namely, on the 8th of May, proceed to give these instructions to my friend, Mr. Abercrombie:
'Her Majesty's Consul at Palermo having reported that it is understood that the crown of Sicily is to be offered to the Duke of Genoa, I have to instruct you that if it should come to your knowledge that such an offer has been made, you will state to the Sardinian Government that it is of course for the Duke of Genoa to determine whether it will or will not suit him to accept this flattering offer, but that it might be satisfactory to him to know that if he should do so he would at the proper time, and when he was in possession of the Sicilian throne, be acknowledged by Her Majesty.'
Let it be known, said the noble Lord at the head of Foreign Affairs, that if the Duke of Genoa accepts the offer of the Sicilians, we shall lose no time in recognizing him, the Grand Duke of Genoa, under the Treaty of Vienna, as the King of Sicily, and in accepting the dethronement of our own ancient ally with whom we lament there is no possibility of 'drawing closer the bonds of our ancient friendship'. Oh, how easily snapped are the bonds that knit prince to prince, and State to State! Oh, how feeble the most ancient ties of the firmest political friendship! When the ink was hardly dry with which the profession was made of this earnest desire to draw more closely, if it were but possible, the bonds which united us to the King of the Two Sicilies, that Her Majesty's Government should, behind his back, and without a word of notice, avow their intention deliberately, but instantly, to acknowledge the usurper upon whose head his insurgent subjects were about to place the crown they had wrested from the brow of their lawful King! But my noble friend (Lord Minto) is
