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appearing in the form of a daily paper, or periodical pamphlet, which does not contain more than 20 printed leaves, (feuilles d'impression) shall be issued from the press without the previous consent of the public authority. The works not comprehended under this regulation shall continue to be regulated by the laws now existing, or which may be hereafter enacted: and if any work of the above-mentioned description shall give rise to a complaint on the part of any State of the Confederation, the Government to which the complaint shall be addressed shall cause proceedings to be instituted in its name against the authors or editors of the said work.

Sect. 2. Each Government is at liberty to adopt, for the maintenance and execution of the present Decree, those measures which may appear the most suitable; it being well understood that these measures must be recognised proper to fulfil the object of the principal regulation of Art. 1.

Sect. 3. The present Decree being called for by the necessity, generally acknowledged, of adopting some preventive measures against the abuse of the Press in Germany, as long as this Decree shall remain in force, the laws attributing to the tribunals the prosecution and punishment of the abuses and offences committed by the press, inasmuch as they apply to the writings specified in Art. 1., cannot be considered as sufficient in any State of the Confederation.

Sect. 4. Each Government of the Confederation is accountable for the writings published under its jurisdiction, and, consequently, for all those comprehended in the principal regulation of Art. 1.; and when these writings wound the dignity or safety of another State of the Confederation, or make attacks upon its constitution or its administration, the Government which tolerates them is responsible, not only to the State which suffers directly therefrom, but to the whole Confederation.

Sect. 5. In order that this responsibility, founded in the nature of the Germanic Union, and inseparable from its preservation, may not give rise to disagreements which might compromise the amicable relations subsisting between the Confederated States, all the members of the Confederation must enter into a solemn engagement to devote their most serious attention to the superintendence which the present Decree prescribes, and to exercise it in such a manner as to prevent, as much as possible, all reciprocal complaints and discussions.

Sect. 6. În order, however, to assure better the guarantee of the moral and political inviolability of the States of the Confederation, which is the object of the present Decree, it is to be understood that, in case a Government believe itself injured by writings published under another Government, and cannot obtain complete satisfaction by amicable and diplomatic representations, that Government will be at liberty to prefer its complaint to the Diet, which, in such a case, will hold itself bound to appoint a Commission to examine the writing which shall have been thus denounced; and, if the report of the Commission state it to be necessary, to command the suppression of the said writing, and also to prohibit its continuance if it be of the number of periodical publications.

The Diet will proceed also, without a previous denunciation, and of its own authority, against every publication comprised in the principal regulation of Art. 1., in whatever State of Germany it may be published, and, in the opinion of a Commission appointed to consider thereof, may have compromised the dignity of the Germanic body, the safety of any of its members, or the internal peace of Germany, without any remedy being afforded against the judgment given in such a case, which shall be carried into execution by the Government that is responsible for the condemned publication.

Sect. 7. The editor of a Journal, or other periodical publication, that may be suppressed by command of the Diet, shall not be allowed, during the space of five years, to conduct any similar publication in any States of the Confederation.

The Authors, Editors, and Publishers of newspapers, or periodical writings, and others mentioned in the first paragraph of Art. 1., shall be in other respects, upon submitting to the regulation of that article, free from all responsibility; and the judgments of the Diet, mentioned in the preceding article, will be directed only against the publications, without affecting individuals.

Sect. 8. The Confederated States engage, within six months, to acquaint the Diet with the measures which each shall have adopted to carry into execution the first Article of this Decree.

Sect. 9. Every work printed in Germany, whether comprehended in the regulations of this Decree or not, must bear the name of the printer or editor; and if it be of the number of periodical publications, of the principal editor. Every work in circulation in any of the States of the Confederation, with respect to which these conditions have not been complied with, will be seized and confiscated, and the person or persons, who may have published and sold it, condemned, according to the circumstances of the case, to the payment of fine, or some other punishment proportionate to the offence.

Sect. 10. The present Decree shall remain in force during five years from the date of its publication. Before the term of its expiration the Diet will take into mature consideration in what manner the xvIIIth Article of the Federal Act, relative to the uniformity of laws on the conduct of the Press, in the Confederated States, can be carried into execution, by definitively fixing the legal limits of the Liberty of the Press in Germany.

Decree relative to the formation of a General Commission for the purpose of ulterior Enquiry respecting Revolutionary Plots, discovered in some of the States of the Confederation.

Art. 1. In fifteen days from the date of this Decree, an extraordinary Commission of Enquiry, appointed by the Diet, and composed of seven Members, including the President, shall assemble in the city of Mentz, a fortress of the Confederation.

2. The object of this Commission is to make careful and detailed en quiries respecting the facts, the origin, and the multiplied ramifications of the secret, revolutionary, and demagogic associations, directed against the political Constitution and internal repose, as well of the Confederation in general as of the individual members thereof, of which, indications, more or less conclusive, have been already discovered, and may result from ulterior researches,

3. The Diet elects, by the plurality of suffrages, the seven Members of the Confederation who are to appoint the Members of the Central Commission, &c.

[This and the remaining Articles, being unimportant, are abridged.]

4. None can be elected members of the Central Commission but civil officers, who, in the State which appoints them, are fulfilling or have fulfilled judicial functions, or have been engaged in preparing processes in important investigations.

5. In order to attain the end proposed, the Central Commission shall undertake the general direction of the local investigations which have already been commenced, or may hereafter be instituted.

6. All the members of the Confederation, in the territories in which inves

tigations of this nature have been already commenced, engage to point out to the Central Commission, immediately after it shall be constituted, the local authorities to whom the investigations shall have been previously confided.

7. The Central Commission is authorised to examine every individual whom it may judge necessary. To secure his appearance, it will apply to the su perior authority of the members of the Confederation, or to the authorities who, in virtue of Article 6, may be pointed out for this purpose.

[Articles 8, 9, and 10, which conclude this Decree, and the proposition of the Imperial Minister, consist merely of directions for regulating the routine proceedings of the Central Commission.]

NOTE OF THE IMPERIAL RUSSIAN MINISTRY TO THE
RESIDENT SPANISH MINISTER.

Petersburgh, April 20. (May 2.') THE Note which the Chevalier de Zea de Bermudez addressed to the Ministry of Russia, under the date of the 19th of April, has been laid before the Emperor.

Constantly animated with the desire of seeing the prosperity of the State and the glory of the Sovereign maintaining themselves and flourishing together in Spain, his Majesty the Emperor could not, without profound affliction, learn the events which have occasioned the official note of the Chevalier Zea.

Even though those events should be considered only as the deplorable consequences of the errors, which, since the year 1814, seem to have presaged a catastrophe for the Peninsula, still nothing can justify the aggressions which deliver up the destinies of the country to a violent crisis. Too often have similar disorders announced days of sorrow for empires.

The future for Spain appears again under a sombrous and disturbed aspect. Well-founded disquietude must be awakened throughout all Europe; but the more serious these circumstances are, and the more they are capable of becoming fatal to that general tranquillity of which the world has scarcely tasted the first fruits, the less does it belong to the powers guaranteeing that universal benefit to pronounce separately, with precipitation, and according to limited or exclusive views, a definitive judgment on the transactions which have marked the commencement of the month of March in Spain.

Not doubting but that the Cabinet of Madrid has addressed similar communications to all the Allied Courts, his Imperial Majesty readily believes that all Europe is about to speak in one unanimous voice to the Spanish Government the language of truth-consequently the language of a friendship equally frank and well intentioned.

Meanwhile the Russian Ministry cannot dispense with adding some considerations on the anterior facts to which the Chevalier Zea de Bermudez has referred in his note. Like him, the Imperial Cabinet will invoke the testimony of those facts, and, in citing them, will make known to him the principles which the Emperor proposes to follow in his relations with his most Catholic Majesty.

In shaking off the foreign yoke which the French revolution had imposed, Spain acquired indelible titles to the esteem and gratitude of all European powers.

Russia paid her the tribute of these sentiments in the treaty of the 8th (20th) of July, 1812.

Since the general pacification, Russia has, in concert with her allies, given more than one proof of the interest she takes in Spain. The corre

spondence which has taken place between the different courts of Europe attests the wish which the Emperor has always formed that the authority of the King might be consolidated in both hemispheres, through the medium of pure and generous principles, and with the support of vigorous institutions, rendered still more vigorous by the regular mode of their establishment. Institutions which emanate from thrones are conservatory; but if they spring up amidst troubles, they only engender a new chaos. In declaring his conviction on this point, the Emperor only speaks according to the lessons of experience. If we look back on the past, great examples present themselves for the meditation of nations and sovereigns.

His Majesty persists in his opinion; his wishes are not changed: of that he here gives the most formal assurance.

It now belongs to the Government of the Peninsula to judge whether institutions imposed by one of those violent acts-the fatal patrimony of the revolution against which Spain had struggled with so much honor-can realise the benefits which both worlds expect from the wisdom of his most Catholic Majesty, and the patriotism of his councils.

The path by which Spain shall choose to seek this important object, the measures by which she shall endeavour to destroy the impression produced in Europe by the event of the month of March, must determine the nature of the relations which his Imperial Majesty will preserve with the Spanish Government, and the confidence which he would always wish to testify towards it.

COPY OF A MEMORIAL OF THE RUSSIAN CABINET TO ITS MINISTERS AT FOREIGN COURTS, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE AFFAIRS OF SPAIN.

THE Chevalier de Zea Bermudez has presented to the Imperial Cabinet the annexed Note, relative to the events which have just taken place in the Peninsula, and of which we were already informed by the despatches that were forwarded to us by our agents at foreign Courts.

M. de Zea, in this document, confines himself to informing us, that the Constitution promulgated by the Cortes in the year 1812, has been accepted by the King, and expresses a desire to know how the Emperor has viewed this change of the Government. If the distance which separates us from Spain, and from the States which are best enabled to weigh maturely the nature of the disasters with which she is menaced, be considered, it will be readily acknowledged that the position of the Imperial Ministry, with regard to the Representative of the Spanish nation, was difficult and delicate.

The Revolution of the Peninsula fixes the attention of the two hemispheres; the interests which it is about to decide, are the interests of the Universe; and if ever the Emperor wished that the opinion of his Allies might conduce to regulate his own, it certainly was at the moment when the note of the Chevalier de Zea imposed upon his Imperial Majesty the obligation of pronouncing upon an event which involves, perhaps, the future destinies of all civilised nations.-This obligation, however, existed; for, in these days, every subject of doubt becomes an instrument of malevolence.

The necessity of replying to M. de Zea was therefore evident; but, in this important conjuncture, it appeared natural, that previously to pronouncing an opinion, the Emperor should consider the object which the Allied Powers proposed to themselves in their relations with Spain; that he should consult the views which they had expressed to that same Power, and that he should take as a guide for his own, the principles of European policy. This is what his Imperial Majesty was bound to do; this is what he has done.

Since the year 1812, more than one Diplomatic Document attests the generous solicitude which the several Courts of Europe have constantly manifested in behalf of Spain. They applauded the noble perseverance with which her intrepid people resisted a foreign yoke. They rendered homage to their wisdom, when they rallied round a constitutional throne, the dearest interests of their country;-the interests of her independence. Finally, from the period when PROVIDENCE restored Ferdinand VII. to his people, they never failed to acknowledge that solid institutions could alone secure on its basis the ancient Spanish monarchy.

The Allied Sovereigns did more. In the course of long conferences, relative to the differences with Rio de la Plata, and to the pacification of the Colonies, they let it be sufficiently understood, that these institutions would cease to be a means of peace and happiness, if, instead of being granted by kindness, as a voluntary concession, they should be adopted by weakness as a last resource of salvation.

Let us investigate, on the other hand, the great transactions which established the European alliance.

What is the object of the engagements that were renewed on the (3d) 15th of November, 1818?

The Allied Monarchs had just then obliterated the last traces of the Revolution in France; but that Revolution seemed ready to produce new calamities.

The obligation of the monarchs was, therefore, and their design was, to prevent that, bursting from the same horizon, the same storm should a third time desolate Europe.

Nevertheless, as if the alarms which were then excited by the state of France, and which it still excites, were not sufficient-as if governments and nations entertained but slight doubts with respect to its future condition, it was necessary that the genius of evil should select a new theatre, and that Spain, in her turn, should be offered up as a fearful sacrifice. Revolution has therefore changed its ground; but the duties of Monarchs cannot have changed their nature, and the power of the insurrection is neither less formidable, nor less dangerous, than it would have been in France.

In unison, therefore, with his Allies, his Majesty cannot but desire to see granted to the Peninsula, as to its trans-marine Provinces, a Government which he considers as the only one that can yet justify some hope in this stage of calamities. But in virtue of his engagement of the (3d) 15th of November, 1818, his Majesty is bound to mark, with the most forcible reprobation, the revolutionary measures set in action to give new institutions to Spain. Such is the twofold idea which is found developed in the annexed answer, which the Cabinet of Russia has made to the Chevalier de Zea, by order of his Imperial Majesty.' The Emperor does not doubt that his august Allies will approve its contents, and perhaps they have already addressed similar sentiments to the Court of Madrid. The same wishes may, in fact, have inspired the same language, and convinced them, like his Majesty, that crime must always yield pernicious fruit: they have, doubtless, deplored as he has, the outrage which has recently tarnished the annals of Spain. We repeat it, this outrage is deplorable. It is deplorable for the Peninsula; it is deplorable for Europe; and the Spanish nation now owes the example of an expiatory deed to the people of the two hemispheres. Till this be done, the unhappy object of their disquietude can only make them fear the contagion of her calamities. Nevertheless, amidst all these

This refers to the "Note of the Imperial Russian Ministry to the resident Spanish Minister."

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