Divine Right, just rescued from the French Revolution, was tottering and had yet to test the strength of its new props, the "Holy" and the "Quadruple" alliances, and the policy of intervention to maintain the status quo. Congresses at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, at Troppau in 1820, and at Laibach in 1821, decided to refuse recognition to governments resting on such revolutions, to offer mediation to restore the old order, and, if this were refused, to intervene by force. In the United States, on the other hand, founded on the right of revolution and dedicated to government by the people, these popular movements were greeted with enthusiasm. The fiery Clay, speaker and leader of the House of Representatives, made himself champion of the cause of the Spanish Americans; Daniel Webster thundered forth the sympathy of all lovers of antiquity for the Greeks; and Samuel Gridley Howe, an impetuous young American doctor, crossed the seas, carrying to the Greeks his services and the gifts of Boston friends of liberty. A new conflict seemed to be shaping itself--a struggle of absolutism against democracy, of America against Europe. Between the two camps, both in her ideas and in her geographical situation, stood England. Devoted as she was to law and order, bulwark against the excesses of the French Terror and the world dominion that Napoleon sought, she was nevertheless equally strong in her opposition to Divine Right. Her people and her government alike were troubled at the repressive measured by which the Allies put down the Revolution of Naples in 1821 and that of Spain in 1823. Still more were they disturbed at the hint given at the Congress of Verona in 1822 that, when Europe was once quieted, America would engage the attention of Europe's arbiters. George Canning, the English foreign minister, soon discovered that this hint foreshadowed a new congress to be devoted especially to the American problem. Spain was to be restored to her sovereignty, but was to pay in liberal grants of American territory to whatever powers helped her. Canning is regarded as the ablest English foreign minister of the nineteenth century; at least no one better embodied the fundamental aspirations of the English people. He realized that liberal England would be perpetually a minority in a united Europe, as Europe was then organized. He believed that the best security for peace was not a union but a balance of powers. He opposed intervention in the internal affairs of nations and stood for the right of each to choose its own form of government. Particularly he fixed his eyes on America, where he hoped to find weight to help him balance the autocrats of the Old World. He wished to see the new American republics free, and he believed that in freedom of trade England would obtain from them all that she needed. Alarmed at the impending European intervention to restore the rule of Spain or of her monarchical assignees in America, he sought an understanding with the United States.