The Danish Government were not at all willing to revoke the constitution in Holstein.  It was one that did them credit, and was naturally popular in Holstein.  Still, the Diet was very anxious that the patent should be revoked, because if Holstein continued satisfied it was impossible to trade on the intimate connexion between Schleswig and Holstein, the lever by which the kingdom of Denmark was to be destroyed.  The Diet, therefore, insisted that the patent should be revoked.  Her Majesty’s Government, I believe, approved the patent of Holstein as the Danish Government had done, but, as a means of obtaining peace and saving Denmark, they made use of all the means in their power to induce Denmark to revoke that constitution.  Sir Augustus Paget, writing to the Foreign Secretary on October 14, and describing an interview with M. Hall, the Prime Minister of Denmark, says: 

After much further conversation, in which I made use of every argument to induce his Excellency to adopt a conciliatory course, and in which I warned him of the danger of rejecting the friendly counsels now offered by Her Majesty’s Government—­(No. 3, 162)—­

M. Hall promises to withdraw the patent.  What interpretation could M. Hall place on that interview?  He was called upon to do what he knew to be distasteful, and believed to be impolitic.  He is warned of the danger of rejecting those friendly counsels, and in consequence of that warning he gives way and surrenders his opinion.  I would candidly ask what is the interpretation which in private life would be put on such language as I have quoted, and which had been acted upon by those to whom it was addressed?

Well, we now come to the federal execution in Holstein.  Speaking literally, the federal execution was a legal act, and Denmark could not resist it.  But from the manner in which it was about to be carried into effect, and in consequence of the pretensions connected with it, the Danes were of opinion that it would have been better at once to resist the execution, which aimed a fatal blow at the independence of Schleswig, and upon this point they felt strongly.  Well, Her Majesty’s Government—­and I give them full credit for being actuated by the best motives—­thought otherwise, and wished the Danish Government to submit to this execution.  And what was the sort of language used by them in order to bring about that result?  Sir Augustus Paget replied in this way to the objections of the Danish Minister: 

I replied that Denmark would at all events have a better chance of securing the assistance of the Powers if the execution were not resisted.

I ask any candid man to put his own interpretation upon this language.  And on the 12th of the same month Lord Russell himself tells M. Bille, the Danish Minister in London, that there is no connexion between the engagements of Denmark to Germany, and the engagements of the German Powers under the treaty of 1852.  After such a declaration from the English Minister in the metropolis, a declaration which must have had the greatest effect upon the policy of the Danish Government—­of course they submitted to the execution.  But having revoked the patent and submitted to the execution, as neither the one nor the other was the real object of the German Powers, a new demand was made which was one of the greatest consequence.