fallacy than that which has pervaded the arguments of many honourable
gentlemen, who have taken up expressions used in one stage of these
negotiations, and applied them to another. An honourable baronet
(Sir F. Burdett), for instance, who addressed the House last night,
employed--or, I should rather say, adopted--a fallacy of this sort,
with respect to an expression of mine in the extract of a dispatch to
the Duke of Wellington, which stands second in the first series of
papers. It is but just to the honourable baronet to admit that his
observation was adopted, not original; because, in a speech eminent
for its ability and for its fairness of reasoning (however I may
disagree both with its principles and its conclusions), this, which
he condescended to borrow, was in truth the only very weak and
ill-reasoned part. By my dispatch of the 27th of September the Duke
of Wellington was instructed to declare, that 'to any interference by
force or menace on the part of the allies against Spain, _come what
may_, His Majesty will not be party'. Upon this the honourable
baronet, borrowing, as I have said, the remark itself, and borrowing
also the air of astonishment, which, as I am informed, was assumed by
the noble proprietor of the remark, in another place, exclaimed '"Come
what may"! What is the meaning of this ambiguous menace, this mighty
phrase, "that thunders in the index"?--"Come what may!" Surely a
denunciation of war is to follow. But no--no such thing. Only--come
what may--"His Majesty will be no party to such proceedings." Was ever
such a _bathos_! Such a specimen of sinking in policy? "_Quid dignum
tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?_"'
Undoubtedly, Sir, if the honourable baronet could show that this
declaration was applicable to the whole course of the negotiations,
or to a more advanced stage of them, there would be something in the
remark, and in the inference which he wished to be drawn from it.
But, before the declaration is condemned as utterly feeble and
inconclusive, let us consider what was the question to which it was
intended as an answer. That question, Sir, was not as to what England
would do in a war between France and Spain, but as to what part she
would take if, in the Congress at Verona, a determination should be
avowed by _the allies_ to interfere forcibly in the affairs of Spain.
What then was the meaning of the answer to that proposition,--that,
'_come what might_, His Majesty would be no party to such a
project'? Why, plainly that His Majesty would not concur in such a
determination, even though a difference with his allies, even though
the dissolution of the alliance, should be the consequence of his
refusal. The answer, therefore, was exactly adapted to the question.
This specimen of the _bathos_, this instance of perfection in the art
of sinking, as it has been described to be, had its effect; and
the Congress separated without determining in favour of any joint
operation of a hostile character against Spain.
Sir, it is as true in politics as in mechanics, that the test of skill
and of success is to achieve the greatest purpose with the least
power. If, then, it be found that, by this little intimation, we
gained the object that we sought for, where was the necessity for
greater flourish or greater pomp of words? An idle waste of effort
would only have risked the loss of the object which by temperance we
gained!
But where is the testimony in favour of the effect which this
intimation produced? I have it, both written and oral. My first
witness is the Duke Mathieu de Montmorency, who states, in his
official note of the 26th of December, that the measures conceived and
proposed at Verona '_would, have been_ completely successful, _if_
England had thought herself at liberty to concur in them'. Such was
the opinion entertained, by the Plenipotentiary of France of the
failure at Verona, and of the cause of that failure. What was the
opinion of Spain? My voucher for that opinion is the dispatch from
Sir W. A'Court, of the 7th of January; in which he describes the
comfort and relief that were felt by the Spanish Government, when they
learnt that the Congress at Verona had broken up with no other result
than the _bruta fulmina_ of the three dispatches from the courts in
alliance with France. The third witness whom I produce, and not the
least important, because an unwilling and most unexpected, and in this
case surely a most unsuspected witness, is the honourable member for
Westminster (Mr. Hobhouse), who seems to have had particular sources
of information as to what was passing at the Congress. According to
the antechamber reports which were furnished to the honourable member
(and which, though not always the most authentic, were in this
instance tolerably correct), it appears that there was to be _no
joint_ declaration against Spain; and it was, it seems, generally
understood at Verona, that the instructions given to His Majesty's
Plenipotentiary, by the Liberal--I beg pardon, to be quite accurate I
am afraid I must say, the Radical--Foreign Minister of England, were
the cause. Now the essence of those instructions was comprised in that
little sentence, which has been so much criticized for meagreness and
insufficiency.
In this case, then, the English Government is impeached, not for
failure, but for success; and the honourable baronet, with taste not
his own, has expressed himself dissatisfied with that success, only
because the machinery employed to produce it did not make noise enough
in its operation.
I contend, Sir, that whatever might grow out of a separate conflict
between Spain and France (though matter for grave consideration) was
less to be dreaded, than that all the Great Powers of the Continent
should have been arrayed together against Spain; and that although the
first object, in point of importance, indeed, was to keep the peace
altogether--to prevent _any_ war against Spain--the first, in point of
time, was to prevent a _general_ war; to change the question from a
question between the allies on one side and Spain on the other, to a
question between nation and nation. This, whatever the result might
be, would reduce the quarrel to the size of ordinary events, and bring
it within the scope of ordinary diplomacy. The immediate object of
England, therefore, was to hinder the impress of a joint character
from being affixed to the war--if war there must be--with Spain; to
take care that the war should not grow out of an assumed jurisdiction
of the Congress; to keep within reasonable bounds that predominating
_areopagitical_ spirit, which the memorandum of the British Cabinet of
May, 1820, describes as 'beyond the sphere of the original conception,
and understood principles of the alliance',--'an alliance never
intended as a union for the government of the world, or for the
superintendence of the internal affairs of other States.' And this, I
say, was accomplished.
With respect to Verona, then, what remains of accusation against the
Government? It has been charged, not so much that the object of the
Government was amiss, as that the negotiations were conducted in too
low a tone. But the case was obviously one in which a high tone might
have frustrated the object. I beg, then, of the House, before they
proceed to adopt an Address which exhibits more of the ingenuity of
philologists than of the policy of statesmen--before they found
a censure of the Government for its conduct in negotiations of
transcendent practical importance, upon refinements of grammatical
nicety--I beg that they will at least except from the proposed
censure, the transactions at Verona, where I think I have shown that a
tone of reproach and invective was unnecessary, and, therefore, would
have been misplaced.
Among those who have made unjust and unreasonable objections to the
tone of our representations at Verona, I should be grieved to include
the honourable member for Bramber (Mr. Wilberforce), with whose
mode of thinking I am too well acquainted not to be aware that his
observations are founded on other and higher motives than those of
political controversy. My honourable friend, through a long and
amiable life, has mixed in the business of the world without being
stained by its contaminations: and he, in consequence, is apt to
place--I will not say too high, but higher, I am afraid, than the ways
of the world will admit, the standard of political morality. I fear
my honourable friend is not aware how difficult it is to apply to
politics those pure, abstract principles which are indispensable to
the excellence of private ethics. Had we employed in the negotiations
that serious moral strain which he might have been more inclined to
approve, many of the gentlemen opposed to me would, I doubt not,
have complained, that we had taken a leaf from the book of the Holy
Alliance itself; that we had framed in their own language a canting
protest against their purposes, not in the spirit of sincere dissent,
but the better to cover our connivance. My honourable friend, I admit,
would not have been of the number of those who would so have accused
us: but he may be assured that he would have been wholly disappointed
in the practical result of our didactic reprehensions. In truth,
the principle of _non-interference_ is one on which we were already
irrecoverably at variance in opinion with the allies; it was no longer
debatable ground. On the one hand, the alliance upholds the doctrine
of an European police; this country, on the other hand, as appears
from the memorandum already quoted, protests against that doctrine.
The question is, in fact, settled, as many questions are, by each
party retaining its own opinions; and the points reserved for debate
are points only of practical application. To such a point it was that
we directed our efforts at Verona.
There are those, however, who think that with a view of conciliating
the Continental Powers, and of winning them away the more readily
from their purposes, we should have addressed them as tyrants and
despots--tramplers on the rights and liberties of mankind. This
experiment would, to say the least of it, be a very singular one in
diplomacy. It may be possible, though I think not very probable, that
the allies would have borne such an address with patience; that they
would have retorted only with the 'whispering humbleness' of Shylock
in the play, and said,--
Fair Sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You called me--dog; and, for these courtesies,
'we are ready to comply with whatever you desire.' This, I say, may be
possible. But I confess I would rather make such an experiment, when
the issue of it was matter of more indifference. Till then, I shall
be loath to employ towards our allies a language, to which if they
yielded, we should ourselves despise them. I doubt whether it is wise,
even in this House, to indulge in such a strain of rhetoric; to call
'wretches' and 'barbarians', and a hundred other hard names, Powers
with whom, after all, if the map of Europe cannot be altogether
cancelled, we must, even according to the admission of the most
anti-continental politicians, maintain _some_ international
intercourse. I doubt whether these sallies of raillery--these flowers
of Billingsgate--are calculated to soothe, any more than to adorn;
whether, on some occasion or other, we may not find that those on whom
they are lavished have not been utterly unsusceptible of feelings of
irritation and resentment:
Medio de fonte leporum
Surget amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.
But be the language of good sense or good taste in this House what it
may, clear I am that, in diplomatic correspondence, no Minister would
be justified in risking the friendship of foreign countries, and the
peace of his own, by coarse reproach and galling invective; and that
even while we are pleading for the independence of nations, it is
expedient to respect the independence of those with whom we plead. We
differ widely from our Continental allies on one great principle, it
is true: nor do we, nor ought we to disguise that difference; nor to
omit any occasion of practically upholding our own opinion. But every
consideration, whether of policy or of justice, combines with the
recollection of the counsels which we have shared, and of the deeds
which we have achieved in concert and companionship, to induce us to
argue our differences of opinion, however freely, with temper; and to
enforce them, however firmly, without insult.
Before I quit Verona, there are other detached objections which have
been urged against our connexion with the Congress, of which it may be
proper to take notice. It has been asked why we sent a Plenipotentiary
to the Congress at all. It may, perhaps, be right here to
observe, that it was not originally intended to send the British
Plenipotentiary to _Verona_. The Congress at Verona was originally
convened solely for the consideration of the affairs of Italy, with
which, the House is aware, England had declined to interfere two
years before. England was, therefore, not to participate in those
proceedings; and all that required her participation was to be
arranged in a previous Congress at _Vienna_. But circumstances had
delayed the Duke of Wellington's departure from England, so that he
did not reach Vienna till many weeks after the time appointed. The
Sovereigns had waited to the last hour consistent with their Italian
arrangements. The option was given to our Plenipotentiary to meet them
on their return to Vienna; but it was thought, upon the whole,
more convenient to avoid further delay; and the Duke of Wellington
therefore proceeded to Verona.
Foremost among the objects intended to be discussed at Vienna was the
impending danger of hostilities between Russia and the Porte. I have
no hesitation in saying that, when I accepted the seals of office,
_that_ was the object to which the anxiety of the British Government
was principally directed. The negotiations at Constantinople had been
carried on through the British Ambassador. So completely had this
business been placed in the hands of Lord Strangford, that it was
thought necessary to summon him to Vienna. Undoubtedly it might be
presumed, from facts which were of public notoriety, that the affairs
of Spain could not altogether escape the notice of the assembled
Sovereigns and Ministers; but the bulk of the instructions which had
been prepared for the Duke of Wellington related to the disputes
between Russia and the Porte: and how little the British Government
expected that so prominent a station would be assigned to the affairs
of Spain, may be inferred from the Duke of Wellington's finding it
necessary to write from Paris for specific instructions on that
subject.
But it is said that Spain ought to have been invited to send a
Plenipotentiary to the Congress.
So far as Great Britain is concerned, I answer--in the first place, as
we did not wish the affairs of Spain to be brought into discussion at
all, we could not take or suggest a preliminary step which would have
seemed to recognize the necessity of such a discussion. In the next
place, if Spain had been invited, the answer to that invitation might
have produced a contrary effect to that which we aimed at producing.
Spain must either have sent a Plenipotentiary, or have refused to do
so. The refusal would not have failed to be taken by the allies as a
proof of the _duresse_ of the King of Spain. The sending one, if sent
(as he must have been) jointly by the King of Spain and the Cortes,
would at once have raised the whole question of the _legitimacy_ of
the existing Government of Spain, and would, almost to a certainty,
have led to a joint declaration from the alliance, such as it was our
special object to avoid.
But was there anything in the general conduct of Great Britain at
Verona, which lowered, as has been asserted, the character of England?
Nothing like it. Our Ambassador at Constantinople returned from Verona
to his post, with full powers from Russia to treat on her behalf with
the Turkish Government; from which Government, on the other hand, he
enjoys as full confidence as perhaps any Power ever gave to one of
its own Ambassadors. Such is the manifest decay of our authority, so
fallen in the eyes of all mankind is the character of this country,
that two of the greatest States of the world are content to arrange
their differences through a British Minister, from reliance on British
influence, and from confidence in British equity and British wisdom!
Such then was the issue of the Congress, as to the question between
Russia and the Porte; the question (I beg it to be remembered) upon
which we expected to be principally if not entirely engaged at that
Congress, if it had been held (as was intended when the Duke of
Wellington left London) at Vienna.
As to Italy, I have already said, it was distinctly understood that
we had resolved to take no share in the discussions. But it is almost
needless to add that the evacuation of Naples and of Piedmont was a
measure with respect to which, though the Plenipotentiary of Great
Britain was not entitled to give or to withhold the concurrence of his
Government, he could not but signify its cordial approbation.
The result of the Congress as to Spain was simply the discontinuance
of diplomatic intercourse with that Power, on the part of Austria,
Russia, and Prussia; a step neither necessarily nor probably leading
to war; perhaps (in some views) rather diminishing the risk of it; a
step which had been taken by the same monarchies towards Portugal
two years before, without leading to any ulterior consequences. The
concluding expression of the Duke of Wellington's last note at Verona,
in which he states that all that Great Britain could do was to
'endeavour to allay irritation at Madrid', describes all that in
effect was necessary to be done there, after the Ministers of the
allied Powers should be withdrawn: and the House have seen in Sir W.
A'Court's dispatches how scrupulously the Duke of Wellington's promise
was fulfilled by the representations of our Minister at Madrid. They
have seen, too, how insignificant the result of the Congress of
Verona was considered at Madrid, in comparison with what had been
apprehended.
The result of the Congress as to France was a promise of countenance
and support from the allies in three specified hypothetical
cases:--(1) of an attack made by Spain on France; (2) of any outrage
on the person of the King or Royal Family of Spain; (3) of any attempt
to change the dynasty of that kingdom. Any unforeseen case, if any
such should arise, was to be the subject of new deliberation, either
between Court and Court, or in the conferences of their Ministers at
Paris.
It is unnecessary now to argue, whether the cases specified are cases
which would justify interference. It is sufficient for the present
argument, that no one of these cases has occurred. France is therefore
not at war on a case foreseen and provided for at Verona: and so far
as I know, there has not occurred, since the Congress of Verona any
new case to which the assistance of the allies can be considered as
pledged; or which has, in fact, been made the subject of deliberation
among the Ministers of the several Courts who were members of the
Congress.
We quitted Verona, therefore, with the satisfaction of having
prevented any _corporate_ act of force or menace, on the part of _the
alliance_, against Spain; with the knowledge of the three cases on
which alone France would be entitled to claim the support of her
Continental allies, in a conflict with Spain; and with the certainty
that in any other case we should have to deal with France alone,
in any interposition which we might offer for averting, or for
terminating, hostilities.
From Verona we now come, with our Plenipotentiary, to Paris.
I have admitted on a former occasion, and I am perfectly prepared to
repeat the admission, that, after the dissolution of the Congress
of Verona, we might, if we had so pleased, have withdrawn ourselves
altogether from any communication with France upon the subject of
her Spanish quarrel; that, having succeeded in preventing a joint
operation against Spain, we might have rested satisfied with that
success, and trusted, for the rest, to the reflections of France
herself on the hazards of the project in her contemplation. Nay, I
will own that we did hesitate, whether we should not adopt this more
selfish and cautious policy. But there were circumstances attending
the return of the Duke of Wellington to Paris, which directed our
decision another way. In the first place, we found, on the Duke of
Wellington's arrival in that capital, that M. de Vilèlle had sent back
to Verona the drafts of the dispatches of the three Continental allies
to their Ministers at Madrid, which M. de Montmorency had brought
with him from the Congress;--had sent them back for reconsideration;
--whether with a view to obtain a change in their context, or to
prevent their being forwarded to their destination at all, did not
appear: but, be that as it might, the reference itself was a proof
of vacillation, if not of change, in the French counsels.
In the second place, it was notorious that a change was likely to take
place in the Cabinet of the Tuileries, which did in fact take place
shortly afterwards, by the retirement of M. de Montmorency: and M. de
Montmorency was as notoriously the adviser of war against Spain.
In the third place, it was precisely at the time of the Duke of
Wellington's return to Paris, that we received a direct and pressing
overture from the Spanish Government, which placed us in the
alternative of either affording our good offices to Spain, or of
refusing them.
This last consideration would perhaps alone have been decisive; but
when it was coupled with the others which I have stated, and with the
hopes of doing good which they inspired, I think it will be conceded
to me that we should have incurred a fearful responsibility, if we
had not consented to make the effort, which we did make, to effect an
adjustment between France and Spain, through our mediation.
Add to this, that the question which we had now to discuss with France
was a totally new question. It was no longer a question as to
that general right of interference, which we had disclaimed and
denied--disclaimed for ourselves, and denied for others,--in the
conferences at Verona. France knew that upon that question our opinion
was formed, and was unalterable. Our mediation therefore, if accepted
by France, set out with the plain and admitted implication, that the
discussion must turn, not on the general principle, but upon a case
of exception to be made out by France, showing, to our satisfaction,
wherein Spain had offended and aggrieved her.
It has been observed, as if it were an inconsistency, that at Verona a
discouraging answer had been given, by our Plenipotentiary to a hint
that it might, perhaps, be advisable for us to offer our mediation
with Spain; but that no sooner had the Duke of Wellington arrived at
Paris, than he was instructed to offer that mediation. Undoubtedly
this is true: and the difference is one which flows out of, and
verifies, the entire course of our policy at Verona. We declined
mediating between Spain and an alliance assuming to itself that
character of general superintendence of the concerns of nations. But
a negotiation between kingdom and kingdom, in the old, intelligible,
accustomed, European form, was precisely the issue to which we were
desirous of bringing the dispute between France and Spain. We eagerly
grasped at this chance of preserving peace; and the more eagerly
because, as I have before said, we received, at that precise moment,
the application from Spain for our good offices.