To discourage revolution, both abroad and at home, and enable industry, in peace and tranquillity, to reap the fruits of its toil, was the grand object of the great contest which Pitt's wisdom bequeathed to his successors, and Wellington's arm brought to a glorious termination. This, however, was ere long discovered to be the greatest error of all. England, it was found out, had a decided interest in promoting the cause of revolution all over the world. So enamoured did we soon become of the propagandist mania, that we pursued it in direct opposition to our planned national interests, and with the entire abrogation of our whole previous policy, for which we had engaged in the greatest and most costly wars, alike under Whig and Tory administrations. We supported revolutions in the South American states, though thereby we reduced to a half of its former amount the supply of the precious metals throughout the globe; and, in consequence, increased immensely the embarrassment which a contracted paper currency had brought upon the nation: we supported revolution in Belgium, though thereby we brought the tricolor standard down to Antwerp, and surrendered to French influence the barrier fortresses won by the victories of Marlborough and Wellington: we supported it during four years of carnage and atrocity in Spain, though thereby we undid the work of our own hands, in the treaty of Utrecht, surrendered the whole objects gained by the War of the Succession, and placed the female line upon the throne, as if to invite the French princes to come and carry off the glittering prize: we supported revolutions in Sicily and Italy, though thereby we gave such a blow to our export trade, that it sank £1,400,000 in the single month of last May, and above £5,000,000 in the course of the year 1848. To abolish the slave trade was one of the objects which Whigs and Tories had most at heart in the latter years of the old system; and in that great and glorious contest Mr Pitt, Mr Fox, and Mr Wilberforce stood side by side. But this object, so important in its results, so interesting to humanity from its tendency to alleviate human suffering, ere long yielded to the enlightened views of modern liberals. It was discovered that it was much more important to cheapen sugar _for a time_[8] than to rescue the African race from perdition. Free trade in sugar was introduced, although it was demonstrated, and, indeed, confessed, that the effect of it would be to ruin all the free-labour colonies, and throw the supply of the world into the hands of the slave states. Provided, for a few years, you succeeded in reducing the average retail price of sugar a penny a pound, it was deemed of no consequence though we extinguished the growth of free-labour sugar--destroyed colonies in which a hundred millions of British capital were invested, and doubled the slave trade in extent, and quadrupled it in horror, throughout the globe.