'MY DEAR LORD HARDWICKE,
'Accept my thanks for your two acceptable letters of this 24 and 28 ult. I wish I could send you an answer more deserving of them but we are now getting under weigh for Palermo with the Queen, Powerful, and Terrible in C°., carrying the King's ultimatum of the terms of adjustment with the Neapolitans, on which we have obtained some favourable and necessary modifications altho' I doubt whether the Sicilians will accept them. I think however that they ought to do so and I shall do my best to induce them.
'I think it will be better that you should remain at Genoa or Spezzia for the present, resorting to either place at your discretion.
'My family left me three days ago by the Antelope for Malta or they would unite in every kind wish with, my dear Lord Hardwicke,
'Yours very faithfully,
'W. PARKER.'
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On March 12, 1849, the armistice with Austria ended, and the following proclamation clearly shows with what eager hope the Genoese welcomed war.
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