Moderate as was the language which Lord Minto was directed to hold at the different Italian Courts, his mission was necessarily regarded with extreme disapproval at Vienna. Yet Minto had no mandate to encourage the movement in favour of Italian unity, nor was he instructed to counsel the adoption of any measures which could be regarded as even an indirect attempt to deprive the Emperor of his Italian possessions. On the contrary, he was to insist upon the necessity of maintaining the peace. At Turin, he was to warn Charles Albert of the danger of allowing his natural irritation at the interference of Austria in his affairs to betray him into some act, which might furnish the Court of Vienna with a pretext for attacking him. But Metternich, being determined to place an absolute check upon the development of Liberal ideas, was naturally greatly annoyed that a British minister should visit Florence, Rome and Turin for the purpose of congratulating the Sovereigns upon the reforms which they had already carried out, and of urging them to persevere in the same course in the future.[915] Another task, however, had been confided to Lord Minto, besides that of counselling the Italian rulers to advance with prudence and circumspection along the path of reform. On his way to Turin he was instructed to visit Switzerland, where a very grave condition of affairs had arisen. By the _Federal Pact_ of 1815 Switzerland consisted of twenty-two sovereign and independent Cantons, each of which possessed one vote in the Federal Diet. The repercussion of the revolution of 1830, in France, was acutely felt in Switzerland, and, about that time, the cantonal constitutions were revised in a democratic spirit. Some nine years later, however, the Conservatives, by raising the cry that religion was in danger, succeeded in many of the Cantons in regaining their lost power. The victorious party made no attempt, even in those Cantons where their ascendency was the most complete, to repeal the Liberal legislation of the past few years. On the contrary, in the very Catholic cantons of Lucerne and of the Valais, the popular _veto_ and the _referendum_ were introduced. It was plainly the opinion of the clergy that their influence over the people would enable them to obtain, by means of these democratic institutions, the rejection of any measure of which they disapproved. In the Canton of Aargau, however, of which the population was half Protestant and half Catholic, the clerical party failed to establish its ascendency by peaceful means. An attempt was, accordingly, made to overturn the existing government by force. But the insurrection proved unsuccessful and the eight monasteries, the inmates of which were proved to have been actively concerned in the plot, were suppressed. The existence of these establishments had been guaranteed by an article of the _Federal Pact_, and the action of the Grand Council of Aargau, in decreeing their abolition, was, in consequence, brought