engagements should be kept in their spirit, and that arrangements should be made (which could easily have been devised) to give satisfaction to the people of the Duchies--made proposals inconsistent, as it appeared to me, with their engagements, pushing beyond their legitimate sense the words of those engagements, and suggested arrangements which, if they had come into operation, would have made Denmark completely subject to Germany. Among other proposals--indeed, one of the chief--was that the 900,000 people who were said to be of German race, and even the 50,000 of the Duchy of Lauenburg, should have a representation equal to that of the 1,600,000 inhabitants of the kingdom of Denmark. This was evidently so unfair and calculated to be so destructive of Danish independence and nationality, that Denmark refused to accede to it. It was, in fact such a proposal as if Scotland and Ireland were to demand each an equal number of representatives with England in the Imperial Parliament. The consequence of these disputes, unfortunately, was, that instead of the treaty taking root and fully satisfying the wishes of the people of the Duchies, there was a kind of never-ceasing irritation which burst forth as occasion arose; and, as Germany was greatly more powerful than Denmark, it was but too probable that the latter would have to suffer one day on account of the complaints which were made by the Germans. It was impossible not to foresee that such would probably be the consequence, and that the irritation to which I allude would not go on for ever without exciting great dissension and perhaps war. Therefore, in September, 1862, when I was at Brussels in attendance on Her Majesty, I explained to Sir Augustus Paget, who was shortly about to return to Denmark, a plan of pacification which it appeared to me would keep the Duchies under the rule of the King of Denmark; which would be satisfactory to themselves; which would give them a Minister for Schleswig and a body of representatives; a Minister for Holstein and a body of representatives, and would thus put an end for ever to the demand that at Copenhagen there should sit a majority of representatives for the Duchies. The Danish Government--as I think unfortunately--utterly rejected that proposal, and matters went on in the same unsatisfactory state. The diplomatic correspondence which the British Government proposed should take place did take place between Germany and Denmark, but it only produced increased bitterness and further irritation. At length in October, 1863, the German Governments at Frankfort declared that they must proceed to Federal Execution. If, my Lords, that Federal Execution had been founded on any infringement of the rights of Holstein--if it had been founded solely upon the misgovernment of Holstein, or on any violation of the rights of the Confederation, no Power would, I think, be entitled to complain of it. It embraced, however, a point which had