The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-30 00:00:00

CIRCULAR OF COUNT CAYOUR.

The following is the text of a circular addressed
by Count de Cavour to the Sardinian Ministers at
foreign courts :

" TURIN, 14th June.
" Sir,—The knowledge you possess of the principles
which have always directed the policy of his Majesty's Go-
vernment, and the frequent communications I have taken
care to address to you in these latter times, must have
enabled you to appreciate, and to cause to be appreciated,
the military and political events which have just taken
place in Lombardy. It is, however, useful to examine once
againthe origin and causes of these events, and to set forth.
still more clearly the intentions and the acts of the King's
Government.

"As soon as the Italian question—the existence of
which was denied by some, and the importance of which
was lessened by others—assumed the first place in the
preoccupations of Europe, his Majesty's Cabinet, with the
frankness which characterises it, made known the extreme
difficulty of the situation. To do this, in the memorandum
of the Ist March last addressed to the British Government,
and which was afterwards published by the press, I endea-
voured to set forth the results of Austrian domination in
Italy—results which have no analogy in modern history.
" I showed that the universal antipathy to and hatred of
the Austrian Government arose, first of all, from the sys-
tem of government inflicted on the Lombardo-Venetians;
and next and more particularly from the sentiment of na-
tionality wounded by foreign domination. The progress of
enlightenment and the spread of instruction which Austria,
could not entirely prevent have made these populations
more sensible of their sad lot—that of being governed,
dominated by a people with whom they have no community
either of race, manners, or language.
" The Austrians, after half a century of domination, had
not established themselves in those provinces ; they were
encamped in them. This state of things was not like a
transitory one, of which the end nearer or more distant
could be foreseen, but it became aggravated and grew
worse every day. We said that that state of things was
not contrary to treaties, but that it was contrary to the
great principles of equity and justice on which social order
is based. If, we added, Austria could not be induced to
modify existing treaties, we should not obtain a definitive
,And durable solution, and we must euuteut ourselves with
palliatives more or less efficacious. Nevertheless, in the
hope of rendering the condition of the Lombards and Vene-
tians more tolerable, and of temporarily modifying such a
grave situation, we hastened, on the demand which was
made to us, to indicate the expedients which appeared to
us best calculated to obtain the result desired.
" Unfortunately, Austria showed herself more than ever
contrary to any conciliation; she was determined to main-
tain by force the illegal preponderance which she had
obtained over States recognised by treaties as independent.
She redoubled menaces, and accelerated the formidable
military preparations directed against Piedmont, which
was the sole barrier opposed to her exclusive domination in
Italy. The petty States which had bound up their fate
with that of Austria, and in the same degree had incurred
the animadversion of their subjects, could no longer show
themselves desirous of fulfilling their duties to their people.
Serious and inevitable complications consequently appeared

imminent.
" The repose of Europe was thus endangered. It was then
that the proposition of a congress was made by Russia, was
consented to by the great Powers, and was accepted by
Piedmont. The basis of the congress was the maintenance
of the territorial status quo, that it is to say the treaties
which assured to Austria her possessions in Italy.
" What then took place is known ; Austria, which saw
placed in discussion not her legal rights, which were ex-
pressly reserved to her, but the occupations she had accom-
plished in spiee of European stipulations, threw off the mask
all at once. In spite of the formal engagements entered
into with England not to attack Piedmont, she sent an
army into his Majesty's States, and her generals loudly de-
dared that the Emperor would come to Turin to treat.
"Events have not, it is true, responded to the boasting'
of the Austrian staff, and the Austrian armies have had. to
confine their exploits to shameful spoliations and acts of
cruelty on inoffensive populations. The enemy has
been driven from Piedmontese territory, and the victories
of Palestro and Magenta have opened Lombardy to us.
Then events confirmed our appreciation of the moral
state of the Lombardo-Venetian provinces, and of the petty
states which had made common cause with Austria. The
sentiments of the populations broke out ; the municipal
authorities, the very same municipal authorities who had
been instituted by Austria, proclaimed the overthrow of the
Government; they renewed the union of 1848, and unani-
mously confirmed their annexation to Piedmont. The mu-
nicipality of Milan proclaimed the same thing even within
reach of the Austrian cannon.
" The King, in accepting this spontaneous act of the na-
tional will, does not in any manner encroach on existing
treaties, for Austria by refusing a congress the basis of
which was the maintenance of those treaties, and by invad-
ing the States of his Majesty, has put an end, so far as she
is concerned, to the arrangements of 1814 and 1815.
" The Italian provinces which the fortune of war had
subjected by force to her domination have entered into their
natural rights ; twice made free in the course of eleven
years, their will has been manifested without obstacle and
without pressure. In 1848, as in 1859, these provinces
spontaneously united themselves to Piedmont, like brothers
who meet brothers after a long and painful separation. _

" The object of the present war is, his Majestly frankly
avows, Italian independence and the exclusion of Austria
from the Peninsula. This cause is too noble for us to dis-
simulate the importance of it ; it is too sacred not to obtain
in advance the sympathies of civilised Europe. We must
even admit that those sympathies have never failed us, for
the policy of the King's Government has always been the
same, and it has obtained the approbation not only of
public opinion but of Cabinets.
" Europe, by the voice of her most eminent statesman,
has testified to the interest she feels in the fate of unhappy
Italy. But in these latter times somo distrust more or less
disguised has appeared. The generous intervention of the
Emperor Napoleon in favour of an ally unjustly attacked
and of an oppressed nation has been to a certain extent
misunderstood. Ambitious views and projects of aggran-
disement are said to exist where there are only noble de-
votedness to the cause of justice and right and the impera-
tive duty of protecting the dignity and interests of France.
The explicit declarations of the Emperor Napoleon 111. at
the moment of drawing the sword have, however, greatly
calmed these apprehensions. The proclamation of Milan,
so clear and becoming, must have dissipated all doubts
which may have remained in prejudiced minds.
" We have the most absolute confidence that the Euro-
pean equilibrium Powot be disturbed by the territorial ex-
tension of a greater and that there will be in Italy a
kingdom strongly constituted, and such as is naturally in-
dicated by geographical configuration, the unity of race,
language, and manners, such has diplomacy wished to
form in other times in the common interest of Italy and
Europe. With the domination of Austria and of the States
which have united their destinies to those of Austria will
disappear a permanent cause of troubles ; order will be
guaranteed ; the flame of revolutions be extinguished; and
Europe can abandon herself in full security to the great en-
terprises of peace which are the honour of the century.
" Such is the point of view in which you must present
the events that are taking place in Italy. The conflict
which Austria has excited must have for result her exclu-
sion from a country which force alone subjected to an
odious and intolerable yoke. Our cause, I take pleasure in
repeating in terminating this despatch, is noble and just;
we can, we must oponely avow that, and we have full con-
fidence in the triumph of right,—Accept, &c.
CAVOUR."