The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-19 00:00:00

AUSTRALIA.

PLYMOUTH, TUESDAY EVENING.

The ship Dover Castle, Captain John Adams, be-
longing to Messrs. Green, of London, 89 days from
Melbourne to the Start, was off this port to•day,
with 83,000 ounces of gold-dust, 100,000 sovereigns,
a cargo of copper ore, black sand, wool, and hides,
and 140 passengers, among whom are the Baron
and Baroness Lutwitz, of Prussia, and Commander
Jessie, R.N. The Dover Castle sailed July 20,
rounded Cape Horn August "24, and crossed the
line September lb. In the South Pacific northerly
winds were experienced, and some immense ice-
bergs were observed. After passing the line, calms
prevailed. Spoke, lat. 10 S., the ship Wellesley,
outward bound ; 10 N., the ship Yorkshire, which
left Melbourne July 30, with some gold and pas-
sengers ; in the latitude of the Azores, the bark
Ben Lomond, of Glasgow, and, three degrees south
of the Lizard, the ship Adept, both outward bound.

DIPLOIII.I77C CIRCULAR OF THE PRO-
VISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF PARMA.

The following circular has been addressed by

Signor Parini, chief of the Provisional Govern-
ment of Parma, to the representatives of that

Government abroad :

The National Assembly of the Parmesan provinces has
by its unanimous deliberations joined the political move-
ment of Central Italy. The decision upon the future des-
tiny of this country had already been submitted in the form
of a plebiscite to direct and universal suffrage. The Assem-
bly has been convoked for the purpose of adding to the re-
sult of the popular vote the guarantee of a freo and solemn
discussion. The elections have passed with the greatest calm

and regularity. The Government felt happy at thinking that
in the city of Piacenza French soldiers were present at the
noble spectacle of an Italian people making use of, that
liberty for which they had shed so ranch generous blood.
The Assembly, having been elected from all that was most
illustrious in the land by birth or talent, and even the most
distinguished members of the clergy, proclaimed the depo-
sition of their Bourbon family and the annexation to the con-
stitutional kingdom of tho Savoy dynasty. It would be
highly unjust to judge of these votes of deposition and all

these acts taking place in Italy by deceptive revolutionary
analogies derived either from history or from the pro-
grammes of tho parties and political struggles that may
have taken place elsewhere in Europe. As better days
have appeared to shine on the national cause, it has been
found that to the mind of every Italian the supremely legi-

,imate aim consisted in the reconstruction of his native

country. ,We should be mistaken besides were we to evoke
as regards Parma those ideas of tradition or of a consecra-
tion by time which are attached to the historical name of
the Bourbons. A dynasty may find its basis in the free
choice of a people, or it may derive its moral strength from
that historical community which connects the fate of a
family with that of a nation, causing them to flourish to-
gether under the same trials and with the same remem-
brances. The dynasty of the Bourbons of Parma has fulfilled
neither of these two conditions, and the people of the duchy,
exposed to continual political changes, have constantly seen
their fate decided by ambitions, diplomatic agreements, and
general arrangements completely alien both to their will and
their interests. By the treaty of the Quadruple Alliance
(August 2, 1718), between England, France, the Empire
and the States General, the Duchies of Parma, Pia-
cenza, and Guastalla were declared male fiefs of the Em-
pire in opposition to the claims put forward by the Holy
See; and the Emperor, in the life-time even of the last
Farnese duke; conferred the inheritance and investiture on
Don Carlos, the son of Philip V. Don Carlos took posses-
sion of Palma in 1731, but by the preliminaries of Vienna
(1735), confirmed by the treaty of Vienna
(November 13,
1738), the duchy fell to the share of Austria, who, by the
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), transmitted it to the
Spanish Infanta, Dan Philip of Bourbon, and' to his male
descendants, with a clause of reversibility. Occupied by
the French armies in the wars of the Revolution and even-
tually ceded by Spain to France in 1800, the duchy was
formally united to the French Empire under the name of
the department of the Taro. We have seen what nume-
rous vicissitudes have befallen the sovereignty of the Bons-
'bons, who have renounced as often as they have affirmed
their right over Parma, considering this right of theirs
rather as an appendage, or as an indemnity for more im-
portant combinations.
The Powers themselves, who after the disasters of
France signed with Napoleon the treaty of Fontainebleau
on the 10th of April, 1814, did not hesitate, at that time, to
dispose of the duchy in favour of the EMpress Maria
Louisa, her son and his heirs. It was only in consequence
of the return from the Isle of Elba and from their fear of
s son upon the throne, that they
article of the final'act of the Congress
leaving the
y the
of Vienna to give the duchies to- the Archduchess
Maria Louisa without making mention of her son.
By the treaty concluded at Paris on the 10th of June, 1817,
the rights of the fourth branch of the house of Bourbon
were re-established in the way of reversibility, after being
made subject to a suspension during the life of the Empress
Maria Louisa. This dynasty in expectation had become
more and more a stranger to the country. The remembrance
of the French rule with its strong and
impartial adminis-
tration, it prosperous condition, and military glory, and the
tolerably liberal and tolerant government of Maria Louisa,
had quite effaced the traditions dating from before the revo-
lution. The prospective view of the future sovereign in-
creased, it may be said, the regrets caused by the death of
Maria Louisa. Is it not, then, natural if this people after
so many uncertainties and changes, which have allowed
no ancient dynastic faith to take root in their minds, should
endeavour to fix their destiny by binding it to a strong and
stable kingdom, to a dynasty that has its basis in the tradi-
tion and love of its subjects, and that is consecrated at the
same ttme by ancient and by new right ?
The Duke Charles 11. of Bourbon, oven during the life-
time of Maria Louisa, deeply outraged the most respectable
feelings of the inhabitants by signing the treaty of rlorence
on the 28th November, 1844, in which, under the pretext
of rectifying the frontiers, he promised to cede to the Duke
of Modena the duchy of Guastalla, exchanging that fertile
country for a few mountainous communes of the Garfag-
nano_ By so doing the Duke discharged engagements of a
personal kind, but thereby alienated a considerable part of
his domain before taking possession, whilst causing the state
a diminution of annual revenue estimated at 600,000 f., and
he thus without any consideration disposed of his future
subjects by placing them under the hard sway of the Duke
of Modena.
An example rather unique than rare, in which we are in
Booth permitted to see a singular violation of those austere
and generous principles boasted of by the partisans of divine
right, and a manifest contradiction to those ideas of legiti-
mate separate governments and of inviolable sub-nationali-
ties that are invoked in behalf of the petty Italian princes
rejected by the will of the nation I
The Duke Charles 11. took possession of the Duchy of
1 Parma on the death of Maria Louisa, in 1847, when the
Italian people, with a feeling of their common unity, de-
manded civil and political reforms, and that regard should
be paid to the national principle. Charles 11. began by
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abdicated in exile, and his son was reinstated b
of Austria after the reverses of the Italian arnya. shall
troops
not speak of the sad excesses of Charles the Third's I
shall only cite two facts, which do not concern themnrel'ith t
his rule. An ordinance of the Duke's decreed that wheneverau
public demonstrations of liberal opinions occurred, the guilty
party should be punished with the bastinado, according to
the discretion of the military commandants. And this
punishment, to which the Italians
prefer that of death, was
often inflicted in the public square.
Another law, dated March 19, 1850, after declaring that
several landowners were discharging their peasants because
these did not share in the revolutioxary ideas of their
masters, ordained that no dismissal could be given them
without a previous law .suit before the tribunals ; it con-
tained threats against the judges, and placePthem under
the supervision of the police. In one of these trials, the
tribunals having declared in favour of the landowner,
the Duke, by a decree of January 21, 3851, ordered the
peasant to remain, notwithstanding, upon the lands of the
owner. We see what evil passions it was sought to excite
in the heart of Italian society.'
The crime which put an and to the life of Duko Char:es
111. would deprive us of the right of condemning with just
severity the acts of that Prince, if we did not reflect that
the perversion of the moral sense which argues for the law-
fulness of assassination is only one of the numerous mis-
fortunes for which those governments aro responsible who
first set the example of violating the moral law. The
Duchess Maria Louisa of Bourbon assumed the reins of
Government in the name of her son, and dismissed the
greater part of those evil counsellors of the throne, who had
been the accomplices of her husband. Nevertheless, a
short time after that an insurrection broke out in Parma;
it was suppressed in blood, with the assistance of Austrian
troops, whose occupation had not ceased since 1818. Parma
was delivered up to tho horrors of an unbridled soldiery,
and the Government declared in an imprudent proclama-
tion that it might have prevented but bad preferred to
suppress. That day was fatal to the dynasty ! The city,
placed in a state of siege and fallen into the power of
an Austrian general, was steeped in blood by numerous
executions. Such was the system of merciless rigour aiopted
by the government, which doubtless made it a duty with
the Duchess to sacrifice her feelings of clemency, since one
recommendation of the condemned, notwithstanding the of
the judges themselves, had the capital sentence passed upon
him confirmed. Those acts led to bloody reprisals on the P3'l7
of this people which now gives to Europe so admirable rat
spectacle of order and moderation. The accused were trans-
ported to the prisons of Mantua ; the Austrian general
il
governed in the city itself, where the Duchess reignegienr
still ;
the ducal government found itself suspended by this viola-