cannot be vested where there is no responsibility, or responsibility be imposed where authority does not exist. The Legislature have imposed a responsibility upon the Secretary at War from which he cannot discharge himself; and it would be placing him in a situation perfectly anomalous and unknown to any one office in the Constitution to deprive him of that independence, by which alone he can secure to himself the power of faithfully performing his duty.

It is therefore submitted, that to quote the wording of the commission of the Secretary at War is not sufficient for the purpose of proving that he is subordinate to, and dependent upon, the Commander-in-Chief in any matter of law or finance connected with the army; because, in the first place, setting aside every other consideration, it is quite clear from the commission of Mr. Clarke, that "the General of our Forces" mentioned in it is the Captain-General, and not the Commander-in-Chief; and that the addition of the words "according to the discipline of war" (words which, it is to be observed, Sir David Dundas does not notice in his argument) prove that the orders he was so liable to receive from the CaptainGeneral were in his military capacity as a staff officer, and not in his civil character as a political servant of the Crown; and as a staff officer he has now only a nominal existence. It must be remembered, too, that Mr. Blathwayte's commission, in which those words were first inserted, was made out before the Revolution, when constitutional principles and ideas of civil liberty were not understood as they have been since those days; and when there existed a Captain-General, whom not military officers alone, but all persons whomsoever, were ordered to obey, and possessed of powers unknown in later times. It is not, therefore, fair to infer from a form of words made out originally under such circumstances and in such times, and copied, as was natural they should be, on each successive appointment, the situation and powers of the officer at the present day, after all the changes and improvements that have since taken place in the constitution and govern

ment of the country. And because, in the second place, whatever might have been the intention of those who originally made out the commission, it is quite certain that for more than a century it never has, in practice and in fact, borne the construction which Sir David Dundas now attempts to put upon it.

The commission of Secretary at War is certainly in its nature, in some degree, a military commission, but it is also a civil one. It enjoins him to take the place into his charge, and the appointment, even in the case of a General Officer, to whom it is not a first commission, vacates a seat in the House of Commons.

He is therefore a civil servant of the Crown, and as such has of late years sat, at times, to advise His Majesty in the Cabinet. It seems, then, clear that the obedience which this civil officer is on any supposition to render to the CaptainGeneral, according to the discipline of war, cannot relate to the administration of the public business which, in his political capacity, passes through his hands.

Lord Palmerston most humbly trusts that the preceding detail and observations, and the extracts in the Appendix from the books of the War Office (which have indeed run into a length much greater than he wished, but which the nature and importance of the subject rendered unavoidable), will satisfy the mind of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, that the Secretary at War never could, by any construction of his commission, be dependent upon or subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief, as distinguished from the Captain-General; that he never has, in point of fact, been so even to the Captain-General in matters of law and finance; and that over these subjects he has always hitherto exercised an independent jurisdiction under the immediate orders of his Sovereign, whose commands alone it is his duty to obey; and Lord Palmerston founds this position upon the ancient practice of his office, upon the recorded opinions of Secretaries at War and of the Treasury, upon the sanction of the

successive Sovereigns who have sat upon the throne, and upon the Acts of the Legislature of the country.

Lord Palmerston, however, while asserting his official independence in those matters which belong to his department, would wish most distinctly to be understood as not blending with that question, in any degree, the consideration of the relative dignity or importance of the Commander-in-Chief and Secretary at War; and fortunately, indeed, for this part of his purpose, the alteration which since this Memorandum was originally begun has taken place in the former office, must effectually secure him from the possibility of miscon ception on that head.

It may also be necessary to say that in the preceding detail of the history of the War Office Lord Palmerston has necessarily been led to state things as he found them recorded: that in some particulars, however, the arrangement of former times has been altered, that part of the business of a political nature which was formerly transacted in the War Office has, since the separate establishment of a Secretary of State for the War Department, been conducted by him, while the Secretary at War has also of late years made it a point, while a Commander-in-Chief exists, not to interfere in the patronage of the army, or in matters purely connected with its discipline; and it is most foreign from Lord Palmerston's intention to wish in any degree to recall the practice of former times in those respects in which it has been altered for the convenience of the general arrangements of the Government, or by the sanction of competent authority deciding upon a full consideration of the subject.

Nor would he think of contending that the independence which the Secretary at War has always enjoyed should be exercised by making innovations in the service, or taking steps altering or affecting the interests of the army, without previous communication with the Commander-in-Chief, be cause he is persuaded that without a good understanding and cordial co-operation and concert between the two offices

the public service cannot be well and advantageously carried on. But, on the other hand, he must beg leave humbly to submit to His Royal Highness that it never has belonged to the Commander-in-Chief to issue by his authority orders and regulations affecting the expenditure of the public money, and that the Secretary at War is the accustomed and, as he humbly submits, the proper channel for any signification of his Majesty's pleasure upon such subjects; and that if it should be his Royal Highness's pleasure to make the office of Secretary at War dependent upon that of Commander-inChief, it would in some important particulars require the authority of Parliament to alter those laws which have imposed special duties on the Secretary at War.

2 E

VOL. 1.

TREATY FOR THE PACIFICATION OF GREECE, BETWEEN ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND RUSSIA, SIGNED AT LONDON, JULY 6, 1827.

ART. I.-The contracting Powers will offer to the Ottoman Porte their mediation, with the view of bringing about a reconciliation between it and the Greeks.

This offer of mediation shall be made to this Power i immediately after the ratification of the Treaty, by means of a collective declaration, signed by the plenipotentiaries of the allied courts at Constantinople; and there shall be made, at the same time, to the two contending parties, a demand of an immediate armistice between them, as a preliminary condition indispensable to the opening of any negotiation.

Art. II. The arrangement to be proposed to the Ottoman Porte shall rest on the following bases: the Greeks shall holl of the Sultan, as of a superior lord (suzerain); and in consequence of this superiority they shall pay to the Ottomar Empire an annual tribute, the amount of which shall be fixed, once for all, by a common agreement. They shall be governed by the authorities whom they shall themselves choose and nominate; but in the nomination of whom the Porte shall have a determinate voice. To bring about a complete separation between the individuals of the two nations, and to prevent the collisions which are the inevitable consequence of so long a struggle, the Greeks shall enter upon possession of the Turkish property, situated either on the continent or in the isles of Greece, on the condition of indemnifying the former proprietors, either by