Our eyes would have been turned at this moment with those of the whole civilized world to Belgium, a small State, which has lived for more than seventy years under the several and collective guarantee to which we in common with Prussia and Austria were parties, and we should have seen at the instance and by the action of two of these guaranteeing powers her neutrality violated, her independence strangled, her territory made use of as affording the easiest and the most convenient road to a war of unprovoked aggression against France. We, the British people, would at this moment have been standing by with folded arms and with such countenance as we could command while this small and unprotected State, in defense of her vital liberties, made a heroic stand against overweening and overwhelming force; we should have been admiring as detached spectators the siege of Liege, the steady and manful resistance of a small army to the occupation of their capital, with its splendid traditions and memories, the gradual forcing back of the patriotic defenders of their native land to the ramparts of Antwerp, countless outrages inflicted by buccaneering levies exacted from the unoffending civil population, and, finally, the greatest crime committed against civilization and culture since the Thirty Years' War, the sack of Louvain, [cries of "Shame!"] with its buildings, its pictures, its unique library, its unrivaled associations--a shameless holocaust of irreparable treasures lit up by blind barbarian vengeance. [Prolonged cheers.] What account should we, the Government and the people of this country, have been able to render to the tribunal of our national conscience and sense of honor if, in defiance of our plighted and solemn obligations, we had endured, nay, if we had not done our best to prevent, yes, and to avenge, [renewed cheers,] these intolerable outrages? For my part I say that sooner than be a silent witness--which means in effect a willing accomplice--of this tragic triumph of force over law and of brutality over freedom, I would see this country of ours blotted out of the pages of history. [Prolonged cheers.] Germany's Aim--to Crush Freedom.