draw the attention of the House from the real question at issue, he could not have done so more successfully than in the able and eloquent speech which he had just delivered. He had dilated upon the general character of the Italian revolution; he had commented on the observations of Earl Russell with respect to the annexation of kingdoms by means of universal suffrage; nor had he omitted to allude to the cession of Savoy and Nice, or to those occurrences in Italy which he supposed conduced to the present unsettled state of Europe. The hon. Gentleman had, in short, intro. duced into his speech every consideration of a general political character which it was possible in any way to connect with the question before the House. He trusted, therefore, hon. Members would pardon him if he asked them again to turn their attention to the real question at issue, which was of a very simple character, the point involved in it being whether the Government of this country had done their duty, and acted on those principles on which they ought to have proceeded, in conducting the communications with the Italian Government on the subject of Mr. Watson Taylor's claims. He quite concurred, he might observe, with his hon. Friend in the opinion, that while it was the pride of England to see justice done to her subjects according to the strict rules of international law, it would be a great blemish on her escutcheon if the advocacy of their claims were managed in such a way as to evince the slightest taint of partiality. In the present instance, however, there was no room for any such charge. The course taken by the Government was the simple and ordinary course pursued under similar circumstances in dealing with every country in the world. It first of all expressed an anxious desire to protect a British subject, who, at the first blush, appeared to have suffered wrong. It had obtained information on the subject from its representative at the Court of that country under whose jurisdiction that wrong was alleged to have been committed; it had necessarily given credence to the facts as stated by its accredited Ministers; and it had from time to time submitted the communications received from them to the law adviser whom it was usual to consult in those circumstances. Of that adviser, his learned Friend the Queen's Advocate, he might speak with the more freedom because he was not present, and he would venture to say that no Government had ever yet been served by an officer who was more zealous or ardent in the cause of justice, or less disposed to recommend acquiescence in a wrong done by any foreign Power whatever to a British subject. All who knew the value of the great services which had now for a considerable number of years been rendered by his learned Friend would, he felt assured, at once concur in that opinion; while, with respect to the facts on which he had been asked to advise, he must express his astonishment that his hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Kinglake) was not better informed than he appeared to be as to the course which our Government was in the habit of taking in dealing with such cir cumstances. They did not select particular despatches to send to their law adviser. They made him acquainted with all the information on the matter which they themselves possessed; and his hon. Friend would find that Earl Russell, in writing to Sir James Hudson on the 19th of August, 1861, said— "You will perceive, from a copy of the Queen's Advocate's report which I enclose, that he looks upon this question in a very serious light, and tion against the Taylors was conducted was very far from creditable to the Italian Government." Such was the impression which had been left on the noble Earl's mind by the papers which had arrived up to that date. Further papers, however, threw further light on the subject, and he would, with the permission of the House, recapitulate briefly the simple facts of a very simple case. Every hon. Member was, no doubt, disposed to pity Mr. Taylor very much. He had suffered a considerable loss, which, so far as he could see, he did not at all deserve; and if compensation could properly be made him, no doubt every hon. Member would be glad to effect that object. The House, in dealing with the question, must, however, proceed on wider principles than sympathy with an individual, when a question arose between two Governments requiring for its proper solution an appeal to the uniform principles established by the law of nations. Now, to revert to the facts of the case, he might state that two reports had been made by the head of the guard at Monte Cristo to the law officer of the Italian Crown, the Procureur Royal, at Porto Ferrajo. These reports were of such a character that he conceived it to be his official duty to commence criminal action in a court of law against the accused persons. The charges made considers that the manner in which the prosecu a against them were twofold; first, that of contrary to the law of the country was having offered resistance to an authorized pronounced. He was utterly astonished force, and next that of having made when he was told that, in accordance with use of seditious language. Now, it was the principles of international law, they contended by his hon. Friend behind could say that the Government of Sardinia him and he confessed he was astonished had committed a wrong because a public at the circumstance that those charges prosecution was instituted against an Enghaving been made, we might, owing to the lishman for resistance to the Government, state of affairs in Tuscany, have set aside and for seditious proceedings. He would the rule in accordance with which it was grant that the case was most trumpery, admitted on all sides we ought to act and, he had no doubt, that the eviunder ordinary circumstances-that the dence in some particulars was not true; administration of justice in any country but what of that? Mr. Taylor allowed must be allowed to take its regular course, judgment to pass against him by default, unless it could be shown to be perverted and the sentence was one which was by the interference of the Government, or warranted, according to the code of unless some monstrous departure from the country, by the charge and the recognised principles, in which no State evidence. He heard with surprise imcould be expected to acquiesce, were in-putations, not only against the judgment volved. When an hon. Member started of Sir James Hudson, but against his with the premiss that the dominions of the good faith. Anything more ungenerous King of Sardinia were in a state of anarchy, or more unjust was never known. There and that in their case all ordinary rules was no trace of insincerity in Sir James might therefore be set aside, it was easy to Hudson's conduct, or of anything except draw from it the conclusion at which his a sincere desire to serve Mr. Taylor to the hon. Friend seemed to have arrived. But best of his ability. On three occasions a premiss more monstrous or extravagant, Sir James Hudson wrote to Florence to as founded upon the actual state of things request that the prosecution should be in Tuscany or Sardinia, it was impossible dropped, and Sir James Hudson told them to conceive. The law was there duly ad- what he believed, and he thought the ministered by regularly constituted tribu- House might give credit to his informanals, and there was no evidence that pri- tion, that in point of fact, when once vate individuals were in any way prevented the machinery of the law was set in from having the benefit of the law. In- motion, there was no arbitrary power in deed, if the Government of this country the Government to stop it. Baron Rihad declined to treat Tuscany and Sar- casoli was simply the representative of dinia as governed by law, they would have the executive Government, and, accorddisplayed a partiality against the inde-ing to the forms of the Constitution of pendence of Italy such as he would ven- Sardinia, he had no power of interference ture to say had never before been exhibited. The fact was that it was so governed, and that it was our bounden duty to apply to its case the ordinary principles of international law. That being so, the question at issue was, as he had said before, a very simple one. Let him suppose that in this country an Italian were to resist to-morrow a policeman in the execution of his dutywould anybody contend that it was not competent for the Government to institute proceedings against him before the proper tribunal? If, he might add, he did not choose to appear before that tribunal and defend himself in the ordinary way, would it not be his own fault if he was subjected to the usual penalty? Yet such was the case of Mr. Taylor. The substance of the charge was proved, to the satisfaction of the court, by the evidence of witnesses; and a judgment not alleged to be with judicial proceedings; yet in the face But if the power existed, was the Sardinian | doubt he might have done so. In Ireland Minister bound to exercise it? What not long ago an expedition was organized should we say, supposing a prosecution were instituted against a foreigner, and he did not take the trouble to appear, and his Government required us to enter a nolle prosequi? Why, we should say that we had never heard of such à demand before, and we hoped we never should again. The Sardinian Government did all that they could. The matter was over, and a severe and harsh sentence had been pronounced. But upon representations being made to them they remitted the whole of the punishment, and caused all the costs to be paid by the prosecution. With regard to the Orwell, it was even a plainer and more simple case. She was a British ship sailing under British colours, and manned chiefly by British sailors. She was seized-whether by collusion, or otherwise, was for this purpose unimportant -at Genoa by persons who intended to join the expedition to Sicily, then under the conduct of General Garibaldi. It did not even distinctly appear that there was any previous arrangement, or that those persons were in any sense in the service of General Garibaldi. They made preparations at Genoa, and it was reported that the authorities must have seen and known what was going on. It was not meant that the authorities knew the crew would take her to Monte Cristo and rob Mr. Watson Taylor, but that they must have seen she was intended to be used in the expedition against Sicily. The argument was, that because those men sailed in the Orwell from Genoa, went to Monte Cristo, robbed Mr. Watson Taylor, then went to Sicily and tried to join Garibaldi-which they failed in doing-and because General Garibaldi afterwards subverted the King of Sicily's throne and offered the crown to the King of Sardinia, the King of Sardinia, by accepting the crown, adopted all the acts of the people on board the Orwell. ["Hear, hear!"] If the hon. Gentlemen who cheered thought that was sound reasoning, nothing which he could say would convince them that it was absolutely preposterous and extravagantly absurd. If the authorities of a particular Government knew that an expedition was preparing in one of their ports against another Government, and did not prevent its starting, the Government against which it was directed were the parties to complain; and if the King of Naples had been strong enough, and disposed to remoustrate, no of a very gallant body of men, presided over by a Gentleman who was now an ornament of that House, for the purpose of supporting the throne of the Pope in Central Italy. He knew that they were Gentlemen incapable of such an act: but supposing in their passage from Ireland they had landed upon some island and robbed an Italian gentleman, by taking supplies or other things, without paying for them, just as the people on board the Orwell had done at Monte Cristo, would it not be absurd to say that the English authorities were responsible; because, knowing that preparations were being made, having for their object the de fence of the Papal dominions, they did not prevent the arming and fitting out such an expedition, when it was clearly against the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act? Then it was said, that although the Sardinian Government was not at first responsible, they became responsible because they afterwards took the benefit of what was done by General Garibaldi, whom these men meant to join. But was the King of Italy to be responsible for every thing which General Garibaldi and all his followers did? The King of Italy would be very unwise to listen to remonstrances which would put him in a position in which he would be held bound by all the engagements and acts of the followers of General Garibaldi merely because the people of Italy achieved their independence under the gallant leadership of that great man, and he offered the crown to the King of Sardinia, and the King of Sardinia accepted it. The King of Italy's answer would be, "The past is one thing, and the future is another. I am content to accept the crown which you offer, but I must not be held responsible for everything which has been done by those persons by whose aid the crown is at your disposal.' But this case did not come up to that. These men were not even proved to be the agents of General Garibaldi; for they were not successful in joining him. The Orwell was taken possession of by a British man-of-war, and carried into Malta. Sir James Hudson afterwards saw the master, and brought him to such a reasonable state of mind that he seemed disposed to indemnify Mr. Watson Taylor. Whether the master made overtures to Mr. Taylor or not, he did not know; but Sir James Hudson pointed out that it was " by means of the ship that the damage was was wrested from the Bourbons, and from occasioned. What became of the Orwell? their proceedings Naples as well as Sicily The ChanHad the Orwell been in the service of the was added to his dominions. Sardinian Government, this country would cellor of the Exchequer will not, however, have made remonstrances of a grave kind, allow any room to deal with the matter in because the Orwell was placed in the posi-a political sense, because he is of the same tion of a piratical vessel with the English opinion as Count Cavour, who saysflag flying; and, if the Sardinian Government had been responsible for it, this country would not have failed to make remonstrances on that account. They learned what became of the Orwell from the statement of Mr. Macbean, the witness on whom his hon. Friends opposite relied. On the 3rd of July, 1861, he said "I understand that Mr. Salter, the master of the Orwell, was tried before a naval court at Genoa, and acquitted of complicity in the loss of his vessel; that the Orwell was captured in the Sicilian waters by Her Majesty's ship Scylla and sent to Malta, where the parties concerned in the abduction were to have been tried for piracy, but that the owners of the Orwell opposed their prose cution." "I am not aware if Mr. Taylor has suffered losses which he did not bring upon himself, and which were not consequent upon the facts which the tribunal has established as chargeable to him ; but, upon every hypothesis, if he can draw up legitimate reclamations, diplomatic intervention could only take place, it appears to me, when all justice shall have been refused him by competent authority." The Chancellor of the Exchequer having shut the political door, it might be supposed that some light would be allowed to enter through the legal door; but the latter is shut by the Solicitor General. Against two such authorities I am far from setting any opinion which I may entertain, but I am forced to ask the Therefore Mr. and Mrs. Taylor knew question, "Under what rule is Italy gowhere to find the people really responsible, verned when such things can happen withand wherever they were to be found, there out compensation being given to a gentlethey might have followed them; but unless man against whom it is admitted an injury hon. Gentlemen meant to say that every had been done, and who has been subjectGovernment was to be responsible for every ed to a great indignity?" If these things depredation that might be committed upon had occurred in this country, it would have any person, or the property of any person, been held that a state of anarchy had living in its territory, it was impossible to arisen. I do not mean to say that anarchy find any standing ground on the principles prevails in Italy-no doubt it is in a disof international law for holding the Govern- turbed condition, but I hold that the Sovement of Italy properly responsible for the reign of that country, being on terms of losses of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor in this case. amity with the Sovereign of this country, MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURT: There is bound to protect a British subject living is, in this case, no dispute that a serious in his dominions, in the same manner as outrage has been committed. I have not we are bound to protect an Italian in Engheard from either side of the House a land following his lawful occupations and single word from which I can conjecture doing injury to no man. I hope the disthat any one is prepared to deny that out-cussion will not close without our receiving rage, or to excuse it. Then comes the some assurance from the Government to question, what is to be done? The poli- the effect that Mr. Taylor's case is not a tical door has been shut by the Chancellor hopeless one; for I think the effect would of the Exchequer, who says he cannot be bad, not only in Italy, but in every hold that the King of Italy is responsible other country, if we were told, on the aufor the piratical expedition. The right thority of the Government, that there is no hon. Gentleman says, "It is true that the redress for a man who has suffered such ship with a piratical band, as it is called, injuries, and who is admitted on all sides started from a Sardinian port and hoisted to be an innocent man. Up to the date a Sardinian flag; but, inasmuch as she of those occurrences in Monte Cristo it sometimes hoisted a British flag, and that was believed by the friends of Mr. Taylor part of the crew were coerced to join in that he was as safe in the enjoyment of the the proceedings, I will not hold the King estate which he had purchased, and on of Sardinia liable to make good any loss which he was laying out a great deal of or injury sustained by the actions of that money, as if it were situated in any county crew." It is not denied that the King of in England. Nothing would weigh more Sardinia profited by the expedition, as the on their minds than a statement by authocrew joined the main body, by whom Sicily rity that such an impression was a mistake from beginning to end, and that he has | namely, whether or not the House would been living in a country which is not sub- have Lord Palmerston at the head of Her jected to lawful authority. I think any Majesty's Government. Knowing that his hon. Member who reads the papers on the leadership was cherished in the House of subject will not wonder that Mr. Taylor Commons, the noble Lord did right to declined to have recourse to the Courts in take that tone. The hon. Gentleman the Elba, either to defend himself in the first Under Secretary was an apt pupil, and instance, or afterwards to obtain a reversal had followed the same course, for he said, of the sentence. If our own Government "This is a serious case. The hon. Gentledeclares that he can have no redress, the man who made this Motion wants to fling a effect will be to entirely deter any prudent stone at Italian unity." His reply to the Englishman from investing his money in hon. Gentleman was, "Italian unity must any of the Italian possessions, or from be an article of very brittle manufacture if going to reside in Italy. For my own it cannot bear a stone cast at it in this part, I hold that a man can live as safely House." He had had the honour of being in Italy at the present moment as in Eng- returned for a large town; and he had land; but I arrive at that conviction from stated to its constituency that he was a circumstances totally independent of the firm supporter of the policy of the Secreevents at Monte Cristo-I hold that opi- tary for Foreign Affairs with regard to Italy. nion in defiance of the circumstances de- He was still a supporter of that policy. tailed in those papers. I think the case But he thought, however successful had ought not to be left in its present position. been the achievement of establishing the If closed in a legal sense, it ought not to be Italian kingdom, it had been brought about in & political; for both the English and the by means, and through the agency of perItalian Government are concerned in ob- sons, of whom the less said the better. taining redress for my unfortunate friend. However much he might agree with the MR. SOMERSET BEAUMONT said, result, he thought the way in which it was he could not approve the tone in which the effected would not, in the page of history, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had be very creditable to its origin. That criticised the speech of the hon. Gentle- being the state of things, it was not surman who had brought forward this Motion. prising that cases should have occurred of The question was a very important one injury done to British subjects. He would concerning a British subject, and, after the not attempt to refute the defence of the temperate manner in which it had been course taken by Her Majesty's Government stated by the hon. Member for Taunton, made by the Solicitor General. Let them the Under Secretary ought not to have said look at the case in this way. The Chanit was brought forward in a party spirit. ( cellor of the Exchequer said, what an enor[Mr. LAYARD: I did not say that.] He mity it would be if they sanctioned the would remind the hon. Gentleman of his view that a country should be made answerremark, that whenever anything unfavourable for every act of a ship leaving a able to Italian unity was said by the Mover, foreign port under her colours. That was he was cheered by hon. Members on the true enough; but the case in question was Conservative side. An hon. Gentleman exceptional. They could not call that a bringing forward a Motion in that House common piratical expedition which ended was not responsible for the cheers with in making greater territorial changes than which his observations might be received. had occurred in Europe in the last twentyA remark like that made by the hon. five years. What the Chancellor of the Gentleman might be supposed to betoken Exchequer called a piratical expedition, a disposition to prevent hon. Members from ended in a territorial change that doubled speaking their opinions frankly. Ten days the extent of one of the smallest soveago a brilliant occurrence took place in reignties of Europe. Could they compare that House. A Motion was made for re- consequences of this kind with the ordinary trenchment-a very unmeaning one, as he consequences of a piratical expedition? thought and the noble Lord at the head He would not discuss the legal part of the of the Government met it in a straight-case; he would look at it in a commonforward and, he was glad to say, a most sense point of view. The Solicitor General successful manner. He said he would not said it was not certain this expedition had discuss the question as to the particular the authority of General Garibaldi. But Resolution that ought to be adopted, but he thought the despatch of the 24th of would go at once into another question-July, 1860, in which the General com |