DECLARATION.

The Powers who have signed the Treaty of Paris, assembled at the Congress of Vienna, being informed of the escape of Napoleon Buonaparte, and of his entrance into France with an armed force, owe it to their own dignity, and the interest of social order, to make a solemn Declaration of the sentiments which this event has excited in them.

By thus breaking the Convention which had established him in the island of Elba, Bonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence depended; and by appearing again in France with projects of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of the protection of the law, and has manifested to the universe, that there can be neither peace nor truce with him.

The Powers consequently declare, that Napoleon Buonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social relations, and that as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance. They declare, at the same time, that, firmly resolved to maintain entire, the Treaty of Paris of the 30th of May, 1814, and the dispositions sanctioned by the treaty, and those which they have resolved on, or shall hereafter resolve on, to complete and to consolidate it, they will employ all their efforts, that the general peace, the object of the wishes of Europe, and the constant purpose of their labours, may not again be troubled; and to provide against every attempt which shall threaten to replunge the world into the disorders of Revolution.

And although entirely persuaded, that all France, rallying round its legitimate Sovereign, will immediately annihilate this last attempt of a criminal and impotent delirium, all the Sovereigns of Europe, animated by the same sentiments, and guided by the same principles, declare, that if contrary to all calculation, there should result from this event any real danger, they will be ready to give to the King of France, and the French nation, or to any other government, that shall be attacked, as soon as they shall be called upon, all the assistance requisite to restore public tranquillity, and to make a common cause against all those who should undertake to compromise it.

This Manifesto was signed by the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Clancarty, Lords Cathcart and Stewart, on the part of Great Britain; and by the Representatives of Austria, Russia, France, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden:

nor was

it an idle menace, for the very evening on which the intelligence of the landing of Napoleon arrived at Vienna, the Emperor Alexander despatched a courier to St. Petersburgh, to order the immediate march of the Imperial Guard, and similar instructions were soon sent by the other Princes to their respective dominions. On the 25th of March, a treaty was concluded between Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, confirming the league entered into at Chaumont. By this new compact they declared their resolution to enforce the Treaty of Paris, which excluded Buonaparte from the throne of France, and the decree of outlawry issued against him, and each of the contracting parties agreed to keep constantly in the field an army of 150,000 men complete, with the due proportion of cavalry and artillery; and not to lay down their arms until Buonaparte should be rendered incapable of disturbing the peace of Europe. The other powers of Europe, and particularly the King of France, were invited to become parties to this league. To the King of Great Britain was left the option of furnishing his contingent in men, or in lieu of each cavalry soldier to pay thirty pounds, and of each infantry soldier twenty pounds per annum. To this treaty the Prince

companied by Marshal Macdonald, hastened to secure Lisle, the strongest fortress in France, the occupation of which would have opened the gates of the kingdom to his foreign auxiliaries, or become a place of security to his faithful subjects. But on his arrival, Marshal Mortier assured him that he could not be responsible for the fidelity of the garrison, who hearing that the household troops were approaching, formed the daring project of seizing the person of the king. His Majesty had left Lisle but a short time, when orders arrived from Davoust, the new Minister at War, for his arrest, and that of his family; and the Duke of Orleans, who was still in the town, escaped only by Marshal Mortier suppressing the order till after he had quitted it. The unfortunate Monarch continued his journey till he arrived at Ghent where he fixed his exiled Court.-The march of the household troops under the Duke of Berri was attended by disasters of various kinds. They were pursued by a body of French cavalry into a morass where some of them perished, and after the Duke dismissed them at Bethnne, several of them were slain, while attempting to return to their

homes.

Some fruitless efforts were also made to revive the spirit of loyalty in the West and South of France. For this object the Duke of Bourbon had repaired to La Vendée where numbers of the inhabitants immediately flocked to his standard; but

they were unarmed and undisciplined, and as a strong body of Napoleon's troops was advancing against him, he was compelled to abandon the enterprize. The Duke and Duchess of Angouleme were on a progress through the South of France at the period of Napoleon's disembarkation, and they arrived at Bourdeaux on the 2nd of March. It was during a fête given by the merchants on the 4th that the alarming intelligence arrived, and the Duke set out at midnight to avail himself of the zeal which the inhabitants of Provence, particularly of Marseilles, had evinced for the Bourbon cause. The Duchess remained at Bourdeaux, and on the following day M. Lynch, the celebrated Mayor, who had been the first to declare for the Royal cause in the preceding year, with all the civil and military authorities, waited on his Royal Highness, uninvited, to renew their oath of fidelity. The national guards were called out, numerous volunteers enrolled themselves, and the officers of the troops of the line declared that they would answer with their heads for the conduct of the garrison. But the news of Napoleon's successful advance to Lyons cooled the ardour of the latter, and in a few days the tri-coloured flag was hoisted at Fort de Blaye. At this juncture M, đẹ Lainé, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, arrived from Paris, and issued a proclamation in the name of the nation, calling on the Bordelese to use all the means in their power to resist the usurper. Animated by his spirited assistance, the

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Regent of England subjoined a declaration, stating that it should not be understood as binding his Britannic Majesty to prosecute the war with the view of of forcibly imposing upon France any particular government.

The first official notice of the subversion of the Bourbon Government, was communicated to the British Parliament on the 7th of April, by a message from the Prince Regent, which stated that the recent events in France were in direct contravention of the treaties of Fontainbleau and Paris, and necessarily implied a justifiable cause of war. In the House of Commons Lord Castlereagh moved an Address in answer to the message, declaratory of their determination to support his Royal Highness in the adoption of such measures, in conjunction with his Allies, as might be called for by the general tranquillity of Europe. Upon this occasion his Lordship endeavoured to vindicate the Allied Sovereigns from the charge that in the Treaty of Fontainbleau they had exercised an imprudent generosity, contending that the exercise of that principle was due to all countries, until they do something which prevents their opponents from being generous to them, without risking the imputation of being unjust and ruinous to themselves. He had himself at first opposed the arrangement, from a conviction of the danger of placing such a character as Buonaparte, immediately in the neighbourhood of his former empire but he withdrew that opposition, from the