Art. 11.-BEFORE AND AFTER THE DESCENT FROM

ELBA.

1. Le Revirement de la Politique Autrichienne. Négociations secrètes, Novembre 1814-Mars 1815. By Commandant Weil. Turin: Fratelli Bocca, 1908.

2. Letters from originals at Welbeck Abbey. Roxburghe Club, 1909. (Appendix 1B is a sketch of Lord William Bentinck's Life, by Mr Richard W. Goulding.)

3. MSS. in possession of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey.

4. Unpublished Letters from Paris of March 1815, from Sir Charles Bagot to Mr Hammond, in the possession of the Honourable Misses Hammond. 5. Public Record Office. Admiralty: (Letters of admirals.) Vols 429 (Mediterranean, 1814), 430 (Mediterranean, 1815). War Office: Vols 283 (Secretary of State, Letters), 284 (Army in Mediterranean, Lieut-General Lord William Bentinck, 1815), 315 (Sicily, 1814). Foreign Office: Vols 9 (Congress of Vienna. Drafts to Ministers and Consuls), 21 (Tuscany), 6 and 62 (Italian States), 71, and Bundles (Sicily), 111 and 114 (France), 142 (Miscellaneous), and 299 (Précis). Foreign Office Archives (1815), Portfolio 129, 130, 131.

6. La Rivoluzione Lombarda del 1814 e la Politica Inglese. Secondo nuovi documenti. By Giuseppe Gallavresi. Milan: Archivio Storico Lombardo, 1909.

7. Joachim Murat. La Dernière Année de Règne, Mai 1814-Mai 1815. Vols i, ii, iii, and iv. By Commandant Weil. Paris: Fontemoing, 1909, 1910.

8. Lettres et Documents, Joachim Murat. By Prince Murat. Vols ii and iii. Edited by M. Paul Le Brethon. Paris: Plon, 1909.

9. Report, Historical Manuscripts Commission, on the Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq., preserved at Dropmore. Vol. vi, 1908.

10. Lettres et Papiers du Chancelier Comte de Nesselrode. Vol. v. Paris: Lahure, 1907.

THE revelations, in and since 1908, of secrets of the years between 1800 and 1815, as well as recent publications upon the period between Waterloo and the foundation of the new German Empire, present features of

extraordinary interest. Documents of 1814 and 1815 upset our history, as do three letters of the autumn of 1870 contained in 'The Bernstorff Papers.' The archives of the Austrian political police, and of Piedmont, are yielding rich material to the historian. Our own are still subject to a reservation concerning our secret agents, from which records in private hands are free. Already, in 1905, Mr Walter Fitzpatrick's painstaking work at Dropmore had produced, in the fourth volume of the Historical Manuscripts Commission on Lord Grenville's papers, letters from Stanforth calculated to set that mysterious figure even higher than it had appeared in the previous volume. The sixth volume, published in 1908, shows Grenville-who controlled for Pitt, in 1800, our relations with the Continent-despising Austria, presenting to the Minister a suggestion of alliance with Bonaparte, made by another of our secret agents, and adding argument in conflict with the avowed policy on which history has been based.

It is the bearing of the new documents of 1814-15 upon the relations of the Allies with the Bourbons, and upon the descent from Elba, that concerns us most. Popular beliefs, based as they are on the Wellington despatches, the Castlereagh correspondence, and the State papers, will be shaken by complete publication of records as yet but little known and not, up to this moment, fully searched.

Mr Fitzpatrick, in his introduction to the Dropmore volumes, says that Lord Grenville's letters would obviously have furnished valuable material' to historians, but were 'unknown' until Mr Fortescue allowed their use. The connexion of Fouché with the British Cabinet was, indeed, suspected here, as was in France our financing of conspiracies against Bonaparte. The price of Barras and of Montgelas was newer and forms interesting scandal. Still newer is the evidence as to the part played on our side by the sister of Queen Louise of Prussia, and the reports of our representative at Berlin, replacing the

'Stamfort' in the indexes. George III writes 'General Stamford.' The Governor of the Princes of Brunswick and agent of the Prince of Orange made use of the French tongue, and signed 'Comte de Stanforth.' He is divided into two German poets, both 'Stanforth,' though with different initials, in German works of reference.

supposed popularity of the patriot Queen' by 'universal animadversion.' The contempt of George III for our 'immoral and unjustifiable acts,' and his scorn of our 'Italian politics,' may enhance the reputation of that King. More momentous are doubts raised by records named at the head of this article. They cannot but modify all previous views of British policy towards Austria and the Bourbons in 1814 and in the four or five earliest months of 1815.

As the foreign records became known, the incompleteness of our knowledge had lain chiefly in the non-publication of the private papers of Lord William Bentinck. The selection made from his despatches by those who were engaged in replying to them or in explaining them away, affords a partial and a misleading view. Commandant Weil has recently ransacked all public, and some Italian private, archives for the secrets of Elba, and for Napoleon's relations with Murat. Until the appearance of Dr Gallavresi's examination of British connexion with the conspiracy of Mantua, the Bentinck papers may be said to have been unknown. The courtesy extended to that gentleman in his special research by the Duke of Portland, and continued to myself without reserve, as well as the kindness with which Mr Goulding, the librarian at Welbeck Abbey, has helped me, allow full use of Bentinck's letters in the preparation of this article. These will, it is to be hoped, be pieced by patient workers into their place in the mosaic formed by the police records at Vienna, the Admiralty, War Office, and Foreign Office papers in Chancery Lane, and the other stores on which Commandant Weil is working.

The time has come for publication such as cannot but be honourable to the memory of Bentinck. In his case publicity is demanded by mere justice. It is impossible any longer to believe the common story of the compilers of biographies, if indeed Bentinck's life can be said to have been written. Sir Alexander John Arbuthnot did his best in the Dictionary of National Biography, but a reference to the Journal at Welbeck Abbey or even to portfolios of Drafts and Précis now in the keeping of Mr Hubert Hall at the Record Office, would suffice to correct the Dictionary in this wholly exceptional failure. An inaccurate sketch of Bentinck's career-supplemented

in other quarters only by accounts of his policy as Governor-General in India-ends with an assertion that the papers of Lord William Bentinck were brought together with a view to the writing of a Life, but have 'disappeared.' Some secret papers of 1814 have disappeared,' but enough are safely stored at Welbeck, and in Italy, to permit of an attempt to set in their true light the public services rendered by Castlereagh's chief representative in the Mediterranean. It bears closely

upon the descent from Elba and upon the birth of Italy.

An article in the Nineteenth Century,' in 1898, told 'The story of Murat and Bentinck' as it then appeared to stand. The case against Bentinck is met by Lord Aberdeen's despatch, which justifies him in his instructions to Mr (afterwards Sir James) Graham, and in his own action. Lord Castlereagh has desired me to convey his full approbation for the whole course you have pursued relative to the transactions with Murat.' But the essayist declares that Bentinck was proved, later in 1814, to be 'congenitally unfitted for posts of high responsibility.' 'Bentinck resigned his post, and so passes from our history-our history of the time, no doubt, though even his long tenure of the most responsible of posts is belittled. Macaulay may have been right or wrong in his judgment passed on Bentinck as an Indian ruler. It is contained in words quoted by Sir George Trevelyan, from the essay on Clive, as applied to that singularly noble character,' Bentinck. No one now doubts the truth of Macaulay's letters describing Bentinck as rectitude, openness, and good nature personified'; the frankest and best-natured of men.'

The story of 1814 as last told, by Commandant Weil, runs thus. Bentinck was our Minister at Palermo, the Court of Ferdinand, who claimed the Two Sicilies' one of them in the hands of the Usurper,' Murat. He was also Commander-in-chief of the British land forces in the Mediterranean, and Captain-general of the Sicilian army. Up to January 1814 his policy, fully explained by him to Castlereagh, received hearty support from home. Having been sent to Sicily as plenipotentiary by a previous administration, he had asked, on the change of Government, to be allowed to resign his 'diplomatic post, according to the practice of the day, and to pursue

a purely military career. Castlereagh had induced him to continue to perform his multifarious duties. When not leading, as their General, the Anglo-Sicilian forces in Spain or Italy, Lord William was managing our Italian policy. If he left Palermo, one of the many soldiers and diplomatists who were under his orders reported to him, and generally through him to the Government at home. His subordinates and his agents were of different kinds. Douglas became for a time a personal friend of the Sicilian Bourbons, and wrote of Napoleon as 'a monster' whose 'death' was to be prayed for; Lieut-General Robert Macfarlane and Milnes the A.D.C. were devoted to the inspiring personality of their chief. Amongst others, including some peers on their travels, a greater Milnes, Lord Houghton's father-who had just refused the Secretaryship at War and the Exchequer was pressed into the service.

The most compromising of Bentinck's men was Fagan, of whom we have been told that he exaggerated the errors of his chief, and was crushed like an insect by the Foreign Office. But the truth is that our consul at Palermo was also our official agent at Rome and Naples. He was Consul-general in Sicily, and also, in 1814, at Naples, the capital of 'Marshal Murat,' with whom we had made peace, refusing recognition. The Austrian police reported Fagan's actions as those of an ambassador having daily interviews with the brotherin-law of Napoleon at a time when communication between Naples and Elba was continuous. British Ministers expressed their horror of Fagan in Cabinet letters long since published to the world. Nevertheless Fagan was not 'dismissed'; and continued to be well paid until his death at Rome in 1816, duly reported to the Foreign Office by his subordinate in our consulate. Neither did we cease to pay him, by Castlereagh's own decision, a special income of 2001. a year, additional to his salary and expenses. It had been necessary in 1814 that at Rome he should be only the portrait painter to the Pope, in spite of our official use of his reports upon his interviews with the papal secretary; it was also necessary that his presentation to Murat should be as 'Mr Fagan,' and 'not as Consul.' No notice was ever taken of a discovery recorded in the Castlereagh Corre