Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914
History
Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914
Great Britain -- Foreign relations; Speeches, addresses, etc., English
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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