troops, had been fixed to the term of one year, with the understanding, that at the meeting of 1822 it should be examined whether the situation of the country should permit it to cease, or render it necessary to prolong it.

"The Plenipotentiaries of the Courts, parties to the convention of Novara, have entered on this examination conjointly with the Plenipotentiaries of his Majesty the King of Sardinia, and they have agreed, that the assistance of an allied force was no longer necessary to maintain the tranquillity of Piedmont. His Majesty the King of Sardinia, having himself pointed out the time which he thought proper for the successive departure of the auxiliary troops,

CIRCULAR.

"Verona, Dec. 14, 1822. "Sir,-You were informed by the documents which were addressed to you at the moment of the closing of the conferences at Laybach, in the month of May 1821, that another meeting of the Allied Monarchs and their Cabinets would take place in the course of the year 1822, and that they would then take into consideration the duration to be fixed to the measures, which, on the proposal of the Courts of Naples and Turin, and with the consent of all the Courts of Italy, had been judged necessary to consolidate the tranquillity of the Peninsula, after the fatal events of the years 1820 and 1821.

"This meeting has just taken place, and we herewith make you acquainted with its principal results.

By the convention, signed at Novara, July 24, 1821, the occupation of a military line on Piedmont, by a corps of auxiliary

ceded to his proposals, and it has been determined by a new convention, that the departure of these troops from Piedmont shall commence on the 31st of December, this year, and be completed on the 30th of September, 1823, by the evacuation of the fortress of Alessandria.

"On the other hand, his Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies has signified to the three Courts, parties to the convention signed at Naples on the 18th of October, that the present state of his dominions allowed him to propose a reduction of the number of the auxiliary troops stationed in various parts of them.

"The Allied Sovereigns have` not hesitated to accede to this proposal, and the auxiliary army stationed in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies will be diminished as soon as possible by 17,000 men.

"Thus, in proportion as events answered to the wishes of the Sovereigns, that is fulfilled which

they

they declared at the close of the Congress of Laybach- that, far from wishing to prolong their intervention in the affairs of Italy beyond the limits of strict necessity, they cherished the sincerest wish that the state of things which had imposed on them this painful obligation might cease as soon as possible, and never return. Thus vanish the false terrors, the inimical interpretations, the gloomy prophecies, which ignorance or perfidy spread in Europe, to mislead the opinion of the people respecting the pure and generous views of the Sovereigns. No secret plan, no ambition, no calculation of their own interest, was concerned in the resolution which imperious necessity alone prescribed to them in the year 1821. To oppose resistance to the revolution; to prevent the disorders, the scourges, the crimes, which it desired to bring upon all Italy; to restore peace and order in that country; to afford to the legitimate Governments the protection to which they had a claim; -such alone were the objects of the thoughts and exertions of the Sovereigns. In the proportion in which this object is fulfilled, they withdraw the assistance which essential necessity alone could call for and justify, and will continue to withdraw it. They rejoice at being able to leave the care of the security and tranquillity of the people to the Princes to whom Providence has intrusted them, and to deprive calumny of its last remaining pretext to disseminate doubts respecting the independence of the Italian Princes.

"The object of the Congress at Verona, as it had been fixed by a positive agreement, was accomplished by the resolutions taken

for the relief of Italy: but the assembled Sovereigns and Cabinets could not but turn their attention to difficult and intricate affairs, the progress of which had incessantly engaged them ever since their meeting at Laybach.

"An event of the greatest importance had taken place before the close of that meeting. What the spirit of revolution had begun in the western peninsula, what it had attempted in Italy, it succeeded in effecting at the eastern extremity of Europe. At the moment when the military insurrection in Naples and Turin yielded at the approach of a regular force, a firebrand of rebellion was thrown into the Ottoman Empire. The coincidence of the events could leave no doubt on the sameness of their origin. The breaking out of the same evil in so many different points, and every where, though under various pretexts, yet accompanied by the same forms and the same language, too evidently betrayed the common focus from which it proceeded. Those who directed this event had flattered themselves that they would use it to confound by discord the counsels of the Powers, and to neutralize the forces which new dangers might summon to other parts of Europe. This hope was disappointed. The Monarchs, resolved to repel the maxim of rebellion, in whatever place or under whatever form it might show itself, immediately pronounced their unanimous sentence of disapprobation upon it. Devoted with unceasing attention to the object of their common cares, they withstood every consideration which might have led them aside from their path; but at the same time they followed the

voice of their conscience, and a sacred duty, and spoke for the cause of humanity, in favour of the victims of an enterprise equally rash and criminal.

"The numerous confidential communications that took place between the four Courts during this period (one of the most remarkable in the history of this alliance) having led to a perfectly satisfactory understanding with respect to the affairs of the East, nothing remained to be done at the Congress of Verona, but to confirm the results of this understand ing; and the Powers allied with Russia may flatter themselves with removing by joint proceedings, the obstacles which still impeded the entire fulfilment of their wishes. "Other events, deserving of the entire attention of the Monarchs, have fixed their attention on the deplorable condition of the eastern European peninsula.

"Spain now endures the fate which awaits all states that are so unfortunate as to seek what is good in a way in which it never can be found.

"It passes through the fateful circle of its revolution-a revolution which deluded or ill-disposed men would willingly have represented as a blessing, nay, as the triumph of an enlightened age. All Governments are witnesses of the zeal with which these men have endeavoured to persuade their contemporaries that this revolution was the necessary and wholesome fruit of the progress of civilization; and the means by which it has been effected and supported, the noblest essay of generous patriotism. If it could be the object of civilization to overthrow human society, if it were possible to sup

pose that the armed force, which has no other vocation than that of maintaining the internal and external peace of the State, might with impunity assume the supreme dominion over it, the Spanish revolution might certainly pretend to the admiration of all ages, and the military insurrection in the island of Leon serve as a model for reformers. But truth has soon asserted her rights, and Spain, at the expense of her happiness and her glory, has only furnished a new and melancholy example of the inevitable consequence of every transgression of the eternal laws of the moral order of the world.

"The legitimate authority fettered, and changed into a forced instrument of the overthrow of all rights, and all legal privileges; all classes of the people hurried away by the stream of revolutionary movement; violence and oppression exercised under the forms of law; a whole kingdom given up a prey to disorders and convulsions of every kind; rich colonies which justify their separation by the very same maxims on which the mother country has founded its public law, and which it would willingly, but in vain, condemn in another heinisphere; the last resources of the State consumed by civil war; this is the picture which the present state of Spain presents

such are the evils by which a generous people, deserving of a better fate, is visited such, in fine, are the grounds of the just apprehensions which such an assemblage of elements of trouble and confusion must excite in the countries more nearly in contact with the Peninsula. If ever in the bosom of civilization a power arose hostilely alienated from the prin

ciples of preservation, from the principles in which the European Confederation reposes, such a power is Spain, in its present state of disolution.

"Could the Sovereigns have contemplated with indifference so many evils heaped upon one country, accompanied with so many dangers to the others? Depending in this important affair only on their own judgment and their own consciences, they have been obliged to ask themselves whether they were longer allowed to remain calm spectators of an evil which every day threatens to become more terrible and dangerous, and even by the presence of their representatives to lend the false co louring of a tacit sauction to the measures of a faction, which is ready to undertake every thing for the inaintenance of its destructive sway. The decision of the Monarchs could not be doubtful. Their legations have received orders to quit the Peninsula.

"Whatever may be the consequence of this step, the Monarchs thereby prove to Europe, that nothing can induce them to waver in a resolution which their most intimate conviction has approved. The more sincere the friendship is which they feel towards his Majesty the King of Spain, the more lively their interest in the welfare of a nation which has distinguished itself by so many virtues at all periods of its history, the more strongly have they felt the necessity of adopting the measures on which they have decided, and which they shall know how to maintain.

"The preceding view will give you the conviction that the Mo

narchs in their last negotiations have not departed from the principles to which they have remained unalterably faithful, in all the great questions relative to order and preservation, to which the events of cur times have given such great importance. Their union, essentially founded on these. principles, fostering its early character, obtains from one period to another more solidity and energy. It would be superfluous farther to defend their upright and benevolent intentions against unworthy calumnies, which are daily refuted by notorious facts. All Europe must at length acknowledge that the system pursued by the Monarchs is in the most perfect harmony with the well understood interests of the people, as well as with the independence and strength of the Governments. They recognize no enemies but those who conspire against the legal authority of the one, and the simplicity of the others, to plunge both into one common abyss of destruction. The wishes of the Monarchs are directed to peace alone; but this peace, though fully established between the Powers, cannot diffuse its blessings on society, as long as the fermentation is kept up, which in more than one country inflames people's minds by the perfidious arts of persuasion, and the criminal efforts of a faction which aims only at revolution and destruction: so long as the heads and instruments of this faction (whether they openly take the field against thrones and existing institutions, or whether they brood on their hostile plans in the dark, prepare plots, and poison public opinion) shall not cease to torment the na

tions with discouraging and lying representations of the present, and fictitious apprehensions of the future. The wisest measures of the Governments cannot prosper, the best meant plans of improvement cannot succeed, confidence cannot return, till those promoters of the most odious purposes shall have sunk into utter impotency; and the Monarchs will not believe that they have accomplished their great work, till they shall have deprived them of the arms with which they may threaten the repose of the world.

"In communicating to the Cabinet to which you are accredited, the facts and declarations which are contained in the present document, you will at the same time call to mind what the Monarchs consider as the indispensable condition of the fulfilment of their benevolent wishes. To ensure to Europe not only the peace which it enjoys under the protection of treaties, but also that sense of internal repose and durable security without which no real happiness can exist for nations, they must calculate on the faithful and persevering co-operation of all the Governments. They here call on them for this co-operation in the name of their own highest interests, in the name of social order, the preservation of which is at stake, in the name of future generations. May they be all penetrated with the great truth, that the power confided to their hands is a sacred trust, for which they are accountable to the people and to their posterity; and they expose themselves to a serious responsibility, when they fall into errors, or listen to counsels which would sooner or later deprive them of the

possibility of protecting their subjects from the ruin which they had themselves prepared for them. The Monarchs have the confidence that they shall every where find true allies in those who are invested with the supreme authority, under whatever forms it may be― allies, who do homage not merely to the letter and the positive precepts of the conventions which form the basis of the present European system, but also to their spirit and principles; and they flatter themselves that the words here spoken will be received as a new confirmation of their firm and unalterable resolution to consecrate all the means intrusted to them by Providence to promote the welfare of Europe.

Agricultural Distress in Scotland.

A number of counties in Scotland (Argyll, Banff, Caithness, Cromarty, Dumbarton, Elgin, Fife, Forfar, Lanark, Mid-Lothian, Renfrew, Sutherland, and Wigton) had appointed committees to meet at Edinburgh, for the purpose of considering the agricultural distresses of the country, and the means of relieving them; and a meeting of the General Committee was held at the Waterloo Hotel, on Monday, the 23d of December, 1822, the Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair, Bart., in the chair, when he laid before that committee, a report drawn up by a sub-committee, appointed by a former general meeting on the 16th of December, which consisted of the following members:-The Earl of Roseberry, Lord Belhaven, Sir Henry Steuart, Bart. of Allanton, John Vans Agnew, Esq. of Sheuchan, Gilbert Laing Meason, Esq. of Linderris, George Robertson

Scott,