“There is but one alloy,” the Prince said, “to my feelings of satisfaction and pleasure in seeing you here assembled again, and that is, the painful remembrance that one is missing from amongst us who felt so warm an interest in our scheme and took so active a part in promoting its success, the last act of whose public life was attending at the Royal Commission: my admiration for whose talents and character, and gratitude for whose devotion to the Queen and private friendship towards myself, I feel a consolation in having this public opportunity to express.
“Only at our last meeting we were still admiring his eloquence and the earnestness with which he appealed to you to uphold, by your exertions and personal sacrifices, what was to him the highest object, the honour of his country; he met you the following day together with other commissioners, to confer with you upon the details of our undertaking; and you must have been struck, as everybody has been who has had the benefit of his advice upon practical points, with the attention, care, and sagacity with which he treated the minutest details, proving that to a great mind nothing is little, from the knowledge that in the moral and intellectual as in the physical world the smallest point is only a link in that great chain, and holds its appointed place in that great whole which is governed by the Divine Wisdom.
“The constitution of Sir Robert Peel’s mind was peculiarly that of a statesman, and of an English statesman: he was liberal from feeling, but conservative upon principle; whilst his impulse drove him to foster progress, his sagacious mind and great experience showed him how easily the whole machinery of a state and of society is deranged, and how important, but how difficult also, it is to direct its further development in accordance with its fundamental principles, like organic growth in nature. It was peculiar to him, that, in great things as in small, all the difficulties and objections occurred to him first; he would anxiously consider them, pause, and warn against rash resolutions; but, having convinced himself, after a long and careful investigation, that a step was not only right to be taken, but of the practical mode also of safely taking it, it became to him a necessity and a duty to take it: all his caution and apparent timidity changed into courage and power of action, and at the same time readiness cheerfully to make any personal sacrifice which its execution might demand.”
|The Prince’s careful preparation of his speeches.| The foregoing are some of the principal characteristics of the Prince’s speeches. It remains only to be said that he thought over them with the greatest care and anxiety. His respect for his audience, and also for his own position, made him always endeavour to give the best thought he could to whatever subject he was treating. He looked upon every occasion he had for speaking as affording him an opportunity of saying something that might be useful for his fellow-countrymen; and he toiled to make that something worthy of him, and worthy of them.
|The Prince’s speech at the Trinity House, June 9, 1855.| The Editor of these Speeches has thought it best to give them without any introductory comments or explanations. One speech, however, brought forth so much misrepresentation, that, in reference to that circumstance, some comment may fitly be made upon it. I allude to the speech which the Prince delivered at a dinner at the Trinity House on the 9th of June, 1855. It is an admirable speech, and in it the Prince spoke out more of his whole mind than perhaps in any other. Let us recall the circumstances. We had met with much disaster in the Crimea. The sickness and death of her soldiers had touched most deeply the heart of the Queen; and the Prince, who was a patriot if ever man was, felt for his country the tenderest anxiety. Now, let us look at the speech. In every line of it may be seen the Prince’s intense anxiety to gain support for the Government, and unity of resolve amongst the people.
Why does he dwell upon the power of despotism? Not that he delights to praise despotism, but that he wishes us to see that we have an antagonist whose power we must not venture to underrate. Why does he speak of “constitutional government being under a heavy trial”? Not that, for a moment, he seeks to decry constitutional government; but because he loves it, is devoted to it, partakes that trial which |Despotism strong in war.| he points out, and seeks only so to consolidate free government that it may maintain its pre-eminence. How well-chosen are the words he used on the occasion referred to, when he says, “We are engaged with a mighty adversary, who uses against us all those wonderful powers which have sprung up under the generating influence of our liberty and our civilization, and employs them with all the force which unity of purpose and action, impenetrable secresy, and uncontrolled despotic power give him.”
Is it any new thing to say that despotism is naturally strong in the field, and in the movements of great armies? From the days of Philip of Macedon, down, through those of Louis the Fourteenth, to the Empire of the First Napoleon, has it not been the object of great men in free countries so to consolidate free governments as to give them that force and unity which should enable them to meet the despot in the field upon something like equal terms—equal terms, not as regards men (for freemen always fight well), but as regards organization, which has so much to do with superiority in military affairs?
|Danger from want of organi-zation.| It seems a needless labour to make any defence of this speech, and a labour somewhat open to the censure conveyed in the proverb that excuse is but a form of accusation; but really the justification in this case is so complete, that it does not come within the meaning of the word “excuse.” Every lover of this free country must perceive that its only danger of being worsted in some great contest is a momentary inferiority as regards organization; and we should feel much gratitude to any one who, in an exalted position, has the loving boldness to point out what are our dangers. The Prince asked for confidence in the Government. England gave that confidence, and the cause was won.