America, “committed as a point of honour to defend a frontier of 1,500 miles against a country which can keep 700,000 men on the field;” she had also troops at the Cape, the West Indies, West Africa, Malta, and Gibraltar. Surely the world never saw, said Cobden, such a dispersion of force as this by a Power that attempted to interfere with Continental affairs. Hence the time had come for the new departure in foreign politics, for, with the failure of Lord Palmerston’s Danish policy, it was clear our whole system of conducting our relations with foreign countries had broken down. The Foreign Office had lost its credit abroad. Foreign Governments now knew that its threats and its pledges were vain and empty, because the real power now lay, not in the Foreign Office, but in the House of Commons. It was not the Ministry he desired to change, but the system; so that, though he was prepared to vote against Mr. Disraeli’s censure, Mr. Cobden, as Lord Robert Cecil observed, was about as true a friend to the Ministry, as the Ministry had been to Denmark. The only difference was, that whilst the Government gave Denmark fair words and no succour, Mr. Cobden had given Lord Palmerston valuable succour, but no fair words. It was past midnight on the 9th of July when Palmerston rose to defend his position, but he added nothing to the debate. As Mr. Evelyn Ashley, his adoring biographer, says, “he had, in truth, a difficult task. There had been a conspicuous failure; of that much there could be no doubt. Allies, colleagues, and circumstances had proved adverse; yet the excuses for failure could not be laid on any of them. So, with the exception of a dexterous allusion to the words of the resolution as ‘a gratuitous libel upon the country by a great Party who hoped to rule it,’ he did not detain the House for long on the points immediately at issue, but, dropping the Danish matter altogether, went straight into a history of the financial triumphs of his Government.”[210] After all, for these he was indebted to Mr. Gladstone with whom he was rarely in agreement on matters of general policy; and his obvious evasion of the matter in dispute was resented by the House, which interrupted him with angry cries of “Question!” His defence certainly had no bearing on the issue; but, as Mr. Ashley observes, with unconscious cynicism, “it had all to do with the Party question, for it decided the votes of doubting men, who, caring little about Sleswig-Holstein, cared a great deal about English finance. Anyhow, it commanded success, for the Government got a majority of eighteen, and thus renewed their lease of power.” Lord Palmerston had expected only a majority of three, but several Tories had voted with the Liberals, and eleven abstained from voting at all. “This,” writes Count Vitzthum, “is explained by the fear of a Roman Catholic intrigue. The Vatican had been anxious to make use of the opportunity for overthrowing the hated Premier. Some Monsignori