At the next sitting of the Conference on the 16th April, 1856, the Russian and Austrian Plenipotentiaries announced that they had now received instructions and authority to sign this Declaration, and it was signed accordingly by all the members of the Conference on that day.

"donne lieu, entre les neutres et les belligérants, à des diver"gences d'opinion qui peuvent faire naître des difficultés sérieuses "et même des conflits;

"Qu'il y a avantage, par conséquent, à établir une doctrine “uniforme sur un point aussi important;

"Que les Plénipotentiaires assemblés au Congrès de Paris ne "sauraient mieux répondre aux intentions dont leurs Gouverne"ments sont animés, qu'en cherchant à introduire dans les "rapports internationaux des principes fixes à cet égard;

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"Dûment autorisés, les susdits Plénipotentiaires sont convenus de se concerter sur les moyens d'atteindre ce but; et "étant tombés d'accord ont arrêté la Déclaration solennelle ci"après :

"1. La course est et demeure abolie;

"2. Le pavillon neutre couvre la marchandise ennemie, à "l'exception de la contrebande de guerre ;

"3. La marchandise neutre, à l'exception de la contrebande "de guerre, n'est pas saisissable sous pavillon ennemi ;

"4. Les blocus, pour être obligatoires, doivent être effectifs, "c'est-a-dire, maintenus par une force suffisante pour interdire "réellement l'accès du littoral de l'ennemi.

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"Les Gouvernements des Plénipotentiaires soussignés s'engagent à porter cette Déclaration à la connaissance des Etats "qui n'ont pas été appelés à participer au Congrès de Paris, et à "les inviter à y accéder.

"Convaincus que les maximes qu'ils viennent de proclamer "ne sauraient être accueillies qu'avec gratitude par le monde "entier, les Plénipotentiaires soussignés ne doutent pas que les "efforts de leurs Gouvernements pour en généraliser l'adoption "ne soient couronnés d'un plein succès.

"La présente Déclaration n'est et ne sera obligatoire qu'entre "les Puissances qui y ont ou qui y auront accédé.

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Fait à Paris, le 16 Avril, 1856.

"(Suivent les signatures.)"

(State Papers, 1855-56.)

CHAPTER XII.

THE DECLARATION OF PARIS UNAUTHORIZED, CONTRADICTORY, FALSE, AND NO PART OF THE LAW OF NATIONS.

THE proposal, as already stated, was first mooted at the Conference on 8th April, 1856, by Count Walewski. It was so new and unexpected, and it found the Russian and Austrian plenipotentiaries so wholly unprepared for it, that they had to refer home for instructions before they could even entertain it.

It appears, however, from information given in the House of Commons on 3rd May, 1898, that a draft of the proposal was transmitted from Paris to London by either Lord Clarendon or Lord Cowley, or by both, on the 6th April-two days before it was mooted at the Conference-and that Her Majesty "signified her approval to Lord Palmerston in "writing" on 8th April, the very day when it was first introduced to the Conference. It will be observed that, from the carefully-chosen and limited terms of the Attorney-General's answer,' it does not

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1 "DECLARATION OF PARIS.-Mr. T. Gibson Bowles (Lynn 'Regis): I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General whether he can "say if the assent of Her Majesty the Queen, on 8th April, "1856, to the signature by Lords Clarendon and Cowley of "the Declaration of Paris, first proposed at the sitting of the Paris Conference on 8th April, 1856, and signed on 16th "April, 1856, was conveyed by any, and, if so, by what docu

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appear that the matter ever came before the Privy Council, or even before the Cabinet. It may fairly be inferred, therefore, that neither Privy Council nor Cabinet was cognizant of it; and that as the proposal made to the Sovereign was that of Lord Palmerston (then Prime Minister), so her approval was addressed to him alone and not to the Cabinet.1

It seems strange enough that a document of so

"ment; and, if not, how it was conveyed; and whether the De"claration of Paris has ever been submitted to Her Majesty, or "been ratified by Her Majesty, subsequently to its signature on "16th April, 1856?

"The Attorney-General (Sir R. Webster, Isle of Wight): "The draft of the Declaration of Paris was received by Her "Majesty's Government on April 7th, 1856. The document was "submitted to the Queen, and Her Majesty signified her approval "to Lord Palmerston in writing on April 8th. There was no necessity to ratify the Declaration, which contains no rati"fication clause. It was laid before Parliament by command "of Her Majesty." (House of Commons, May 3rd, 1898."Hansard.)

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It is difficult, if not impossible, to avoid the belief that the contrivance of the unwarranted signature of the Declaration was the act of Lord Palmerston, done without the previous knowledge and assent of his colleagues in the Cabinet. Such an act would be in no disaccord with his character and methods, as these are known to history. In August, 1851, the Queen, in her letter to Lord John Russell, had accused him of "failing in "sincerity towards the Crown"; and on 3rd February, 1852, she actually dismissed him for having, as Lord John said, "put "himself in the place of the Crown, neglected and passed by the "Crown." The act which provoked the dismissal, and this description of it, was of similar gravity with the giving of unwarranted instructions to sign the Declaration of Paris. Lord Palmerston, in defiance of the Queen, and without the previous assent of his colleagues in the Cabinet, had expressed to the French Ambassador in London (who had communicated it to Paris) his satisfaction at the success of Louis Napoleon (afterwards Napoleon III.) in the coup d'état of 2nd December, 1851. Hence his dismissal.

great importance as that by which the Sovereign is declared to have signified her approval in advance of a Declaration which laid aside the maritime rights, and altered the Common Law of England, should never have been presented to Parliament. What kind or character of document it was; whether a formal and solemn communication; or a letter; or, as seems possible, a mere initialled note on an informal memorandum; or whether it was authenticated by sign manual or otherwise, we know not to this day.

But there is more than this. The circumstances connected with the signature of the Declaration appear more mysterious, less explicable, and less satisfactory the more they are examined.

"The Draft of the Declaration," we are told, แ was "received by H.M. Government on April 7th, "1856. The document was submitted to the Queen, "and Her Majesty signified her approval to Lord "Palmerston, in writing, on April 8th." But it is impossible that any draft of the document should have been received by the Government on the 7th, and approved by the Queen on the 8th April-for the Protocols show that on the 7th April the matter had not so much as been mooted at the Congress, that it was first mooted at the sitting of the 8th, and that even then the Russian and Austrian plenipotentiaries professed to see in it something entirely "unforeseen," unprovided for, and to them entirely novel; that even on the 8th there was no draft submitted, but only a general statement of the four points; and that the first draft of the full document was adopted at the sitting of 14th April; that at that same sitting Count Orloff, the Russian plenipotentiary, first made it a condition, on the part of Russia, that she "would "not engage herself to maintain the principle of the

"abolition of privateering, and to defend it against "Powers which might not deem it their duty to "accede to it; " that at the subsequent sitting of 16th April, when the Declaration was signed, the further condition was agreed to, that the four points should be indivisible, and that none of the signatory Powers should enter into any engagement not resting at once on all four of them; and that, on the same day there was added to this last condition, that it should not have a retroactive effect, or invalidate anterior conventions.

Let it here be remembered that on 8th April, the very day on which the Queen is said to have "signified her approval" in London, Lord Clarendon, speaking at the Congress in Paris, had received the proposal of the four principles of the Declaration, then first made by Count Walewski, by using these words:

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"England, at the commencement of the war, had sought, by every means, to attenuate its effects, and, to that end, she had "renounced, to the profit of the neutrals, during the conflict "which had just ceased, principles which up to then, she had in"variably maintained. He added that England was disposed to "renounce them definitively, provided that Privateering were equally abolished for ever... our state of civilization and humanity required that an end should be put to a system which no longer "belongs to our time."1

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To resume, then, what we are officially told:

The Draft of the Declaration was received by H.M. Government on the 7th, or seven days before any draft, properly so-called, was in existence.

The Draft-or draft of a draft-so received on the 7th-was necessarily without the two provisoes, first suggested in Paris nine days later, that the four

1

1 State Papers, vol. xlvi., 1855-1856, pp. 125, 133, 137-138.