374 
for the greater or less proportion 
of security which France can af- 
ford them of future tranquillity, 
but because France, under its 
present Chief, is unable to afford 
them any security whatever. 
In this war, they do not desire 
to interfere with any legitimate 
right of the French people; they 
have no design to oppose the 
claim of that nation to choose 
their own form of government, or 
intention to trench, in any respect, 
upon their independence as a 
great and free people; but they do 
think they have a right, and that 
of the highest nature, to contend 
against the re-establishment of an 
individual as the head of the 
French government, whose past 
conduct has invariably demon- 
strated, that in such a situation 
he will not suffer other nations to 
be at peace—whose restless am- 
bition, whose thirst for foreign 
conquest, and whose disregard 
for the rights and independence 
of other states, must expose the 
whole of Europe to renewed 
scenes of plunder and devastation. 
However general the feelings 
of the sovereigns may be in fa- 
vour of the restoration of the 
King, they no otherwise seek to 
influence the proceedings of the 
French, in the choice of this 
or any other dynasty, or form 
of government, than may be 
essential to the safety and per- 
manent tranquillity of the rest 
of Europe: such reasonable se- 
eurity being afforded by France 
in this respect, as other States 
have a legitimate right to claim 
in their own defence, their object 
will be satisfied; and they shall 
joyfully return to that state of 
peace, which will then, and then 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1815. 
only, be open to them, and lay 
down those arms which they have 
only taken up for the purpose of 
acquiring that tranquillity so 
eagerly desired by them on the 
part of their respective Empires. 
Such, my Lord, are the gene~ 
ral sentiments of the Sovereigns 
and of their Ministers here as- 
sembled; and it should seem, 
that the glorious forbearance ob- 
served by them, when masters of 
the French capital, in the early 
part of the last year, ought to 
prove to the French, that this is 
not a war against their freedom 
and independence, or excited by 
any spirit of ambition, or desire 
of conquest, but one arising out 
of necessity, urged on the prin- 
ciples of self-preservation, and 
founded on that legitimate and 
incontrovertible right of obtaining 
reasonable security for their own 
tranquillity and mdependence— 
to which, if France has on her 
part a claim, other nations have 
an equal tithe to claim at the 
hands of France. 
I this day laid before the Ple 
nipotentiaries of the three Allied 
Powers in conference, the note 
proposed to be delivered upon the 
exchange of the ratifications of 
the treaty of the 25th of March. 
After the opinions which I have 
detailed as those with which the 
Allied Sovereigns are impressed, 
with respect to the object of the 
war, it is scarcely necessary for 
me to add, that the explanation 
afforded in this note, as the con 
struction put by his Royal High« 
ness the Prince Regent on the 
eighth article of that treaty, was 
favourably received. Immediate 
‘instructions will consequently be 
issued to the Ambassadors of the 
