With respect to Verona, then, what remains of accusation against the Government? It has been charged, not so much that the object of the Government was amiss, as that the negotiations were conducted in too low a tone. But the case was obviously one in which a high tone might have frustrated the object. I beg, then, of the House, before they proceed to adopt an Address which exhibits more of the ingenuity of philologists than of the policy of statesmen—before they found a censure of the Government for its conduct in negotiations of transcendent practical importance, upon refinements of grammatical nicety—I beg that they will at least except from the proposed censure, the transactions at Verona, where I think I have shown that a tone of reproach and invective was unnecessary, and, therefore, would have been misplaced.
Among those who have made unjust and unreasonable objections to the tone of our representations at Verona, I should be grieved to include the honourable member for Bramber (Mr. Wilberforce), with whose mode of thinking I am too well acquainted not to be aware that his observations are founded on other and higher motives than those of political controversy. My honourable friend, through a long and amiable life, has mixed in the business of the world without being stained by its contaminations: and he, in consequence, is apt to place—I will not say too high, but higher, I am afraid, than the ways of the world will admit, the standard of political morality. I fear my honourable friend is not aware how difficult it is to apply to politics those pure, abstract principles which are indispensable to the excellence of private ethics. Had we employed in the negotiations that serious moral strain which he might have been more inclined to approve, many of the gentlemen opposed to me would, I doubt not, have complained, that we had taken a leaf from the book of the Holy Alliance itself; that we had framed in their own language a canting protest against their purposes, not in the spirit of sincere dissent, but the better to cover our connivance. My honourable friend, I admit, would not have been of the number of those who would so have accused us: but he may be assured that he would have been wholly disappointed in the practical result of our didactic reprehensions. In truth, the principle of non-interference is one on which we were already irrecoverably at variance in opinion with the allies; it was no longer debatable ground. On the one hand, the alliance upholds the doctrine of an European police; this country, on the other hand, as appears from the memorandum already quoted, protests against that doctrine. The question is, in fact, settled, as many questions are, by each party retaining its own opinions; and the points reserved for debate are points only of practical application. To such a point it was that we directed our efforts at Verona.
There are those, however, who think that with a view of conciliating the Continental Powers, and of winning them away the more readily from their purposes, we should have addressed them as tyrants and despots—tramplers on the rights and liberties of mankind. This experiment would, to say the least of it, be a very singular one in diplomacy. It may be possible, though I think not very probable, that the allies would have borne such an address with patience; that they would have retorted only with the 'whispering humbleness' of Shylock in the play, and said,—
Fair Sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You called me—dog; and, for these courtesies,
'we are ready to comply with whatever you desire.' This, I say, may be possible. But I confess I would rather make such an experiment, when the issue of it was matter of more indifference. Till then, I shall be loath to employ towards our allies a language, to which if they yielded, we should ourselves despise them. I doubt whether it is wise, even in this House, to indulge in such a strain of rhetoric; to call 'wretches' and 'barbarians', and a hundred other hard names, Powers with whom, after all, if the map of Europe cannot be altogether cancelled, we must, even according to the admission of the most anti-continental politicians, maintain some international intercourse. I doubt whether these sallies of raillery—these flowers of Billingsgate—are calculated to soothe, any more than to adorn; whether, on some occasion or other, we may not find that those on whom they are lavished have not been utterly unsusceptible of feelings of irritation and resentment:
Medio de fonte leporum
Surget amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.
But be the language of good sense or good taste in this House what it may, clear I am that, in diplomatic correspondence, no Minister would be justified in risking the friendship of foreign countries, and the peace of his own, by coarse reproach and galling invective; and that even while we are pleading for the independence of nations, it is expedient to respect the independence of those with whom we plead. We differ widely from our Continental allies on one great principle, it is true: nor do we, nor ought we to disguise that difference; nor to omit any occasion of practically upholding our own opinion. But every consideration, whether of policy or of justice, combines with the recollection of the counsels which we have shared, and of the deeds which we have achieved in concert and companionship, to induce us to argue our differences of opinion, however freely, with temper; and to enforce them, however firmly, without insult.
Before I quit Verona, there are other detached objections which have been urged against our connexion with the Congress, of which it may be proper to take notice. It has been asked why we sent a Plenipotentiary to the Congress at all. It may, perhaps, be right here to observe, that it was not originally intended to send the British Plenipotentiary to Verona. The Congress at Verona was originally convened solely for the consideration of the affairs of Italy, with which, the House is aware, England had declined to interfere two years before. England was, therefore, not to participate in those proceedings; and all that required her participation was to be arranged in a previous Congress at Vienna. But circumstances had delayed the Duke of Wellington's departure from England, so that he did not reach Vienna till many weeks after the time appointed. The Sovereigns had waited to the last hour consistent with their Italian arrangements. The option was given to our Plenipotentiary to meet them on their return to Vienna; but it was thought, upon the whole, more convenient to avoid further delay; and the Duke of Wellington therefore proceeded to Verona.
Foremost among the objects intended to be discussed at Vienna was the impending danger of hostilities between Russia and the Porte. I have no hesitation in saying that, when I accepted the seals of office, that was the object to which the anxiety of the British Government was principally directed. The negotiations at Constantinople had been carried on through the British Ambassador. So completely had this business been placed in the hands of Lord Strangford, that it was thought necessary to summon him to Vienna. Undoubtedly it might be presumed, from facts which were of public notoriety, that the affairs of Spain could not altogether escape the notice of the assembled Sovereigns and Ministers; but the bulk of the instructions which had been prepared for the Duke of Wellington related to the disputes between Russia and the Porte: and how little the British Government expected that so prominent a station would be assigned to the affairs of Spain, may be inferred from the Duke of Wellington's finding it necessary to write from Paris for specific instructions on that subject.
But it is said that Spain ought to have been invited to send a
Plenipotentiary to the Congress.