MAY, 1815. FRENCH FORCE AT BORDEAUX. 319 au Prince de Schwarzenberg, il est hors de doute que le Duc de Wellington est informé de son contenu. Je viens de le faire passer à l'Empereur Alexandre, et demain je vous le communiquerai. METTERNICH. Lieut.-Col. Marston to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. Bordeaux, 18th May, 1815. The inhabitants of Bordeaux are, with few exceptions, for Louis XVIII. They say the feeling is equally favourable towards him in all the vicinity. In Médoc I believe it to be so, but on the opposite bank of the Garonne the Buonapartists declare the opinions to be as decidedly in favour of the Emperor. Each party is quite confident that the result of the struggle will terminate in its favour. The Royalists assert that all the young men and discharged military who have been called to Bordeaux, and have received routes for the armies, have, with little exception, returned to their homes. On the other hand, the Buonapartists maintain that the men this department has furnished since the decrees for augmenting the army have been beyond all expectation, upwards of 5000 in a few days. I was at General Darmanac's, the present Lieutenant-Governor of Bordeaux, yesterday, when two officers who had just arrived from Paris called to report they represented the enthusiasm in the north without example; that the people from some districts were flocking for routes unsolicited. All admit that the nation in general feel averse to the ancient nobles. The inhabitants of Bordeaux are prepared to assist any force that may be sent there, and long for the appearance of foreign troops. The national guards can be depended upon, and all persons of property and influence in the neighbourhood: they would require arms and military equipment. The regular force in Bordeaux and the immediate neighbourhood does not, I believe, exceed 2500 infantry and some cavalry; but it was difficult to ascertain the force, as they were quite apart from the inhabitants, and the marching for the north had been frequent. At the last review prior to my leaving the place, on the 7th May, there were a battalion of the 8th and 62nd regiments, not amounting to 1500 men, and a troop of chasseurs à cheval, formerly the Duke d'Angoulême's. As well as I could learn, there were not above 8000 in this part of France, including the garrison of Bayonne. In Pouillac and some other towns in Médoc there are detachments of 100, 50, and fewer, to protect the national flag. Upon a force arriving off the coast, should a proportion of the garrison of Bordeaux be kept in the town to prevent the collecting of the national guards and inhabitants, there could be no opposition to the landing of the troops and their marching upon the town: should the garrison leave Bordeaux to combine with the detachments in the neighbourhood, the national guards and people would rise in their rear. Bordeaux would in all probability be evacuated upon the arrival of a force. Fort Trompetta has undergone some repairs: it was more as a retreat for the garrison from the people than to attempt to render it capable of defence against a regular force that induced them to repair it. 320 FORTIFICATIONS AT BORDEAUX. MAY, 1815. At the Patté of Blaye there are ten 18-pounders and two mortars, French 70-pounders, and close under it a battery of four 36-pounders. Opposite is Fort Médoc, with eighteen 36-pounders. The passage of the river is completely commanded here. At Blaye the works have been put into a state of defence, and the garrison increased: there are about 100 guns mounted. The 4th May they were constructing a work of twelve 24-pounders at Royen, at the mouth of the river, on the right bank. This is the only obstruction to entering the river as far as Pouillac, where troops can land upon a wharf, or upon a sandy beach near Verden, at the mouth of the river on the Bordeaux side. There are no other landing-places below Blaye and Fort Médoc: the banks are 2 feet in mud at low water. Troops could disembark on the beach outside the mouth of the river at (a), except with blowing weather from north-west to south-west: from thence there is no road for artillery except over sand-hills. At La Teste there is a harbour with 5 and 6 fathoms at high water: this is about 28 miles from Bordeaux. I believe there is no impediment (from batteries) to vessels entering; but I don't know that there is not. The Royalists in Bordeaux are unanimous in the opinion that a force arriving there at this moment would be the means of freeing that part of the country south of the Garonne from the sway of the present government; and the rising would be general so soon as the people had a force which they could depend upon to support them. The national guards were not so culpable as may be supposed in permitting the town to be delivered up without resistance to General Clausel. They were completely deceived and betrayed by General Dinan, the governor. Whether it was an arranged plan, or that he was ultimately compelled to enter into the views of the garrison of regular troops that were in Bordeaux, the national guards found themselves without leaders or orders, ammunition or guns, at the moment they were necessary. The latter were refused by the officer commanding in Fort Trompetta. The regiments of the line then in Bordeaux were sufficient to disperse the national guards. M. MARSTON. [878. ] G. O. Bruxelles, 19th May, 1815. 1. Officers are not to be permitted to quit their regiments, for the purpose of appearing before a Medical Board, without a previous application being made to the AdjutantGeneral, and the Commander of the Forces' leave obtained. A certificate of the officer's case, signed by the surgeon of the regiment to which he belongs, must accompany the application, and directions will be given to the Inspector-General of Hospitals to assemble a Medical Board accordingly. Without such directions, no officer is to be examined by a Medical Board. WELLINGTON. MAY, 1815. CONSTRUCTION OF TREATIES OF SUBSIDY. 321 Viscount Castlereagh to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY LORD, Foreign Office, 19th May, 1815. I request to call your Grace's attention to the wording of the Treaties of Subsidy which you have signed at Bruxelles with the Plenipotentiaries of His Sardinian Majesty and the King of Wurtemberg, as it does not exactly accord with the terms of the Treaties of Concert and Alliance, and the Additional Convention of Subsidy, with the Three Great Powers of the Continent, which have been concluded at Vienna. I enclose to your Grace a copy of the Additional Convention as signed with Russia, from which you will perceive that it is stipulated that the Subsidy is to be paid for the service of the year ending on the 1st of April, 1816, and we are consequently enabled thereby to regulate our monthly instalments so as to defer the last payments to the month subsequent to that period, and at the same time the exertions of the contracting parties are not to cease before the 1st of April, 1816. By the omission of an explanation to that effect, and by the stipulation that the Treaties shall last till the end of the year 1815 (although there is no positive claim to that effect on the part of the Courts, and although it is understood between the parties that the subsidies are payable in twelve equal monthly instalments), yet it is possible that a construction of the Treaties may lead to a misapprehension elsewhere that we are to pay the whole within the year 1815, and that the services of the other parties are also determined at the same period. As the Wurtemberg Plenipotentiary is, I believe, still in the Low Countries, I beg to suggest to your Grace that you arrange with him the preparation of another instrument according to the tenor of those concluded at Vienna, and on the receipt of such instrument with your signature another in the same terms will be drawn up here, and receive the signature of Count d'Aglié, the Sardinian Minister at this Court, which will be forwarded to your Grace to receive your signature at your head quarters, and it can thence be despatched to Turin to receive His Sardinian Majesty's Act of Ratification, accompanied by an explanatory despatch from me to His Majesty's Minister at that Court, accounting for the non-acceptance of the ratification of the first instrument. It is useless for me to solicit the attention of your Grace to the subject of this despatch, in drawing up the other subsidiary engagements which you may conclude on the part of His Majesty with the other Powers of the Continent. The dates of the two new instruments may be the same as those of the two which I propose to cancel. I have the honour to be with the highest respect, my Lord, [ENCLOSURE.] ADDITIONAL CONVENTION. CASTLEREAGH. His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, having agreed by common VOL. X. Y 322 CONSTRUCTION OF TREATIES OF SUBSIDY. MAY, 1815. consent to regulate, by means of a particular Convention, which shall be added in the form of an Additional Article to the Treaty concluded at Vienna the 25th March, the arrangements which have been jud red necessary to give to the stipulations of the said Treaty all the effect requisite for the attainment of the great and noble end which their said Majesties have proposed to pursue, have named in order to discuss, settle, and sign the Conditions of the present Convention, His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland, the Right Honourable Richard le Poer Trench, Farl of Clancarty, Viscount Dunlo, Baron Kileonnel, one of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council in Great Britain and also in Ireland, President of the Committee of Privy Council for the Affairs of Trade and Plantations, Joint Postmaster-General in Great Britain, Colonel of the Galway Regiment of Militia, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, and one of His Majesty's Plenipotentiaries at the Congress and His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, Andrew Count Razoumoffsky, His Privy Councillor, Knight of the Orders of St. Andrew and of St. Alexander Newsky, Grand Cross of that of St. Wolodomir of the First Class, and His Plenipotentiary at the Congress; and Charles Robert Count of Nesselrode, His Privy Councillor, Chamberlain, Secretary of State, Knight of the Order of St. Alexander Newsky, Grand Cross of that of St. Wolodomir of the Second Class, Knight of the Supreme Order de l'Annonciade, Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold of Austria, of the Red Eagle of Prussia, the Polar Star of Sweden, and of the Golden Eagle of Wurtemberg, and His Plenipotentiary at the Congress; who, after having exchanged their Full Powers found to be in due and proper form, have agreed upon the following Article: ARTICLE. His Britannic Majesty engages to furnish a subsidy of Five Millions Sterling, for the service of the year ending on the first of April, 1816, to be divided in equal proportions amongst the three Powers, namely, between His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and of Bohemia, and His Majesty the King of Prussia. The subsidy above stipulated of Five Millions Sterling shall be paid in London, by monthly instalments and in equal proportions, to the Ministers of the respective Powers, duly authorised to receive the same. The first payment thereof to become due on the first day of May next, and to be made immediately upon the exchange of the ratifications of this present Additional Convention. In case peace should take place, or be signed between the Allied Powers and France, before the expiration of the said year, the subsidy calculated upon the scale of Five Millions Sterling shall be paid up to the end of the month in which the Definitive Treaty shall have been signed: and His Britannic Majesty promises in addition to pay to Russia four months, and to Austria and to Prussia two months, over and above the stipulated subsidy, to cover the expenses of the return of their troops within their own frontiers. The present Additional Convention shall have the same force and effect as if it were inserted word for word in the Treaty of the 25th of March. It shall be ratified, and the ratifications shall be exchanged, as soon as possible. In faith of which the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed it, and have affixed thereunto the seals of their arms. Done at Vienna this thirtieth day of April, in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifteen. (L. S.) CLANCARTY. (L. S.) LE COMTE DE RAZOUMOFFSKY. (L. S.) LE COMTE DE NESSELRODF MAY, 1815. ADDITIONAL SUBSIDY WANTED BY RUSSIA. 323 Viscount Castlereagh to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY DEAR LORD, London, 19th May, 1815. Although I have reason to know that neither the Minister of Sardinia nor Wurtemberg entertain any practical doubts upon the subsidy to their respective Courts being payable in twelve successive monthly instalments, yet I am anxious that there should be no question of construction in the House of Commons on their respective engagements being consonant to the main Treaty, which I shall represent to Parliament as furnishing the means of war till the 1st of April in the ensuing year. I have not yet had a moment since my return to confer with Lord Liverpool and Mr. Vansittart on further pecuniary aid to Russia. As far as I have weighed your suggestion as a mode, although it would have some advantages, yet as the money must be raised for the King of France by us, it would be considered as a British charge, whilst His Majesty, being made the organ of this exclusive favour to Russia, might be complained of by Austria and Prussia, and indispose them to Louis XVIII. more than if we upon some special grounds gave it ourselves to the Emperor of Russia, such as for an army of reserve, an extra allowance, as we have done by the Austrians for the Italian campaign. My notion at present is (if the Treasury will hear of any additional grant, of which I am yet doubtful) to consider Barclay de Tolly's army, said to be 200,000 men, as already provided for; and to connect any further aid to be granted to the actual advance of the second army, said to be commanded by Wittgenstein, and to be of equal amount. There is no doubt considerable exaggeration in the estimated numbers of both these corps, of the strength of which I beg you will send me the best information you can procure; but if the British government gave a million to bring forward the second army as far as its services might be required, either for active service in France or as a reserve advanced in Germany, I think His Imperial Majesty ought to be satisfied, and of this, under all the circumstances appertaining to so distant a Power as Russia, I do not think any of the Allies could reasonably complain: but in this case we might justly annex as a condition, if you wished it, that in the event of our giving an additional million, which is nearly equivalent to subsidizing 100,000 men more, a proportion of these troops, say a corps of 50,000 men, should be ordered to join your army. Send me by return of the messenger your opinion and wishes upon this proposal. It will also be reasonable that this additional subsidy should only take its commencement from the period when this second army shall actually pass the Russian frontier, with some regulation also as to its return, less onerous than four months after a Definitive Treaty. You will receive by the present messenger an official request that you would transmit to me a copy of your letter to Monsieur de Blacas, of the 4th January last, as referred to in the Moniteur,' with its enclosures, this document being called for in the House of Commons. You will see the object is to ascertain what the particular papers were upon which you pronounced in that letter as not in your judgment inculpating Murat. Those I produced to Parliament (copies of which I send) were, as I apprehend, with perhaps one or two exceptions, never seen by |