rights of the King of Prussia, which were
consecrated by Articles 22 and 76 of the Treaty of
Vienna, and will regard only those as valid which
the 75th article of the same treaty bestowed upon
Switzerland.
The King, our august master, has maturely
weighed the obligations which the present state of
affairs imposes upon him. The attitude recently
assumed by the Federal Council, in such a serious
and critical conjuncture, and in the presence of the
combined efforts of foreign Powers, has convinced
his Majesty that he cannot, with that confiding
patience which during the last few years has im-
posed upon him a certain passiveness, hold himself
dispensed from adopting measures calculated to
vindicate his rights to the Principality of Neu-
chatel in a more efficacious manner than by merely
diplomatic means. As for these latter, the Euro-
pean Powers will perhaps continue to occupy them-
selves with such means, and the King will certainly
not refuse to examine the propositions which may
be offered to his Majesty as the result of their con-
sultations.
But the other measures above referred to will
nevertheless from this time be amongst the chief
be
objects of the King's government. They will
prepared and executed without hesitation, but
with perseverance, and a firm intention to attain
the object in view. The sacrifices which
the country will have to bear, it
will
endure with self-denial and devotedness, because it
is aware—and this is a conviction whichmust be
shared by all the foreign Cabinets, unless they
allow themselves to be guided by preconceived
impose
them his Majesty does not
them upon the country until after he has exhausted
every means of effecting an arrangement at once
pacific and honourable, to bring the question of
the definitive situation of the Principality of Neu-
chatel to a mutually satisfactory solution. For
the rest, that moderation, of which so many in-
stances have been shown by his Majesty, is not
yet excluded by the military measures which his
Majesty is preparing. Let Switzerland return to
wiser resolutions, let her communicate them to any
friendly Power, or to the Cabinets which signed
the protocol of London, and the King's ear will
not, as your Excellency already knows, be deaf to
the voice of conciliation.
The above considerations, and the decisions re-
sulting from them, cannot but meet the approval
of the Cabinets friendly to Prussia. Be so
good,
therefore, monsieur, to make them known to the
Cabinet to which you are accredited by presenting
a copy of this despatch to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs. (Signed) MANTEUFFEL.
To his Excellency Count Hatzfeld, at
Paris; or Count Bernstorff, in
London;
Count Arnim, at Vienna ; or Baron
von Werther, St. Petersburg.
We subjoin an extract from the official protocol
of the sitting held on the 18th of Dec. by the Diet
of the German Confederation at Frankfort :
As a sequel to the communication just made,
the Prussian Envoy was charged to express, above
all, the thanks of his Government for the unani-
mous readiness with which the high confederates
had met all its wishes, as well in adopting as in
executing their resolution of Nov. 6.
The Serene Diet, after the example of the Powers
which originally signed the London protocol, has
used its efforts, in concert with the royal govern-
ment of Prussia, to obtain from the Swiss Govern-
ment an act of recognition of his Majesty's rights,
on the basis of which it would have been possible
to enter into negotiations respecting the future
state of the Principality, when it should have been
established that his Majesty would receive a similar
recognition by the unconditional release of the pri-
soners.

The Royal Government of Prussia had a right to
expect that Switzerland would pay to the serious
representations addressed to it that consideration
which it had refused on principle to bestow on the
right which treaties had sanctioned. His Majesty
was enabled to consider himself dispensed from the

necessity of having recourse to any other means
than those of negotiations in the sense of the Lon-
don protocol, so long as the Powers which have
adopted its principles, had made no attempt to in
duce Switzerland to pay regard to the international
tipulations, by virtue of which the Principality of
Neuchatel had been admitted under the guarantee
of Europe, to become one of the Swiss cantons.
At the present time, when such measures have
been attempted on various occasions, and in the
most serious manner, without procuring the libera-
tion of the King's subjects who are detained in
prison, and have latterly been subjected to a more
rigorous treatment than before, his Majesty has to
his great regret seen the last conditions disappear
which permitted him to act, by means of diplo-
matic negotiations, exclusively for the re-establish-
ment of his violated right. Nothing remains for
his Majesty but to support his just demands by
raising military forces in connection with the
object he wishes to attain.

71n performing his mission by making to the high
Assembly this communication in connection with

,s resolution of Nov. 6, and with the declaration