The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-20 00:00:00

Ronal interest in the Galway contract. He had merely
brought the petition forward on public grounds, and because
he had a right to present it. (Hear, hear.) On Monday
next he would move that the petition be referred to a select
committee.
Mr. HOPE said that as reference had been made to the
Galway contract, he would only state that as a member of
the committee, the view which he took was favourable to
the continuance of the contract, and he would remind his
hon. friend the member for Harwich (Captain Jervis) that
he made several motions for that purpose, but they were
not acceded to by the committee. (Hear, hear.)
f After a few words from Mr. B. COCHRANE, which were
inaudible in the gallery,
Motion agreed to ; petition ordered to be printed.
NEW SOUTH WALES.

Mr. MARSH asked the Under-Secretary of State for the
Colonies if any petition to her Majesty had been received
from the inhabitants of the district of the Clarence and
Richmond rivers, praying for separation from the colony of
New South Wales.

Mr. C. FORTESCUE said that the petition was on its
Way, and was expected to be received in a few days.

THAMES EMBANKMENT.

In answer to a question,

Mr. COWPER expected that the report of the committee
would be completed next week. No time should be lost in
laying it on the table along with the evidence.

ISLAND OF SARDINIA.

On the motion that the house resolve itself into a com-
mittee of supply,
Mr. KIN GL A.KE rose to ask the Secretary of State' for
Foreign Affairs whether the Governments of Italy and
France continued to deny that the King of Italy had enter-
tained a project for ceding to France the Island of Sardinia ;
and whether the truth of any such denials was confirmed or
shaken by the information which her Majesty's Government
might have received from other quarters ; and moved for
copies of any further correspondence, which might have
passed respecting the cession to France of the Island of Sar-
dinia. He said that in consequence of recent acts of the
French Government he felt it necessary to bring this ques-
tion forward. It was essentially an English question, quite as
much as the cession of Nice last year was's. European question,
and was one, therefore, which was well worthy the atten-
tion of that house. If it were merely a question of the ac-
quisition of land by France he should not have said a word,
but his belief was that whoever secured the possession of
the Island of Sardinia would thereby acquire the control of
the Mediterranean. (Hear.) That was the opinion ex-
pressed half a century ago by Lord Nelson, who, in his cor-
respondence, again and again returned to the subject. In one
place he said, " What a noble harbour 1" In another, "It
would hold our whole navy." Again, "No fleet could pass
it; Malta not to be named with it; worth three of Malta."
In another place, " the King of Sardinia can't keep it, and
if France gets it she will have the command of the Medi-
terranean." "We must not even risk its falling into the
hands of France." (Hear, hear.) He was indebted to Mr.
Forester's excellent work for these extracts. It was singu-
lar that Lord Nelson mentioned that Lucien Bonaparte was
then endeavouring to exchange Parma and Piacenza for the
Island of Sardinia. If Lord Nelson then considered that the
possession of Sardinia by France would be injurious to Eng-
land, how much more so now, when India was a re-
cognised possession of the British Crown, and our way to
it was through the Mediterranean. In that sea our com-
munications must be neither imperilled nor held on suffer-
ance. (Hear.) The first Napoleon was most anxious to
make the Mediterranean a French lake, and he was justified
in attempting to do so, for at that time he waged flagrant
war against England; but now when we were at peace with
France such attempts bore a different colour. (Hear.)
Let them consider what France was doing at this moment.
,She had secured so much of the Mediterranean coast,
either by actual dominion or by dominant control, as that
the ships of any other power must run a gauntlet in passing
through. Spain had got Tetuan, Tetuan controlled Tangier,
and the possession of Tangier by a hostile power rendered
Gibraltar insecure. France had secured the African coast
up to Tunis, so that nearly the whole seaboard was directly
or indirectly under her control. The noble lord the Secre-
tary for Foreign Affairs had last year written a spirited de-
spatch to Sir J. Hudson, stating the rumours he had heard
and desiring Sir James to get distinct explanations from
the Turin Cabinet, and a formal engagement that no further
cession of territory would be made. To the requisitions of
43ir Jas. Hudson, Cavour replied by referring to a speech he
had made in the Chamber, in which he declared that even
the temptation of acquiring Venice would not induce him
to cede another inch of Italian soil. Now, independent of
the equivoque in the expression, " Italian soil," which
might not include the island of Sardinia, this reference to a
speech went far short of a regular despatch, and as now
Cavour was unhappily no more, we have no engagement
whatever. The noble lord had also written to Lord Cowley,
and his lordship applied to M. Thouvenel, when the latter
replied giving a positive denial—Lord Cowley called it an
abjuration—adding that it was preposterous to suppose that
France would risk a war with England for the sake of a
barren island. These despatches long since were laid upon
the table of the house, and therefore the opinion of the house
might be said to have been invited on them ; and he must
say he thought they were somewhat to blame for not pay-
ing more attention to the purport of those depatches. The
despatches left off in a very unsatisfactory way, and there
was nothing in them which tended to show the anxiety had

been removed. The result was, that since the spring cir-
cumstances had arisen which gave strong ground for sup-
posing
that France had been advancing towards the attain-
ment of its original object—the annexation of the island of
Sardinia. (Hear, hear.) In considering what foun-
dation existed for such a supposition, it was fair
to regard the anterior positions of Sardinia and
France, or, as he might term them, the buyer and
seller. These were the two Powers that created so great a
disturbance in Europe last year with respect to Savoy and
Nice. The island of Sardinia was undoubtedly a great
temptation to France, and France doubtless possessed the
means of so tempting the King of Sardinia as to induce him
to surrender the island, actuated by similar motives to those
which induced the surrender of Venice. To try this question
by its probabilities, if such an engagement had actually
been entered into, what might they expect to find ? They
might expect that the people of the island would be disturbed
by the notion that they were to be surrendered to France ;
that preparations would also be going on in the island for
that wonderful pic2e of legerdemain which imperial states-
men were accustomed to call a plebiscite. Then, a little later,
there would be an imperial denial of any intention to effect
such a transaction ; then that the King of Sardinia, em-
boldened by the vehemence of that denial, might really sup-
pose he was a free man and assert his intention to hold his
own ; but then the next day he would be rebuked by France
for daring to imagine he was free and could refuse the ces-
sion. Now he (Mr. Kinglake) was prepared to say that all
this, and more than this, had taken place. An agitation had
already been set on foot in the island of Sardinia for the

'Purpose of inducing the people to believe they must neces-
sarily and inevitably become French. One of the leading
newspapers there wrote in the same painful terms as those
which were so distressing last year in the case of Nice—
the writer hoping and fearing, but apparently con-
vinced that by some process which could not be
prevented, the island was to be ceded. Even the 'humble
officials of the Government believed that the Sardinian
uniform they wore would be the last of the kind they would
ever possess. He should be glad to hear from the noble
lord what accounts he had had from the English consul at
very unwiseimagine
Cagliari. He thought it would be to
that the fears of these people were noelemeutfor our
con-
sideration. There was an instinct in the people of a country
ty
in which transactions of this kind were pending that taughtr
them to know what was going to happen, and in this case
he considered that the sensations of the victim were very
worthy of considetation. (Hear.) No one could have been
less acquainted with what was going on in Europe than the
humble shopkeepers of Chambery or Nice when that annex-
ation was in contemplation, and on the other hand no one
could have been better acquainted with such affairs than the
noble lord at the head of the Government, yet it was very
true that the humble men to whom he had alluded possessed
at that time an instinct which told them with more truth
and certainty than the noble lord had been able to attain,
that they were about to be annexed to France. Passing
from the island of Sardinia and proceeding to Turin he con-
sidered that in speaking of the agreement which it was sup-
posed had existed between Count Cavour and the Emperor
.of the French, it would be wrong to treat that as a mere
rumour. Of the sources of that rumour he knew nothing,
and he would, therefore, not advert to more than ac-
tually came within his own knowledge. He would beg
the house to bear in mind that Count Cavour, with a
sensitiveness which he (the hon. gentleman) thought
honourable to him, was accustomed to flinch from avowing
the full extent and nature of the transactions that took place
with reference to the annexation of Savoy and Nice. It was
also peculiar in Count Cavour that he was very much in
the habit of giving half confidences to people. For instance,
he would instruct a man acting under him to such an ex-
tent only as he thought necessary for the man's guidance,
and no further. Having premised these points, he would
state to the house what he believed to be true with regard
to the extent to which Count Cavour was engaged in
negotiations for the cession of the island of Sardinia. Count

savour had put himself in communication with a gentle-
tree, whose name, if mentioned, would be well known to
" Majesty's ministers, and to Europe generally, but whose
Mme
he (Mr. Kinglake) was not at liberty at the present
anorcient to d*.
to obtain Permission ,although he believed.. he should '
be able
her Majeetv• mon to mention it, if necessary, to one of
8 tarnaikuisters. Count Cavour had desired this
gentleman to
dinia with a view to certain inquiries in the island of Bar- ;
there making t:
ascertain what progress France was
island. Not in hounnatnTat arrangements for the cession of the
instructions were addrallY' the
gentleman io whom these
you made with the neZodt.seid, " What progress have
azion? la the island to be
ceded ?" ount Cavonz's
the French C
is always preoeingtelt hitherto
"The Emperor of
thderio tel have held out."
Well, the gentleman thus instmetet
Sardinia and then ascertained that went to the island of
the People had been
worked upon in the way he (the hon.
:aria); adding
had de-
scribed, and he also ascertained that tadhevancecipmrooe—en'the
Re
would
rulas the
this island to the French empire had
forming of two committees of annexation.
tell the house who this person was who bad been perform-
ing ing this singular duty, because perhaps his hon. friend the
member fq Toanworth would not be unwilling to bear the