PALERMO: 1800-1801
 

^TAT. 29 TO 30

Mr. Paget, having been named Envoy Extraordinary
and Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of the Two
Sicilies, in succession to Sir WiUiam Hamilton, left
England on the 27th of January 1800, on his way to
Palermo, whither Their Sicilian Majesties had transferred
their Court.

As he was to pass through Germany, he was entrusted
by the Prince of Wales with a mission to Prince
Augustus, then residing in Berlin, on a matter of very
great delicacy. Owing to ill-health, H.R. Highness was
unable to leave Berlin in order to meet Mr. Paget and
the commission had therefore to be executed by
letter. The exchange of letters with Prince Augustus
will be found in the correspondence of this period.

Although this has no pretension to be an historical
Work, it may now be convenient to record here very
briefly the principal circumstances in connection with the
affairs of Europe, or more especially of Italy and Naples,
in the years 1800-1801 and immediately preceding years,
in order the better to elucidate the subjects with which
the correspondence of this period is more particularly
concerned, although it is by no means confined to the
position of things in the Italian Peninsula.

By the Treaty of Campo Formio (October 1797) which
deprived Austria of a great part of her Italian posses¬
sions, as well as of Flanders and the line of the Rhine,
the Ionian Islands and part of her Venetian territory,
hostilities were temporarily suspended between the
Empire of Austria and the French Republic, but were
renewed by the latter both in Germany and Italy on the
ist of March 1799.

The   suspension   of  hostilities   between  Austria  and