Chapter 10

Sir, it is as true in politics as in mechanics, that the test of skill and of success is to achieve the greatest purpose with the least power. If, then, it be found that, by this little intimation, we gained the object that we sought for, where was the necessity for greater flourish or greater pomp of words? An idle waste of effort would only have risked the loss of the object which by temperance we gained!

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.

I contend, Sir, that whatever might grow out of a separate conflict between Spain and France (though matter for grave consideration) was less to be dreaded, than that all the Great Powers of the Continent should have been arrayed together against Spain; and that although the first object, in point of importance, indeed, was to keep the peace altogether--to prevent _any_ war against Spain--the first, in point of time, was to prevent a _general_ war; to change the question from a question between the allies on one side and Spain on the other, to a question between nation and nation. This, whatever the result might be, would reduce the quarrel to the size of ordinary events, and bring it within the scope of ordinary diplomacy. The immediate object of England, therefore, was to hinder the impress of a joint character from being affixed to the war--if war there must be--with Spain; to take care that the war should not grow out of an assumed jurisdiction of the Congress; to keep within reasonable bounds that predominating _areopagitical_ spirit, which the memorandum of the British Cabinet of May, 1820, describes as 'beyond the sphere of the original conception, and understood principles of the alliance',--'an alliance never intended as a union for the government of the world, or for the superintendence of the internal affairs of other States.' And this, I say, was accomplished.

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.

So far as Great Britain is concerned, I answer--in the first place, as we did not wish the affairs of Spain to be brought into discussion at all, we could not take or suggest a preliminary step which would have seemed to recognize the necessity of such a discussion. In the next place, if Spain had been invited, the answer to that invitation might have produced a contrary effect to that which we aimed at producing. Spain must either have sent a Plenipotentiary, or have refused to do so. The refusal would not have failed to be taken by the allies as a proof of the _duresse_ of the King of Spain. The sending one, if sent (as he must have been) jointly by the King of Spain and the Cortes, would at once have raised the whole question of the _legitimacy_ of the existing Government of Spain, and would, almost to a certainty, have led to a joint declaration from the alliance, such as it was our special object to avoid.

But was there anything in the general conduct of Great Britain at Verona, which lowered, as has been asserted, the character of England? Nothing like it. Our Ambassador at Constantinople returned from Verona to his post, with full powers from Russia to treat on her behalf with the Turkish Government; from which Government, on the other hand, he enjoys as full confidence as perhaps any Power ever gave to one of its own Ambassadors. Such is the manifest decay of our authority, so fallen in the eyes of all mankind is the character of this country, that two of the greatest States of the world are content to arrange their differences through a British Minister, from reliance on British influence, and from confidence in British equity and British wisdom!

Such then was the issue of the Congress, as to the question between Russia and the Porte; the question (I beg it to be remembered) upon which we expected to be principally if not entirely engaged at that Congress, if it had been held (as was intended when the Duke of Wellington left London) at Vienna.

As to Italy, I have already said, it was distinctly understood that we had resolved to take no share in the discussions. But it is almost needless to add that the evacuation of Naples and of Piedmont was a measure with respect to which, though the Plenipotentiary of Great Britain was not entitled to give or to withhold the concurrence of his Government, he could not but signify its cordial approbation.

The result of the Congress as to Spain was simply the discontinuance of diplomatic intercourse with that Power, on the part of Austria, Russia, and Prussia; a step neither necessarily nor probably leading to war; perhaps (in some views) rather diminishing the risk of it; a step which had been taken by the same monarchies towards Portugal two years before, without leading to any ulterior consequences. The concluding expression of the Duke of Wellington's last note at Verona, in which he states that all that Great Britain could do was to 'endeavour to allay irritation at Madrid', describes all that in effect was necessary to be done there, after the Ministers of the allied Powers should be withdrawn: and the House have seen in Sir W. A'Court's dispatches how scrupulously the Duke of Wellington's promise was fulfilled by the representations of our Minister at Madrid. They have seen, too, how insignificant the result of the Congress of Verona was considered at Madrid, in comparison with what had been apprehended.

The result of the Congress as to France was a promise of countenance and support from the allies in three specified hypothetical cases:--(1) of an attack made by Spain on France; (2) of any outrage on the person of the King or Royal Family of Spain; (3) of any attempt to change the dynasty of that kingdom. Any unforeseen case, if any such should arise, was to be the subject of new deliberation, either between Court and Court, or in the conferences of their Ministers at Paris.

It is unnecessary now to argue, whether the cases specified are cases which would justify interference. It is sufficient for the present argument, that no one of these cases has occurred. France is therefore not at war on a case foreseen and provided for at Verona: and so far as I know, there has not occurred, since the Congress of Verona any new case to which the assistance of the allies can be considered as pledged; or which has, in fact, been made the subject of deliberation among the Ministers of the several Courts who were members of the Congress.

We quitted Verona, therefore, with the satisfaction of having prevented any _corporate_ act of force or menace, on the part of _the alliance_, against Spain; with the knowledge of the three cases on which alone France would be entitled to claim the support of her Continental allies, in a conflict with Spain; and with the certainty that in any other case we should have to deal with France alone, in any interposition which we might offer for averting, or for terminating, hostilities.

From Verona we now come, with our Plenipotentiary, to Paris.

I have admitted on a former occasion, and I am perfectly prepared to repeat the admission, that, after the dissolution of the Congress of Verona, we might, if we had so pleased, have withdrawn ourselves altogether from any communication with France upon the subject of her Spanish quarrel; that, having succeeded in preventing a joint operation against Spain, we might have rested satisfied with that success, and trusted, for the rest, to the reflections of France herself on the hazards of the project in her contemplation. Nay, I will own that we did hesitate, whether we should not adopt this more selfish and cautious policy. But there were circumstances attending the return of the Duke of Wellington to Paris, which directed our decision another way. In the first place, we found, on the Duke of Wellington's arrival in that capital, that M. de Vilèlle had sent back to Verona the drafts of the dispatches of the three Continental allies to their Ministers at Madrid, which M. de Montmorency had brought with him from the Congress;--had sent them back for reconsideration; --whether with a view to obtain a change in their context, or to prevent their being forwarded to their destination at all, did not appear: but, be that as it might, the reference itself was a proof of vacillation, if not of change, in the French counsels.

In the second place, it was notorious that a change was likely to take place in the Cabinet of the Tuileries, which did in fact take place shortly afterwards, by the retirement of M. de Montmorency: and M. de Montmorency was as notoriously the adviser of war against Spain.

In the third place, it was precisely at the time of the Duke of Wellington's return to Paris, that we received a direct and pressing overture from the Spanish Government, which placed us in the alternative of either affording our good offices to Spain, or of refusing them.

This last consideration would perhaps alone have been decisive; but when it was coupled with the others which I have stated, and with the hopes of doing good which they inspired, I think it will be conceded to me that we should have incurred a fearful responsibility, if we had not consented to make the effort, which we did make, to effect an adjustment between France and Spain, through our mediation.

Add to this, that the question which we had now to discuss with France was a totally new question. It was no longer a question as to that general right of interference, which we had disclaimed and denied--disclaimed for ourselves, and denied for others,--in the conferences at Verona. France knew that upon that question our opinion was formed, and was unalterable. Our mediation therefore, if accepted by France, set out with the plain and admitted implication, that the discussion must turn, not on the general principle, but upon a case of exception to be made out by France, showing, to our satisfaction, wherein Spain had offended and aggrieved her.

It has been observed, as if it were an inconsistency, that at Verona a discouraging answer had been given, by our Plenipotentiary to a hint that it might, perhaps, be advisable for us to offer our mediation with Spain; but that no sooner had the Duke of Wellington arrived at Paris, than he was instructed to offer that mediation. Undoubtedly this is true: and the difference is one which flows out of, and verifies, the entire course of our policy at Verona. We declined mediating between Spain and an alliance assuming to itself that character of general superintendence of the concerns of nations. But a negotiation between kingdom and kingdom, in the old, intelligible, accustomed, European form, was precisely the issue to which we were desirous of bringing the dispute between France and Spain. We eagerly grasped at this chance of preserving peace; and the more eagerly because, as I have before said, we received, at that precise moment, the application from Spain for our good offices.

But France refused our offered mediation: and it has been represented by some gentlemen, that the refusal of our mediation by France was an affront which we ought to have resented. Sir, speaking not of this particular instance only, but generally of the policy of nations, I contend, without fear of contradiction, that the refusal of a mediation is no affront; and that, after the refusal of mediation, to accept or to tender good offices is no humiliation. I beg leave to cite an authority on such points, which, I think, will not be disputed. Martens, in the dissertation which is prefixed to his collection of treaties, distinguishing between mediation and good offices, lays it down expressly, that a nation may accept the good offices of another after rejecting her mediation. The following is the passage to which I refer:

'Amicable negotiations may take place, either between the Powers themselves between whom a dispute has arisen, or jointly with a third Power. The part to be taken by the latter, for the purpose of ending the dispute, differs essentially according to one or other of two cases; whether the Power, in the first place, merely interposes its good offices to bring about an agreement; or, secondly, is chosen by the two parties, to act as a mediator between them.' And he adds: 'mediation differs essentially from good offices; a State may accept the latter, at the same time that it rejects mediation.'