94 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. [July. 



your deliberations. If some 

 delays have retarded your pi'o- 

 gress, men of sagacity have felt 

 that they owed their existence 

 more to the difficulties with 

 which you are surrounded, and 

 the importance of the objects 

 which come under your review, 

 than to the defects of your social 

 organization. But these delays 

 have not been lost in their relation 

 to the future and to experience. 

 Let us hope that the future 

 Diets of the kingdom will profit 

 by them, by deriving from them 

 that activity and perfection to 

 their deliberations and their ad- 

 ministrative march. During the 

 course of this session, the people 

 and their representatives have 

 developed great public spirit ; and 

 I have the satisfaction of seeing, 

 that in separating, you are all 

 convinced that a nation which 

 owes its political advancement to 

 a glor}^ justly acquired, to laws 

 which consecrate the origin and 

 the true legitimacy of its rights, 

 can never renounce them but with 

 Jionour or by ceasing to exist. 

 Generations and empires succeed 

 each other and disappear ; but 

 the principles of eternal truth are 

 independent of time and events. 

 If prejudices attempt to oppose 

 and to extinguish them, the 

 struggle serves only at last to 

 give greater glory to their 

 triumph. 



" The union with Norway is 

 consolidating every day. The 

 force of circumstances, the sa- 

 credness of oaths and mutual 

 interests, guarantee its stability 

 and duration. Passions disappear, 

 because the people wish to live 

 in tranquillity under the empire 

 of the laws. Keason tells them 



that the duration of their liberties 

 and of their independence is 

 founded on immoveable and con- 

 stitutional confidence between 

 the two nations. I thank you, 

 gentlemen, for having given to 

 the Norwegian people a new 

 pledge of the constancy of your 

 attachment towards them. The 

 law which you have adopted, 

 without discussion, regarding the 

 respect due to their rights and 

 institutions, is an undeniable 

 proof that you have no other 

 wish, no other desire, than to 

 maintain the political union be- 

 tween the two nations of the 

 Peninsula. Since you have been 

 assembled, two events, which 

 cannot have escaped your obser- 

 vation, have given new force to 

 those principles which serve as a 

 basis to the compact which unites 

 Scandinavia to its constitutional 

 King. A great Monarch, sup- 

 ported in the aegis of his power, 

 has given a country to a people, 

 as interesting by their misfor- 

 tunes as illustrious from their 

 ancient glory. The Sovereign of 

 one of the considerable states of 

 the Germanic Confederation has 

 conferred upon his country a re- 

 presentative constitution. These 

 blessings bestowed upon nations 

 are a striking homage rendered 

 to people, who, in investing their 

 Kings with a power founded on 

 confidence, have, nevertheless, 

 refused to abandon to chance or 

 the caprice of the future, the 

 prosperity, the honour, and the * 

 existence of their descendants. 



" Gentlemen, before parting 

 with you, my heart still feels the 

 necessity of declaring to you 

 afresh its regrets for the loss of 

 a beloved King, who was your 



father. 



