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THE 
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 1570 : 1870. 
 
 AN HISTOBICAL ESSAY. 
 
 \ / IS \ 
 
 EAEL RUSSELL, 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 
 WILLIAM EIDGWAY. 
 1871. 
 
THE 
 
 FOKEIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 i. 
 
 There are two prevalent notions respecting the 
 foreign policy of England. The one is widely dif- 
 fused in England, the other is generally believed 
 in upon the continent of Europe. The one supposes 
 that England has been forward to interfere in all 
 foreign quarrels, and has spent much blood and trea- 
 sure in order to maintain or restore an imaginary 
 balance of power. The other is, that, so far from 
 being chivalrous in support of afflicted neighbours, 
 she is entirely selfish in her policy ; very unwilling 
 to risk her mercantile interests ; un warlike in her 
 general character, and — in spite of Cressy, Poic- 
 tiers, Agincourt, Blenheim, Malplaquet, Oudenarde, 
 Yimiera, Salamanca, Vittoria, Waterloo — very un- 
 equal to the great continental Powers in the fight- 
 ing capacity of her soldiers, and in efficiency of 
 military organisation. 
 
 Neither of these notions is accurate, although each 
 may have some foundation in parts of our history ; 
 
 B 
 
2 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 and each has been supported by some misquoted 
 facts, and some malignant assertions. 
 
 The general course of our policy has varied both 
 according to the changing aspect of the world with 
 which we have had to deal, and the high or low 
 capacity of the statesmen to whom the rudder of the 
 State has been confided. Indeed, not only has our 
 direction been often altered, according to the com- 
 plexion of affairs, but the very name of a policy 
 pursued or proposed has varied with the views of 
 the parties who put it forth as the certain guide of 
 our conduct towards foreign nations. Thus the 
 maxim of Yattel, that every State ought to be at 
 liberty to govern its own internal affairs according 
 to its own principles and its own will, has been 
 wholly perverted from its original meaning by the 
 application of the term intervention, not merely to 
 interference in the domestic disorders and disputes 
 of a foreign State, but to interference to prevent 
 one foreign State from crushing by arms any other 
 State. Prince Talleyrand, seeing the wide extent 
 of these exceptions, when he was asked what was 
 the meaning of the term non-intervention, replied 
 with truth as well as wit, c Non-intervention is a 
 philosophical, metaphysical, political term, which 
 signifies pretty much the same thing as interven- 
 tion.' 
 
 To return to our definition of English policy. 
 England, while not pretending to any territorial pos- 
 sessions on the continent of Europe, has been exceed- 
 ingly jealous of her right to frame her own laws and 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 3 
 
 maintain her own liberties. She has repelled the 
 attempts of Philip of Spain to invade her soil ; the 
 presumption of Lewis XIV. in assuming a right to 
 dictate who shall be her sovereign ; and the arro- 
 gant attempts of Napoleon Bonaparte to fetter her 
 press, and to exclude her from continental alliances 
 and continental commerce. In order to vindicate 
 her own independent position she has found it 
 expedient to connect herself by treaty with other 
 Powers, and to exert her force to resist the prepon- 
 derating power of Spain at one time and of France 
 at another. Thus 5 although her kings may at one 
 period have been base and treacherous, and her 
 statesmen at other periods singularly wanting in 
 foresight and in firmness, the general course of the 
 British Parliament and people has been prompted by 
 a strong and patriotic desire to maintain the honour 
 and the freedom of our country. Engaged in wars 
 carried on for these objects, we have often been allied 
 with weaker Powers, and by our aid, neither wholly 
 interested nor wholly generous, we have enabled 
 Holland, Portugal, Prussia, and Spain to vindicate 
 their independent position among the nations of 
 the world. 
 
 The reign of Queen Elizabeth has been lately so 
 well illustrated by an author of historical genius that 
 it is unnecessary for me to dwell upon it. The cha- 
 racter of that extraordinary princess, with all its 
 weaknesses, all its irresolution, all its bias in favour 
 of regal and priestly authority, was on the whole 
 favourable to the Protestant religion, to native inde- 
 
 B 2 
 
4 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 pendence, and to the supremacy of the Crown against 
 all pretenders, foreign and domestic, spiritual and 
 lay. The picture of England in 1570 is thus drawn 
 by Mr. Froude : — 
 
 The social convulsions which accompanied the earlier stages 
 of the Keformation had settled down. The state papers are 
 no longer crowded with complaints of the oppression of the 
 poor. The people could again be trusted with arms without 
 fear that they would use them against the landowners. . . . 
 The Flemings, who had crowded across the channel in tens of 
 thousands, brought with them their arts and industries . . . 
 but the English merchants and sailors were tempted from 
 legitimate trade by the more profitable occupation of pri- 
 vateering, and in the 14th year of Elizabeth, the burden of 
 all the vessels of the kingdom engaged in ordinary commerce 
 scarcely exceeded 50,000 tons.* 
 
 The reign of James I. and that of Charles I. re- 
 quire little notice on the subject of foreign policy. 
 Those two sovereigns were far too much enamoured 
 of the theory of the divine right of kings to see with 
 any satisfaction the growth of the Dutch Eepublic at 
 the expense of the absolute power of the Spanish 
 monarchs. But the irrepressible vigour of the Dutch 
 patriots, and the military talents of the princes of 
 the House of Orange, established firmly the political 
 independence of Holland. f 
 
 * Froude, Vol. X., p. 107. 
 
 t Some events of this time resemble what has occurred in our own 
 day. When Henry the Third beheld Paris from the heights of St. 
 Cloud, he is said to have addressed his capital in these terms: — 
 * Paris, chef du royaume, mais chef trop gros et trop capricieux, tu as 
 besoin d'une saignee pour te guerir, ainsi que toute la France, de la 
 frenesie que tu lui communiques ! Encore quelques jours, et on ne 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 5 
 
 After the execution of Charles I., France and Spain 
 contended eagerly for the favour of Cromwell.* Far 
 from showing any abhorrence to a regicide peace 
 the French and Spanish Ministers perceived very 
 clearly the advantage their sovereigns might gain 
 by having England on their side. Cromwell, who 
 entertained a large and even excessive ambition to 
 extend English influence on the Continent, and to 
 form alliances for the purpose of promoting the 
 Protestant interest, obtained from the French Court 
 the cession of Dunkirk, and added to the territories 
 of the Commonwealth the rich island of Jamaica. 
 Nor did he neglect the persecuted Protestants of the 
 Vaudois. Seeing that his ships could not reach 
 Savoy, and that he had no army to send there, he 
 directed John Milton, his Foreign Secretary, to 
 request, in a Latin letter addressed to Cardinal 
 Mazarin, the exercise of French influence in favour 
 of the ill-used Protestants of the Vaud Mountains. 
 He did not fail in obtaining this intervention, and, 
 however some purists of the peace party may be 
 shocked at the notion of secret diplomacy and pri- 
 vate letters, it is pleasant to reflect that down to 
 the latest times British Ministers were authorised 
 to succour by moderate supplies, and to counte- 
 nance, by their presence, the worship of these 
 simple mountaineers. Down to the time when the 
 
 verra ni tes maisons, ni tes murailles, mais seulement le lieu ou tu 
 auras ete.' How different were the spirit of the Ligue and the spirit 
 of the Commune, but how much alike in their effects ! 
 * See Whitelocke's Embassy to Sweden. 
 
6 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 government of Piedmont became the government of 
 Italy, and the religious freedom of the Waldenses 
 was extended to all Italians, British protection of 
 the Waldenses was maintained. 
 
 When Cromwell, courted on both sides, decided 
 in favour of France, the Spanish Government were 
 obliged to content themselves with buying the 
 pictures, and giving refuge to the family, of 
 Charles I. 
 
 With Charles II. we enter upon the field of 
 modern politics. 
 
 Charles II. was lax in his morals, easy in his 
 temper, and devoid of all principle, religious or 
 moral. Yet he had some fits of patriotism, and 
 some throbs of activity. When told that Gourville, 
 a Frenchman, had said that a king of England who 
 should be the man of his people would be extremely 
 powerful, he laid his hand upon his heart, and said, 
 4 And I will be the man of my people.' It was in a 
 transient warmth of this kind that, neglecting for a 
 while to feed the ducks in Rosamond's pond, he per- 
 mitted Sir William Temple, the first man who gave 
 fame to the name of Temple, to frame the Triple 
 League, of England, Holland, and Sweden, as a bar- 
 rier against France. The account given by David 
 Hume of this transaction is so interesting, that I 
 make no apology for copying it : — 
 
 Charles resolved with great prudence to take the first step 
 towards a confederacy. Sir William Temple, his resident 
 at Brussels, received orders to go secretly to the Hague, 
 and to concert with the States the means of saving the 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 7 
 
 Netherlands. This man, whom philosophy had taught to 
 despise the world without rendering him unfit for it, was 
 frank, open, sincere, superior to the little tricks of vulgar 
 politicians ; and meeting in De Witt with a man of the same 
 generous and enlarged sentiments, he immediately opened 
 his master's intentions, and pressed a speedy conclusion. A 
 treaty was from the first negotiated between these two 
 statesmen with the same cordiality as if it were a private 
 transaction between intimate companions. Deeming the 
 interests of their country the same, they gave full scope to 
 that sympathy of character which disposed them to an en- 
 tire reliance on each other's professions and engagements. 
 And though jealousy against the House of Orange might 
 inspire De Witt with an aversion to a strict union with 
 England, he generously resolved to sacrifice all private 
 considerations to the public service. 
 
 Temple insisted on an offensive league between England 
 and Holland, in order to oblige France to relinquish all her 
 conquests ; but De Witt told him that this measure was too 
 bold and precipitate to be agreed to by the States. He 
 said that the French were the old and constant allies of the 
 Republic ; and till matters came to extremities, she never 
 would deem it prudent to abandon a friendship so well esta- 
 blished, and rely entirely on a treaty with England, which 
 had lately waged so cruel a war against her ; that ever since 
 the reiom of Elizabeth there had been such a fluctuation in 
 the English councils, that it was not possible for two years 
 together to take any sure and certain measures with that 
 kingdom ; that though the present ministry, having entered 
 into views so conformable to national interests, promised 
 greater firmness and constancy, it might still be unsafe, in 
 a business of such consequence, to put entire confidence in 
 them ; that the French monarch was young, haughty and 
 powerful; and if treated in so imperious a manner, would 
 expose himself to the greatest extremities rather than sub- 
 mit ; that it was sufficient if he could be constrained to 
 adhere to the offers which he himself had already made ; 
 
8 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 and if the remaining provinces of the Low Countries could 
 be thereby saved from the danger with which they were at 
 present threatened ; and that the other Powers, in Germany 
 and the north, whose assistance they might expect, would 
 be satisfied with putting a stop to the French conquests, 
 without pretending to recover the places already lost. 
 
 The English minister was content to accept of the terms 
 proposed by the pensionary. Lewis had offered to relin- 
 quish all the Queen's* rights, on condition either of keeping 
 the conquests which he had made last campaign, or of re- 
 ceiving in lieu of them Franche-comte, together with Cam- 
 bray Aire and St. Omers. De Witt and Temple founded 
 their treaty upon this proposal. They agreed to offer their 
 mediation to the contending powers, and oblige France to 
 adhere to this alternative and Spain to accept of it. If 
 Spain refused, they agreed that France should not prosecute 
 her claim by arms, but leave it entirely to England and 
 Holland to employ force for making the terms effectual. 
 And the remainder of the Low Countries they thenceforth 
 guaranteed to Spain. A defensive alliance was likewise 
 concluded between Holland and England. 
 
 The articles of this confederacy were soon adjusted by 
 such candid and able negotiators. But the greatest difficulty 
 still remained. By the constitution of the Republic, all the 
 towns in all the provinces must give their consent to every 
 alliance ; and besides that this formality could not be des- 
 patched in less than two months, it was justly to be dreaded 
 that the influence of France would obstruct the passing of 
 the treaty in some of the smaller cities. D'Estrades, the 
 French ambassador, a man of abilities, hearing of the league 
 which was on the carpet, treated it lightly ; ( Six weeks 
 hence,' said he, f we shall speak to it.' To obviate this 
 difficulty, De Witt had the courage, for the public good, to 
 break through the laws in so fundamental an article ; and 
 by his authority he prevailed with the States General at 
 
 * The Queen of Lewis XIV. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 9 
 
 once to sign and ratify the league; though they acknow- 
 ledged that if that measure should displease their constituents, 
 they risked their heads by this irregularity. After sealing, 
 all parties embraced with great cordiality. Temple cried 
 out, ' At Breda as friends ; here, as brothers ! ' And De 
 Witt added, that now the matter was finished it looked like 
 a miracle. 
 
 The fit of virtue did not last. Hume goes on to 
 say :— 
 
 But Lewis well knew Charles's character, and the usual 
 fluctuation of his councils. In order to fix him in the 
 French interests, he resolved to bind him by the ties of 
 pleasure, the only ones which with him were irresistible ; 
 and he made him a present of a French mistress, by whose 
 means he hoped for the future to govern him. The Duchess 
 of Orleans brought with her a young lady of the name of 
 Querouaille, whom the king carried to London, and soon 
 after created Duchess of Portsmouth. He was extremely 
 attached to her during the whole course of his life ; and she 
 proved a great means of supporting his connections with her 
 native country. * 
 
 Charles II.'s notion of religion seems to have 
 been that it was a means by which he might acquire 
 power and money. 
 
 Jefferson, the American President, says of some 
 town he arrives at in his travels, ' Fifteen religions 
 here, all very good.' Charles would have given 
 similar praise to fifty different religions provided 
 they contributed to his security and his profit. 
 Hume has truly said that, in compensation for a large 
 
 * Hume's Hist, of England, Vol. VII., p. 433. 
 
10 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 yearly bribe from the French king, he was ready to 
 change the pure religion, and undermine the free 
 constitution of England. But he was habitually 
 indolent, and provided he was not called upon to 
 profess openly the Roman Catholic faith, and make 
 any violent alteration in the established laws, or to 
 abandon the Duchess of Portsmouth, he was con- 
 tent to leave to a portion of his subjects the 
 enjoyment of their own worship, and even some 
 remnant of liberty. His brother, the Duke of York, 
 was of a different temper. He could not bear to 
 see the ' pestilent northern heresy,' as his secretary 
 Coleman called it, flourishing in these kingdoms. 
 Some satisfaction was given him in this respect. 
 In Scotland, the zealots who would not renounce 
 their belief in the Westminster Confession of Faith, 
 were shot on the moors, or exposed to the fury 
 of the sea till they were overwhelmed by the 
 waves, or tortured by bootikins, or hung in the 
 Grass -market, exulting in the sacrifice of their 
 lives in what they believed to be the cause of 
 truth. But although the cruel and implacable cha- 
 racter of James had free range in Scotland, his power 
 in England was much circumscribed. It is true that 
 Richard Baxter, a virtuous and pious teacher of 
 Christianity, was imprisoned by the Government, and 
 insulted from the Bench of Justice under cover of 
 the Five Mile Act and other persecuting laws ; it is 
 true that John Bunyan, a man of real genius, who 
 exerted with powerful effect the influence of pious 
 eloquence, was hunted from prison to prison by the 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 1 1 
 
 servile judges of the court ; but these enjoyments of 
 intolerance gave but a scanty satisfaction to the 
 sanguinary spirit of James. There were two men 
 ardent in their love of liberty — one of them firmly 
 attached to constitutional monarchy; the other full 
 of zeal for that c good old cause ' for which John 
 Hampden had bled in the field. 
 
 These two men were William Kussell and Algernon 
 Sidney. It seemed to the Duke of York that the 
 cause of despotism could not be firmly established, 
 unless the lives of those two men were taken. 
 William Russell was the beloved leader of the 
 country party, as it was called, in the House of 
 Commons. He had there moved and carried the 
 Exclusion Bill. He afterwards took it up, amidst 
 great cheering, to the bar of the House of Lords. Had 
 the Bill been carried in that House, the danger to be 
 feared from a successor to the crown devoted to the 
 Church of Rome, and a slave of the Monarch of 
 France, would have been avoided ; the painful and 
 uncertain struggle which ended in the expulsion of 
 James II. would have been unnecessary. The fore- 
 sight of the Exclusionists was fully justified ; their 
 efforts were unfortunately defeated by the wit and 
 ingenuity of Halifax, the disgust created by the mon- 
 strous inventions of the Popish plot, and the popular 
 attachment to the principle of hereditary succession. 
 
 After this event, it was agreed by the leaders of 
 the popular party that they should meet from time to 
 time to concert measures, but that in no case would 
 they recur to force with a view to alter the Govern- 
 
12 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 ment.* But with a man of the simple mind of 
 William Russell, no precaution was sufficient. The 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, who 
 
 For a calm unfit, 
 Would steer too nigh the sands to show his wit, 
 
 collected partisans for a revolt, while the Southampton 
 House party sought to avoid the danger. It so hap- 
 pened, however, that Lord Russell was invited to 
 meet some friends and acquaintance to taste wine at 
 a wine merchant's of the name of Shepherd. Some 
 of his friends begged him not to go, and warned 
 him of the danger he might incur from the malignity 
 of his enemies. But, he thinking there was no danger, 
 and being determined not to engage in any plot, as 
 4 a change of Government could not be made now, as 
 
 * This view of the projects of the leaders of the popular party is con- 
 firmed by the despatches of Barillon. Writing from London on the 
 21st of April, 1681, he says : — 'L'attention de tous les partis est grande 
 pour ne rien faire qui soit directement contre les lois.' On the 29th of 
 June, 1682, he says: — ' Ce que je puis dire dans des affaires si brouil- 
 lees et si difficiles a demeler, c'est qu'il ne me paroit point de dispo- 
 sition presente a l'accomodement entre la cour et les mecontents. Les 
 memes obstacles qui l'ont empeschee subsistent toujours. La tenta- 
 tive qui a ete faite pour l'accomodement particulier de M. le due de 
 Monmouth a fait que les chefs des cabales entre lesquels il estoit, et 
 M. de Montaigu aussi, se sent trouves a un disne chez M. le comte 
 de Bedfort, et se sont donnes des assurances reciproques de ne se 
 point accomoder separement.' On the 13th of July, 1682, speaking 
 of the attempts to have a sheriff of London Darned by the Lord Mayor, 
 he says : — ' Tout cela forme de l'agitation et de la chaleur dans les 
 esprits, mais de chaque coste on sait eviter les voyes de fait. II semble 
 pourtant que le party de la cour ne les craigne pas tant que celui des 
 mecontents, lesquels s'imaginent pouvoir avec le temps reduire la cour 
 a se soumettre.' — MS. copied from the Archives of Paris. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 13 
 
 formerly, by a few great men,' did not take care to 
 avoid the meeting. Lady Russell testified afterwards 
 to his innocence, but she admitted that he may have 
 heard treasonable talk. This was sufficient for 
 Charles and James. Lord Russell, at the same time, 
 expected that legally or illegally his life would be 
 taken. 
 
 Algernon Sidney had fallen into the Court trap in 
 another manner. He had written a ' Discourse on 
 Government,' full of sentiments and arguments in 
 favour of liberty. Although the book was kept in his 
 study and was not published, materials were found in 
 it for finding him guilty of treason, and his fearless 
 behaviour at the trial availed him as little as the law 
 of treason to prove his innocence. 
 
 These judicial murders were completed, and it was 
 not till after the Revolution that the sentence of 
 Russell was reversed, as procured 4 by undue and. 
 illegal return of jurors,' and that he was declared 
 to have been 4 by partial and unjust constructions 
 of law, wrongfully convicted, attainted and exe- 
 cuted for high treason.' * It was therefore enacted 
 'that the said conviction, judgment and attainder 
 be and are hereby reversed, made and declared null 
 and void to all intents, constructions, and purposes 
 whatever.' 
 
 The fairest account we have of the trials of Russell 
 and Sidney is to be found in Hallam's ' History of 
 England ; ' if somewhat marked by the precision of 
 a lawyer, it is deeply imbued with the spirit of a 
 
 * State Trials. 
 
14 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 lover of liberty. I therefore transcribe his account 
 of the plot and its failure : — 
 
 The people of this country are, by our laws and constitu- 
 tution, bound only to obey a Parliament duly chosen, and 
 this violation of charters, in the reigns of Charles and James, 
 appears to be the great and leading justification of that event 
 which drove the latter from the throne. It can, therefore, 
 be no matter of censure, in a moral sense, that some men of 
 pure and patriotic virtue, mingled, it must be owned, with 
 others of a far inferior temper to hold consultations as to the 
 best means of resisting a Government which, whether, to 
 judge from these proceedings, or from the language of its 
 partisans, was aiming without disguise at arbitrary power. 
 But as resistance to established authority can never be war- 
 rantable until it is expedient, we could by no means approve 
 any schemes of insurrection that might be projected in 1682 
 unless we could perceive that there was a fair chance of their 
 success. And this we are not led by what we read of the 
 spirit of those times to believe. The tide ran violently in 
 another direction ; the courage of the Whigs was broken ; 
 their adversaries were strong in numbers and in zeal. But 
 hence it is reasonable to infer that men like Lord Essex and 
 Lord Bussell, with so much to lose by failure, with such 
 good sense, and such abhorrence of civil calamity, would not 
 ultimately have resolved on the desperate issue of arms, 
 though they might deem it prudent to form estimates of their 
 strength, and to knit together a confederacy which absolute 
 necessity might call into action. It is beyond doubt that 
 the supposed conspirators had debated among themselves the 
 subject of an insurrection, and poised the chances of civil 
 war. Thus much the most jealous lawyer, I presume, will 
 allow, might be done, without risking the penalties of treason. 
 They had, however, gone farther ; and, by concerting mea- 
 sures in different places as well as in Scotland, for a rising, 
 though contingently, and without any fixed determination to 
 carry it into effect, most probably (if the whole business had 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 15 
 
 been disclosed in testimony) laid themselves open to the law, 
 according to the construction it has frequently received. 
 There is a considerable difficulty after all that has been 
 written, in stating the extent of their designs ; but I think 
 we may assume, that a wide-spreading and formidable insur- 
 rection was for several months in agitation. But the diffi- 
 culties and hazards of the enterprise had already caused Lord 
 Russell and Lord Essex to recede from the desperate coun- 
 sels of Shaftesbury : and but for the unhappy detection of 
 the conspiracy and the perfidy of Lord Howard, these two 
 noble persons, whose lives were untimely lost to their coun- 
 try, might have survived to join the banner and support the 
 throne of William. It is needless to observe that the minor 
 plot, if we may use that epithet in reference to the relative 
 dignity of the conspirators, for assassinating the king and 
 the Duke of York, had no immediate connection with the 
 schemes of Russell, Essex, and Sidney. 
 
 But it is by no means a consequence, from the admission 
 we have made, that the evidence adduced on Lord Russell's 
 trial was sufficient to justify his conviction. It appears to 
 me that Lord Howard, and perhaps Rumsey, were unwilling 
 witnesses ; and that the former, as is frequently the case 
 with those who betray their friends in order to save their 
 own lives, divulged no more than was extracted by his own 
 danger. The testimony of neither witness, especially 
 Howard, was given with any degree of that precision which 
 is exacted in modern times ; and as we now read the trial, it 
 is not probable that a jury in latter ages would have found 
 a verdict of guilty, or would have been advised to it by the 
 Court. But on the other hand, if Lord Howard were really 
 able to prove more than he did, which I much suspect, a 
 better conducted examination would probably have elicited 
 facts unfavourable to the prisoner, which at present do not 
 appear. It may be doubtful whether any overt act of 
 treason is distinctly proved against Lord Russell, except 
 his concurrence in the project of a rising at Taunton, to 
 which Rumsey deposes. But this, depending on the oath 
 
1 6 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 of a single witness, could not be sufficient for a convic- 
 tion. 
 
 Pemberton, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, tried this 
 illustrious prisoner with more humanity than was usually 
 displayed on the Bench ; but aware of his precarious tenure 
 in office, he did not venture to check the counsel for the 
 Crown, Sawyer and Jeffreys, permitting them to give a great 
 body of hearsay evidence, with only the feeble and useless 
 remark that it did not affect the prisoner. Yet he checked 
 Lord Anglesea when he offered similar evidence for the 
 defence. In his direction to the jury, it deserves to be re- 
 marked, that he by no means advanced the general proposi- 
 tion which better men have held, that a conspiracy to levy 
 war is in itself an overt act of compassing the king's death ; 
 limiting it to cases when the king's person might be put in 
 danger ; as in the immediate instance, by the alleged scheme 
 of seizing his guards. His language indeed, as recorded in 
 the printed trial, was such as might have produced a verdict 
 of acquittal from a jury tolerably disposed towards the 
 prisoner ; but the sheriffs, North and Rich, who had been 
 illegally thrust into office, being men wholly devoted to the 
 prerogative, had taken care to return a panel in whom they 
 could confide. 
 
 The trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys, now 
 raised to the post of Chief Justice of the King's Bench, pre- 
 sided, is as familiar to all my readers as that of Lord 
 Russell. Their names have been always united in grateful 
 veneration and sympathy. It is notorious that Sidney's 
 conviction was obtained by a most illegal distortion of the 
 evidence. Besides Lord Howard, no living witness could 
 be produced to the conspiracy for an insurrection; and 
 though Jeffreys permitted two others to prepossess the jury 
 by a second-hand story, he was compelled to admit that their 
 testimony could not directly affect the prisoner. The 
 Attorney- General, therefore, had recourse to a paper found 
 in his house, which was given in evidence, either as an overt 
 act of treason by its own nature, or as connected with the 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 17 
 
 alleged conspiracy ; for though it was only in the latter 
 sense that it could be admissible at all, yet Jeffreys took 
 care to insinuate in his charge to the jury, that the doctrines 
 it contained were treasonable in themselves, and without 
 reference to other evidence. In regard to truth, and to that 
 justice which cannot be denied to the worst men in their 
 worst actions, I must observe that the common accusation 
 against the Court in this trial, of having admitted insufficient 
 proof, by the mere comparison of hand-writing, though 
 alleged, not only in most of our historians, but in the Act of 
 Parliament reversing Sidney's attainder, does not appear to 
 be well founded ; the testimony to that fact, unless the 
 printed trial is falsified in an extraordinary degree, being 
 such as would be received at present. We may allow also 
 that the passages from this paper, as laid in the indictment, 
 containing very strong assertions of the right of the people 
 to depose an unworthy king, might by possibility, if con- 
 nected by other evidence with the conspiracy itself, have been 
 admissible as presumptuous for the jury to consider whether 
 they had been written in furtherance of that design. But 
 when they came to be read on the trial with their context, 
 though only with such parts of that as the Attorney-General 
 chose to produce out of a voluminous manuscript, it was 
 clear that they belonged to a theoretical work on government, 
 long since perhaps written, and incapable of any bearing 
 upon the other evidence.' * 
 
 These extracts seem to give a just account of the 
 violent proceedings by which the Court obtained the 
 convictions of Russell and Sidney. It is admitted by 
 Hallam that the evidence produced on Lord Russell's 
 trial was insufficient to justify his conviction. It is 
 admitted that a fair jury might, and probably would, 
 have acquitted him. It is admitted that Sidney's 
 
 * Hallam's Const. Hist, of England, Vol. II., pp. 452 to 457. 
 
 C 
 
18 The Foreign Policy of England, 
 
 writings did not connect him with the conspiracy. 
 On the whole, then, it may be assumed that with the 
 juries of 1795 Russell and Sidney would have been 
 acquitted, and that with the packed juries of 1683 
 Hardy and Home Tooke would have been condemned 
 to death and executed. 
 
 Before the end of Charles's reign, the French King 
 being desirous of acquiring Luxemburg gave the 
 King of England a bribe of a million of livres for his 
 consent to the transfer. Charles probably divided the 
 money among his mistresses and ' mimic statesmen.' 
 
 I shall not attempt to gild the refined gold of 
 Macaulay's history of James II. Various attempts 
 have been made to depreciate that admirable work, 
 but the blots which have been hit, if not small, 
 are insufficient to condemn the work, while the 
 merits are all- prevailing. Macaulay may have mis- 
 taken the Penn of the maids of honour for the 
 Penn of Pennsylvania; he may have coloured some 
 of the circumstances which accompanied the mur- 
 der of some of the Scotch Presbyterian peasants 
 who appeared in arms for their religion; he may 
 have attributed to the Duke of York greater joy 
 in beholding the tortures of his victims than he 
 actually felt ; he may have praised the Prince of 
 Orange over-much ; and he certainly has not made 
 sufficient allowance for the vacillations of statesmen 
 who transferred their allegiance from James to 
 William, and from William to James, according to 
 the prevailing passions of the political parties to 
 which they were attached. Marlborough had but 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 1 9 
 
 little honesty, and yet his character was hardly so 
 black as it is painted by Macanlay. But we should 
 greatly mistake if we were to conclude that, because 
 the colours of Vandyke are brilliant, his portraits are 
 not, in general, correct likenesses of the statesmen 
 they represent, that Charles was not so winning a 
 cavalier, nor Strafford so stern a statesman, as the 
 great painter represents. Macaulay studies every 
 feature of his historical characters, from the top of 
 the head to the sole of the foot ; his narrative brings 
 before us a whole period, with every place marked, 
 and every action described ; but the greatest of his 
 merits, the climax of his perfections as an historian, 
 is his general fidelity to truth. 
 
 When James was in France he had nothing to do 
 but to follow the rites of his religion. Charles had 
 said that he believed his brother chose his mistresses by 
 the advice of his confessor by way of penance. When 
 his religious observances were transferred from St. 
 James's to St. Germain's they provoked the wit of 
 Fontenelle : — 
 
 Quand je veux rimer a Gruillaume, 
 Je trouve aisement un royaume, 
 
 Qu'il a su mettre sous ses lois ; 
 Mais quand je veux rimer a Jacques, 
 J'ai beau rever, mordre mes doigts, 
 
 Je trouve qu'il a fait ses Paques. 
 
 The judicial murders which James had promoted to 
 so great an extent in England and Scotland can have 
 given him but little pleasure on reflection, seeing that 
 liberty flourished in these realms in spite of all his 
 
 c 2 
 
20 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 efforts ; the failure of his plot to assassinate King 
 William on the banks of the Thames must have 
 caused him bitter mortification, and he must have 
 looked back with melancholy regret on his own 
 dastardly behaviour at the battle of the Boyne. 
 
 The success of the Revolution of 1688, and the 
 recognition of William and Mary as King and Queen 
 of England, confirmed the establishment of personal 
 and political liberty. The general operation of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, which James II. considered sub- 
 versive of the royal authority ;* in the exercise of 
 the rights of conscience, and the possession of reli- 
 gious freedom the English people obtained their 
 birthright. 
 
 It followed that the people of England from this 
 time enjoyed a Government of their own — a Govern- 
 ment which, as Talleyrand well remarked in his 
 ' Essay on the United States,' had in it something 
 republican, as the Government of the United States 
 had in it something monarchical. From this time the 
 main object of the foreign policy of England has 
 been to guard and defend the independence and 
 liberty of England. 
 
 The great arm by which security has been achieved 
 has been the British navy : the national song pro- 
 claims in rhyme, as well as in reason — 
 
 Britannia rule the waves, 
 
 Eor Britons never will be slaves. 
 
 The charm which has enabled her to ward off 
 
 * See Memoirs of James the Second. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 21 
 
 the dangerous assaults of the greatest Powers — the 
 efforts of Lewis XIV., of the French Republic, 
 and of Napoleon, to subject i r - f?reiem tyranny 
 — has been the alliance of the weaker continental 
 states, who, like ourselves, have sought to maintain 
 their independence against a preponderating military 
 power. 
 
 Some extracts from the history of Macaulay will 
 show how this charm worked in the reign of William 
 and Mary, and of William after the death of Mary. 
 I give myself the pleasure of making the following 
 extracts : — 
 
 There has scarcely ever been so sad a day in London 
 as that on which the news of the battle of Beachy Head 
 arrived. The shame was insupportable ; the peril was immi- 
 nent. What if the victorious enemy should do what De 
 Ruyter had done ? What if the dockyards of Chatham 
 should again be destroyed ? What if the Tower itself should 
 be bombarded ? What if the the vast w T ood of masts and 
 yard-arms below London Bridge should be in a blaze ? Nor 
 was this all. Evil tidings had just arrived from the Low 
 Countries. The allied forces under Waldeck had, in the 
 neighbourhood of Fleurus, encountered the French com- 
 manded by the Duke of Luxemburg. The day had been 
 long and fiercely disputed. At length the skill of the 
 French general and the impetuous valour of the French 
 cavalry had prevailed. Thus at the same moment the army 
 of Lewis was victorious in Flanders, and his navy was in 
 undisputed possession of the Channel. Marshal Humieres, 
 with a considerable force, lay not far from the Straits of 
 Dover. It had been given out that he was about to join 
 Luxemburg. But the information which the English 
 Government received from able military men in the Nether- 
 lands, and from spies who mixed with the Jacobites, and 
 
2 J The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 which, to so great a master of the art of war as Marlborough, 
 seemed to deserve serious attention, was that the army of 
 Humieres would instantly march to Dunkirk, and would 
 there be taken on board of the fleet of Tourville. Between 
 the coast of Artois and the Nore not a single ship bearing 
 the red cross of St. George would venture to show herself. 
 The embarkation would be the business of a few hours. A 
 few hours might suffice for the voyage. At any moment 
 London might be appalled by the news that thirty thousand 
 French veterans were in Kent, and that the Jacobites of 
 half the counties of the kingdom were in arms. All the 
 regular troops who could be assembled for the defence of the 
 island did not amount to more than ten thousand men. It 
 may be doubted whether our country has ever passed through 
 a more alarming crisis than that of the first week of July, 
 1690. 
 
 But the evil brought with it its own remedy. Those 
 little knew England who imagined that she could be in 
 danger at once of rebellion and invasion : for in truth the 
 danger of invasion was the best security against the danger 
 of rebellion. The cause of James was the cause of France ; 
 and though, to superficial observers, the French alliance 
 seemed to be his chief support, it really was the obstacle 
 which made his restoration impossible. In the patriotism, 
 the too often unamiable and unsocial patriotism, of our fore- 
 fathers, lay the secret at once of William's weakness and of 
 his strength. They were jealous of his love for Holland ; 
 but they cordially sympathised with his hatred of Lewis. 
 To their strong sentiment of nationality are to be as- 
 cribed almost all those petty annoyances which made the 
 throne of the deliverer, from his accession to his death, so 
 uneasy a seat. But to the same sentiment it is to be as- 
 cribed that his throne, constantly menaced and frequently 
 shaken, was never subverted ; for much as his people 
 detested his foreign favourites, they detested his foreign 
 adversaries still more. The Dutch were Protestants, the 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 23 
 
 French were Papists. The Dutch were regarded as self- 
 seeking, grasping, over-reaching allies ; the French were 
 mortal enemies. The worst that could be apprehended from 
 the Dutch was, that they might obtain too large a share of 
 the patrooage of the Crown, that they might throw on us too 
 large a part of the burdens of the war, that they might ob- 
 tain commercial advantages at our expense. But the French 
 would conquer us ; the French would enslave us ; the 
 French would inflict on us calamities such as those which 
 had turned the fair fields and cities of the Palatinate into a 
 desert. The hop-grounds of Kent would be as the vine- 
 yards of the Neckar. The High-street of Oxford and the 
 Close of Salisbury would be piled with ruins such as those 
 which covered the spots where the palaces and churches of 
 Heidelberg and Manheim had once stood. The parsonage 
 overshadowed by the old steeple, the farmhouse peeping 
 from among bee-hives and apple blossoms, the manorial hall 
 embosomed in elms, would be given up to a soldiery which 
 knew not what it was to pity old men, or delicate women, 
 or suckling children. The words, ( The French are coming,' 
 like a spell, quelled all murmurs about taxes and abuses, 
 about William's ungracious manners and Portland's lucra- 
 tive places, and raised a spirit as high and unconquerable as 
 had pervaded, a hundred years before, the ranks which 
 Elizabeth reviewed at Tilbury. Had the army of Humieres 
 landed, it would assuredly have been withstood by almost 
 every male capable of bearing arms. Not only the muskets 
 and pikes, but the scythes and pitchforks would have been 
 too few for the hundreds of thousands who, forgetting all 
 distinction of sect or faction, would have risen up like one 
 man to defend the English soil. 
 
 The immediate effect, therefore, of the disasters in the 
 Channel and in Flanders was to unite for a moment the 
 great body of the people. The national antipathy to the 
 Dutch seemed to be suspended. Their gallant conduct in 
 the fight off Beachy Head was loudly applauded. The inac- 
 
24 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 tion of Torrington was loudly condemned. London set the 
 example of concert and of exertion. The irritation pro- 
 duced by the late election at once subsided. All distinctions 
 of party disappeared. The Lord Mayor was summoned to 
 attend the Queen. She requested him to ascertain as soon 
 as possible what the capital would undertake to do if the 
 enemy should venture to make a descent. He called toge- 
 ther the representatives of the wards ; conferred with them, 
 and returned to Whitehall to report that they had unani- 
 mously bound themselves to stand by the Government with 
 life and fortune ; that a hundred thousand pounds were 
 ready to be paid into the Exchequer ; that ten thousand 
 Londoners, well armed and appointed, were prepared to 
 march at an hour's notice ; and that an additional force, con- 
 sisting of six regiments of foot, a strong regiment of horse, 
 and a thousand dragoons, should be instantly raised without 
 costing the Crown a farthing. Of Her Majesty the city had 
 nothing to ask, but that she would be pleased to set over these 
 troops officers in whom she could confide. The same spirit 
 was shown in every part of the country. Though in the 
 southern counties the harvest was at hand, the rustics re- 
 paired with unusual cheerfulness to the musters of the 
 militia. The Jacobite country gentlemen, who had, during 
 several months, been making preparations for the general 
 rising which was to take place as soon as William was gone, 
 and as help arrived from France, now that William was gone, 
 now that a French invasion was hourly expected, burned 
 their commissions signed by James, and hid their arms be- 
 hind wainscots or in haystacks. The Jacobites in the towns 
 were insulted wherever they appeared, and were forced to 
 shut themselves up in their houses from the exasperated 
 populace.* 
 
 The battle of the Hogue, won by the united fleets 
 of England and Holland, destroyed all hopes of a 
 Jacobite restoration. The Dutch coined a medal 
 
 * Macaulay's Hist, of England, Vol. III., p. 609 to 623. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 25 
 
 representing the French line-of-battle ships ruined 
 and dispersed, with this motto from Yirgil : — 
 
 Maturate fugam, regique hasc dicite vestro : 
 Non illi imperium pelagi, saevumque tridentem ; 
 Sed mihi sorte datum. 
 
 The war which William had undertaken in asser- 
 tion of his title to the crown of England was 
 concluded by the peace of Ryswick. Lewis ac- 
 knowledged his right, and promised to recognise 
 no other sovereign. But Lewis was incapable of 
 good faith, and blind to the most obvious dictates 
 of prudence. On the approaching death of James, 
 prevailed upon by the tears of his wife, and the 
 flatteries of Madame de Maintenon, the vain monarch 
 proclaimed James III. King of England. 
 
 The anger of the English people was intense. 
 And here I borrow a vivid picture of national in- 
 dignation at the fraud, perfidy, and presumption of 
 the French king : — 
 
 ' As soon as Lewis was again at Marli,' says Macaulay, 
 ' he repeated to the Court assembled there the announcement 
 which he had made at St. Germain's. The whole circle broke 
 forth into exclamations of delight and admiration. What 
 piety! What humanity ! What magnanimity ! Nor was 
 this enthusiasm altogether feigned ; for in the estimation of 
 the greater part of that brilliant crowd nations were nothing 
 and princes everything. What could be more generous, 
 more amiable, than to protect an innocent boy, who was kept 
 out of his rightful inheritance by an ambitious kinsman? 
 Tne fine gentlemen and fine ladies who talked thus forgot 
 that, besides the innocent boy and that ambitious kinsman, 
 five millions and a half of Englishmen were concerned, who 
 
26 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 were little disposed to consider themselves as the absolute 
 property of any master, and who were still less disposed to 
 accept a master chosen for them by the French king. 
 
 ' James lingered three days longer. He was occasionally 
 sensible during a few minutes, and during one of these lucid 
 intervals faintly expressed his gratitude to Lewis. On the 
 sixteenth he died. His Queen retired that evening to the 
 nunnery of Chaillot, where she could weep and pray undis- 
 turbed. She left St. Germain's in joyous agitation. A herald 
 made his appearance before the palace gate, and, with sound 
 of trumpet, proclaimed in Latin, French, and English, King 
 James the Third of England and Eighth of Scotland. The 
 streets, in consequence doubtless of orders from the Govern- 
 ment, were illuminated ; and the townsmen with loud shouts 
 wished a long reign to their illustrious neighbour. The poor 
 lad received from his ministers, and delivered back to them, 
 the seals of their offices, and held out his hand to be kissed. 
 One of the first acts of his mock reign was to bestow some 
 mock peerages in conformity with directions which he found 
 in his father's will. Middleton, who as yet had no English 
 title, was created Earl of Monmouth. Perth, who had stood 
 high in the favour of his late master, both as an apostate 
 from the Protestant religion, and as the author of the 
 last improvements on the thumb-screw, took the title of 
 Duke. 
 
 6 Meanwhile the remains of James were escorted in the dusk 
 of the evening by a slender retinue to the chapel of the Eng- 
 lish Benedictines at Paris, and deposited there, in the vain 
 hope that at some future time they would be laid with 
 kingly pomp at Westminster, among the graves of the Plan- 
 tas;enets and Tudors. 
 
 ' Three days after these humble obsequies, Lewis visited 
 St. Germain's in form. On the morrow the visit was re- 
 turned. The French Court was now at Versailles ; and the 
 Pretender was received there in all points as his father 
 would have been, sate in his father's arm-chair, took, as his 
 father had always done, the right hand of the great monarch, 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 27 
 
 and wore the long violet-coloured mantle, which was by 
 ancient usage the mourning garb of the Kings of France. 
 There was on that day a great concourse of ambassadors and 
 envoys, but one well-known figure was wanting. Manchester 
 had sent off to Loo intelligence of the affront which had 
 been offered to his country and his master, had solicited in- 
 structions, and had determined that, till these instructions 
 should arrive, he would live in strict seclusion. He did not 
 think that he should be justified in quitting his post without 
 express orders ; but his earnest hope was that he should 
 be directed to turn his back in contemptuous defiance on 
 the Court which had dared to treat England as a subject 
 province. 
 
 6 As soon as the fault into which Lewis had been hurried, by 
 pity, by the desire of applause, and by female influence, was 
 complete and irreparable, he began to feel serious uneasiness. 
 His ministers were directed to declare everywhere that their 
 master had no intention of affronting the English Govern- 
 ment, that he had not violated the Treaty of Ryswick, that 
 he had no intention of violating it, that he had merely meant 
 to gratify an unfortunate family nearly related to himself, 
 by using names and observing forms which really meant 
 nothing, and that he was resolved not to countenance any 
 attempt to subvert the throne of William. Torcy who had 
 a few days before proved, by irrefragable arguments, that 
 his master could not without a gross breach of contract 
 recognise the Pretender, imagined that sophisms which had 
 not imposed on himself might possibly impose on others. 
 He visited the English Embassy, obtained admittance, and, 
 as was his duty, did his best to excuse the fatal act, which he 
 had done his best to prevent. Manchester's answer to this 
 attempt at explanation was as strong and plain as it could 
 be in the absence of precise instructions. The instructions 
 speedily arrived. The courier who carried the news of the 
 recognition to Loo, arrived there when William was at table 
 with some of his nobles, and some princes of the German 
 empire, who had visited him in his retreat. The king said 
 
28 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 not a word, but his pale cheek flushed, and he pulled his 
 hat over his eyes to conceal the changes of his countenance. 
 He hastened to send off several messengers. One carried 
 a letter commanding Manchester to quite France without 
 taking leave. Another started for London with a despatch 
 which directed the Lords Justices to send Poussin instantly 
 out of England. 
 
 ( England was already in a flame, when it was first known 
 there that James was dying. Some of his eager partisans 
 formed plans and made preparations for a great public 
 manifestation of feeling in different parts of the island. But 
 the insolence of Lewis produced a burst of public indig- 
 nation which scarcely any malcontent had the courage to 
 face. 
 
 ( In the city of London, indeed, some zealots, who had pro- 
 bably swallowed too many bumpers to their new sovereign, 
 played one of those senseless pranks which were character- 
 istic of their party. They dressed themselves in coats bear- 
 ing some resemblance to the tabards of heralds, rode through 
 the streets, halted at some places, and muttered something 
 which nobody could understand. It was at first supposed 
 that they were merely a company of prize-fighters from 
 Hockley-in-the-Hole who had taken this way of advertising 
 their performances with back sword, sword and buckler, and 
 single falchion. But it was soon discovered that these 
 gaudily dressed horsemen were proclaiming James the Third. 
 In an instant the pageant was at an end. The mock kings- 
 at-arms and pursuivants threw away their finery and fled for 
 their lives in all directions, followed by yells and showers of 
 stones. Already the Common Council of London had met, 
 and had voted, without one dissentient voice, an address ex- 
 pressing the highest resentment at the insult which France 
 had offered to the king and the kingdom. A few hours 
 after this address had been presented to the Regents, the 
 Livery assembled to choose a Lord Mayor. Duncombe, the 
 Tory candidate, lately the popular favourite, was rejected, 
 and a Whig alderman placed in the chair. All over the 
 
The Foreign Policy of England, 29 
 
 kingdom, corporations, grand juries, meetings of magistrates, 
 meetings of freeholders, were passing resolutions breathing 
 affection to William and defiance to Lewis. It was neces- 
 sary to enlarge the " London Grazette " from four columns to 
 twelve ; and even twelve were too few to hold the multitude 
 of loyal and patriotic addresses. In some of these addresses 
 severe reflections were thrown on the House of Commons. 
 Our deliverer had been ungratefully requited, thwarted, mor- 
 tified, denied the means of making the country respected and 
 feared by neighbouring States. The factious wrangling, the 
 penny- wise economy, of these disgraceful years, had pro- 
 duced the effect which might have been expected. His 
 Majesty would never have been so grossly affronted abroad, 
 if he had not first been affronted at home. But the eyes of 
 his people were opened. He had only to appeal from the 
 representatives to the constituents, and he would find that 
 the nation was still sound at heart. 
 
 i Poussin had been directed to offer to the Lords Justices 
 explanations similar to those with which Torcy had attempted 
 to appease Manchester. A memorial was accordingly drawn 
 up and presented to Vernon ; but Vernon refused to look at 
 it. Soon a courier arrived from Loo, with the letter in 
 which William directed his vicegerents to send the French 
 agent out of the kingdom. An officer of the royal house- 
 hold was charged with the execution of the order. He re- 
 paired to Poussin's lodgings, but Poussin was not at home ; 
 he was supping at the Blue Posts, a tavern much frequented 
 by Jacobites —the very tavern, indeed, at which Charnock 
 and his gang had breakfasted on the day fixed for the 
 murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green. To this house 
 the messenger went ; and there he found Poussin at table 
 with three of the most virulent Tory members of the House 
 of Commons — Tredenham, who returned himself for South 
 Mawes ; Hammond, who had been sent to Parliament by the 
 high churchmen of the University of Cambridge ; and Dave- 
 nant, who had recently, at Poussin's suggestion, been re- 
 warded by Lewis, for some savage invectives against the 
 
30 The Foreign Policy of Englaiid. 
 
 Whigs, with a diamond ring worth 3,000 pistoles. The supper 
 party was during some weeks the chief topic of conversation. 
 The exultation of the Whigs was boundless. These, then, 
 were the true English patriots — the men who could not endure 
 a foreigner, the men who would not suffer His Majesty to 
 bestow a moderate reward on the foreigners who had stormed 
 Athlone,and turned the flank of the Celtic army at Aughrim. 
 It now appeared they could be on excellent terms with a 
 foreigner, provided only that he was the emissary of a tyrant 
 hostile to the liberty, the independence, and the religion of 
 their country. The Tories, vexed and abashed, heartily 
 wished that on that unlucky day their friends had been supping 
 somewhere else. Even the bronze of Davenant's forehead 
 was not proof to the general reproach. He defended him- 
 self by pretending that Poussin — with whom he had passed 
 whole days, who had corrected his scurrilous pamphlets, and 
 who had paid him his shameful wages — was a stranger to him, 
 and that the meeting at the Blue Posts was purely acci- 
 dental. If his word was doubted, he was willing to repeat 
 his assertion on oath. The public, however, which had 
 formed a very correct notion of his character, thought that 
 his word was worth as much as his oath, and that his oath 
 was worth nothing. 
 
 ( Meanwhile the arrival of William was impatiently ex- 
 pected. From Loo he had gone to Breda, where he had 
 passed some time in reviewing his troops, and in conferring 
 with Marlborough and Heinsius. He had hoped to be in 
 England early in October, but adverse winds detained him 
 three weeks at the Hague. At length, in the afternoon of 
 November 4, it was known in London that he had landed 
 early that morning at Margate. Great preparations were 
 made for welcoming him to his capital on the following day, 
 the thirteenth anniversary of his landing in Devonshire. But 
 a journey across the bridge, and along Cornhill and Cheap- 
 side, Fleet Street and the Strand, would have been too great 
 an effort for his enfeebled frame. He accordingly slept at 
 Greenwich, and thence proceeded to Hampton Court, with- 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 31 
 
 out entering London. His return was, however, celebrated 
 by the populace with every sign of joy and attachment. 
 The bonfires blazed and the gunpowder roared all night. 
 In every parish from Mile End to St. James's was to be 
 seen enthroned on the shoulders of stout Protestant porters, 
 a pope, gorgeous in robes of tinsel and triple crown of 
 pasteboard ; and close to the car of his holiness stood a devil 
 with horns, cloven-hoof, and a snaky-tail. 
 
 6 Even in his country house, the king could find no refuge 
 from the importunate loyalty of his people. Deputations 
 from cities, counties, universities, besieged him all day. He 
 was, he wrote to Heinsius, quite exhausted by the labour of 
 hearing harangues and returning answers. The whole 
 kingdom meanwhile was looking anxiously towards Hamp- 
 ton Court. Most of the ministers were assembled there. 
 The most eminent men of the party which was out of power 
 had repaired thither to pay their duty to their Sovereign, 
 and to congratulate him on his safe return. It was re- 
 marked that Somers and Halifax, so malignantly persecuted, 
 a few months ago by the House of Commons, were received 
 with such marks of esteem and kindness, as William was little 
 in the habit of vouchsafing to his English courtiers. The 
 lower ranks of both the great factions were violently agi- 
 tated. The Whigs, lately vanquished and dispirited, were full 
 of hope and ardour. The Tories, lately triumphant and 
 secure, were exasperated and alarmed. Both Whigs and 
 Tories waited with intense anxiety for the decision of 
 one momentous and pressing question — Would there be 
 a dissolution? On November 7th, the king propounded 
 that question to his Privy Council. It was rumoured, and 
 is highly probable, that Jersey, Wright, and Hedges ad- 
 vised him to keep the existing Parliament. But they were 
 not men whose opinion was likely to have much weight with 
 him ; and Rochester, whose opinion might have had some 
 weight, had set out to take possession of his vice-royalty 
 just before the death of James, and was still at Dublin. 
 William had, however, as he owned to Heinsius, some diffi- 
 
32 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 culty in making up his mind. He had no doubt that a 
 general election would give him a better House of Com- 
 mons ; but a general election would cause delay, and 
 delay might cause much mischief. After balancing these 
 considerations during some hours, he determined to dis- 
 solve. 
 
 ( The writs were sent out with all expedition ; and in three 
 days the whole kingdom was up. Never — such was the in- 
 telligence sent from the Dutch Embassy to the Hague — had 
 there been more intriguing, more canvassing, more virulence 
 of party feeling. It was in the capital that the first great 
 contests took place. The decisions of the metropolitan con- 
 stituent bodies were impatiently expected as auguries of the 
 general result. All the pens of Grub Street, all the presses 
 of Little Britain were hard at work. Handbills for and 
 against every candidate were sent to every voter. The 
 popular Slogans on both sides were indefatigably repeated. 
 Presbyterian, Papist, Tool of Holland, Pensioner of France, 
 were the appellations interchanged between the contending 
 factions. The Whig cry was that the Tory members of the 
 last two Parliaments had, from a malignant desire to mortify 
 the king, left the kingdom exposed to danger and insult ; had 
 unconstitutionally encroached both on the Legislature and on 
 the judicial functions of the House of Lords; had turned the 
 House of Commons into a new Star Chamber; had used as 
 instruments of capricious tyranny those privileges which 
 ought never to be employed but in defence of freedom ; had 
 persecuted without regard to law, to natural justice, or to 
 decorum, the great Commander who had saved the State at 
 La Hogue, the great Financier who had restored the cur- 
 rency and re-established public credit, the great Judge, 
 whom all persons, not blinded by prejudice, acknowledged 
 to be, in virtue, in prudence, in learning and eloquence, the 
 first of living English jurists and statesmen. The Tories 
 answered that they had been only too moderate, only too 
 merciful ; that they had used the Speaker's warrant, and 
 the power of tacking only too sparingly ; and that if they 
 
The Foreign Policy of England, 33 
 
 ever again had a majority, the three Whig leaders, who now 
 imagined themselves secure, should be impeached, not for 
 high misdemeanours, but for high treason. It soon appeared 
 that these threats were not likely to be very speedily ex- 
 ecuted. Four Whig and four Tory candidates contested the 
 city of London. The show of hands was for the Whigs* 
 A poll was demanded ; and the Whigs polled nearly two 
 votes to one. Sir John Levison Gower, who was supposed 
 to have ingratiated himself with the whole body of shop* 
 keepers, by some parts of his parliamentary conduct, was 
 put up for Westminster on the Tory interest ; and the elec- 3 
 tors were reminded by puffs in the newspapers of the ser- 
 vices which he had rendered to trade. But the dread of the 
 French king, the Pope, and the Pretender, prevailed; 
 and Sir John was at the bottom of the polL Southwark 
 not only returned Whigs, but gave them instructions of the 
 most whiggish character. 
 
 6 In the country parties were more evenly balanced than in 
 the capital. Yet the news from every quarter was that 
 the Whigs had recovered part at least of the ground which 
 they had lost. Wharton had regained his ascendancy in 
 Buckinghamshire. Musgrave was rejected by Westmore*- 
 land. Nothing did more harm to the Tory candidates than 
 the story of Poussin's farewell supper. We learn from their 
 own acrimonious invectives that the unlucky discovery of 
 the three members of Parliament at the Blue Posts cost 
 thirty honest gentlemen their seats. One of the criminals, 
 Tredenham, escaped with impunity ; for the dominion of his 
 family over the borough of St. Mawes was absolute even to 
 a proverb. The other two had the fate which they deserved. 
 Davenant ceased to sit for Bedwin. Hammond, who had 
 lately stood high in the favour of the University of Cam- 
 bridge, was defeated by a great majority, and was succeeded 
 by the glory of the Whig party, Isaac Newton.' * 
 
 * Macaulay, Vol. V., pp. 294 to 303. 
 
9 
 
 4 77ie Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 William died very shortly afterwards, but not 
 before he had concluded treaties, by which he bound 
 himself to act with the Emperor of Germany and the 
 Eepublic of Holland in defence of the liberties of 
 Europe. No one seemed to doubt that Lewis, with 
 extended territory and augmented armies, would, 
 if not vigorously opposed, overcome the prudence 
 of the Dutch nation, and place the Stuart pretender 
 on the throne of England.* 
 
 Queen Anne, however, though a Tory in poli- 
 tics and a bigot in religion, was unwilling to give 
 up her crown to a brother of whose legitimacy she 
 had great doubts, and of whose fraternal affection 
 she had no assurance. She formed a Tory Ministry, 
 and dismissed William's Whig counsellors; but she 
 made Marlborough and Godolphin her chief advisers, 
 and placed in their hands the control of her military 
 and financial affairs. Marlborough was a great 
 statesman and a consummate captain. The faculty 
 to knit together discordant States and form a con- 
 federacy of independent princes, which in our day 
 has been displayed by a resolute German Minister, 
 was combined, in the person of Marlborough, with 
 that strategy in the study, and that master- eye in 
 the field of battle, which have hi our day exalted the 
 fame of an eminent general, and directed to victory 
 the legions of a King of the House of Hohenzollern. 
 That which Eugene did for Marlborough in the 
 battle of Blenheim, Godolphin did for him in the 
 Treasury. On Godolphin' s bust at Al thorp is the 
 
 * Coxe, Life of Marlborough. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 35 
 
 inscription, c Fisci ita peritus ut praeter peculatum 
 nihil nesciret.' He was always ready to furnish the 
 means of the most costly war, and he took care by 
 borrowing at six, seven, or eight per cent, at once to 
 provide for an immediate exigency, and to reserve 
 for Walpole the power of reducing the yearly interest 
 to a real three per cent., and thus making the burthen 
 of the National Debt tolerable to a future generation.* 
 It cannot be denied that Marlborough was selfish 
 and immoral in his political conduct ; that, whether to 
 James II. or his son the Pretender, he always pro- 
 fessed unshaken attachment ; that he carried on a cor- 
 respondence with his nephew the Duke of Berwick ; 
 and that, if Bolingbroke had succeeded in placing 
 James III. upon the throne, Marlborough would pro- 
 bably have been glad to secure his titles and his for- 
 tune, at the sacrifice of his fidelity to the Protestant 
 succession. But in times of political revolution men 
 are so made : of such a texture were the followers 
 of Pompey, who embraced the fortunes of Caesar and 
 Augustus ; of such a clay were the ministers of 
 Lewis XVI. and the Jacobins of the Convention 
 who followed the star of Napoleon Bonaparte ; of such 
 variable tempers were Talleyrand, who took thirteen 
 
 * It is singular that Pitt, whose financial talents were so loudly 
 trumpeted, pursued the opposite course, and by borrowing in the 
 Three per Cents, at the price of 70, 60, or even 50, has obliged us, 
 the posterity of his own generation, to pay 4, 5, 6, and 6| per cent., 
 while the posterity of Grodolphin paid only 3 per cent, for money 
 which that careful minister borrowed openly at 7 or 8 per cent. — See 
 Coxe's Life of Pelham. 
 
 d 2 
 
36 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 oaths of allegiance, and Ney, who left his old master 
 only to desert his new Sovereign. 
 
 Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hie diadema. 
 
 The brave Ney was shot as a traitor ; Marlborough 
 and Talleyrand died covered with honours. Macau- 
 lay himself has said, in his brilliant review of the 
 life of Lord Clive : — 
 
 Such men should be judged by their contemporaries as 
 they will be judged by posterity. Their bad actions ought 
 not indeed to be called good ; but their good and bad actions 
 ought to be fairly weighed; and if, on the whole, the good 
 preponderate, the sentence ought to be one, not merely of 
 acquittal, but of approbation. Not a single great ruler in 
 history can be absolved by a judge who fixes his eye inex- 
 orably on one or two unjustifiable acts. Bruce, the deliverer 
 of Scotland, Maurice the deliverer of Germany, William 
 the deliverer of Holland, William, his great descendant, the 
 deliverer of England ; . . . how would the best of them 
 pass such a scrutiny ? History takes wider views. * 
 
 I hope so, and Marlborough ought to have the 
 benefit of these wider views. 
 
 The victories of Marlborough need not be referred 
 to here. Had he not been thwarted by the Dutch 
 deputies and undermined at home by a palace 
 intrigue, I have little doubt that this great general 
 would have had his quarters at Versailles and have 
 taken Paris. Yet at Gertruydenberg he was too 
 harsh in asking Lewis to make war against his grand- 
 son. Had the King of France abandoned the war in 
 
 * Macaulay's Essays, Vol. III., p. 204. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 37 
 
 the Low Countries, Marlborough and Eugene would 
 have overrun Spain in a single summer. 
 
 Voltaire, who, in his contempt of human nature, 
 is fond of attributing great events to trifling causes, 
 finds a sufficient origin for the Reformation in a 
 quarrel between the Augustine and Dominican Orders 
 of Friars. In the same spirit he traces the fall of 
 Marlborough and Godolphin to the spilling of a cup 
 of tea. This is nonsense. In fact, although small 
 circumstances are often linked to great events, and 
 may hasten or for years retard them, the causes 
 are to be found deeper : in the progress of opinion, 
 or the decay of institutions ; in the weakness of 
 governments or of churches ; in the growth of popu- 
 lar bodies, in the power of great men, or in the 
 sudden rise of strong communities. The disgrace 
 of the Duchess of Marlborough was owing to no 
 trifling accident; she owed her influence over Anne 
 to the same cause as the conjuration and mighty 
 magic exercised by Leonora Galigai over Mary 
 of Medicis - — to the influence of a strong mind 
 over a weak one.* But when this influence came 
 to be exerted over a queen, the prudent Marl- 
 borough could not restrain the imperious, passionate, 
 and ambitious temper of Sarah from conflict with the 
 timid, superstitious and sullen nature of Anne. The 
 Duchess was too angry in her manner, and, above 
 
 * ' Comment,' demandait-on tin jour a Leonora, l avez-vous 
 acquis tant d' empire sur votre maitresse ? N'avez-vous pas em- 
 ploye des nitres, de la magie, des moyens surnaturels ? ' 'Point 
 d'autres,' repondit-elle, l que l'ascendant qu'ont les ames fortes sur 
 les ames foibles.' 
 
38 The Foreign Policy of England, 
 
 all, too whiggish in her opinions. Her son-in-law 
 Sunderland was always aiming at the highest places. 
 His principles, and those of Somers, were very distaste- 
 ful to the Queen. The total rout of the Whig party 
 in 1710, the triumph of Harley and Bolingbroke, 
 the cry of the Church in danger, the unwise prose- 
 cution of Sacheverel, and the creation of twelve Tory 
 peers, to assure to the party a majority in the House 
 of Lords, seemed to portend the fall of constitutional 
 government, and the restoration of the Stuarts. 
 
 For there was a deep and impassable chasm at this 
 time between the Whig and Tory parties. This 
 chasm divided Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, and 
 Wharton, from Bolingbroke, Bathurst and Harcourt. 
 
 The Whigs, although personally friendly to the 
 clergy, insisted on the toleration granted by the 
 laws, and were politically favourable to the Protes- 
 tant Dissenters. They were thorough partisans of 
 the Hanover succession. In Government they looked 
 to the prevalence of their party in the two Houses 
 of Parliament, and prepared to found power on the 
 confidence placed by a majority of the House of 
 Commons in Ministers holding office and seats in 
 Parliament. 
 
 The Tories wished to exclude placemen from 
 the House of Commons, and to make the Ministers 
 of the Crown independent of Parliament. Parlia- 
 ment was to be a check on abuses of power, but not a 
 channel through which Ministers were to govern. A 
 provision that a Minister, on accepting office, was to 
 vacate his seat, but be capable of re-election, was 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 39 
 
 adopted as a compromise, and was known by the 
 name of West's Expedient. Had the Tories suc- 
 ceeded completely in their views, civil discord must 
 have been the result. The favourite Minister of 
 the King would have tried, like Strafford, to subvert 
 law and liberty ; eloquent and powerful members of 
 Parliament would have endeavoured, like Pym and 
 Hampden, to bring him to the block. In the reign of 
 the second Charles, the monarch had been successful, 
 and had Queen Amie lived to support Bolingbroke 
 for one or two years, there can be little doubt that at 
 her death he would have restored the Stuarts, and 
 would have endeavoured to mould the House of Com- 
 mons to passive obedience. ' Never/ says Claren- 
 don, ' did the plant of royal bounty grow in the 
 bosom of a Stuart or a Bourbon.' Had James III. 
 sat on the throne, he would have oppressed his 
 people and brought on another revolution. 
 
 Thus it must ever have been under the govern- 
 ment of the Stuarts, until civil war should close by 
 the triumph of a despotism or the victory of a com- 
 monwealth. The issue was not tried upon the death 
 of Anne, owing to a very narrow sequence of events. 
 Bolingbroke became a deadly enemy of Harley. He 
 complained that he was not, like Harley, made an 
 earl. He complained of Harley's indolence, and of 
 his jests, which savoured of the Inns of Court ; but 
 secretly, and above all, he hated him for his steady 
 attachment to the Protestant succession. Harley 
 was a moderate Tory, and had he declared for the 
 House of Hanover, would have been supported by 
 
40 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 Marlborough and Godolphin. But Bolingbroke, by 
 his^ plausible eloquence, and his adroit spirit of 
 intrigue, prevailed on the Queen to discard his 
 rival, and favour the succession of her brother. 
 The result is told in a few words by Bolingbroke. 
 
 Bolingbroke wrote to Dean Swift on August 6, 
 1714:— 
 
 1 Dear Dean, — the Earl of Oxford was removed on 
 Tuesday. The Queen died on Sunday. What a 
 world is this, and how does fortune banter us ! ' * 
 
 The event was announced in a different spirit, 
 and in a different manner by a popular dissenting 
 minister. On the same Sunday, which has been 
 already referred to as the day of the Queen's death, 
 an old Nonconformist minister, very much depressed 
 by the prospect of the triumph of High Church prin- 
 ciples in the passing of the Schism Bill, was walking 
 across Smithfield to his chapel in Holborn, when he 
 was overtaken by a carriage, driving rapidly, with a 
 bishop inside, who called to him. It was Burnet, 
 who, like most of the prelates of that time, was on 
 familiar terms with the leading Dissenters. 'Why 
 are you so sad ?' asked the bishop. He replied, 
 ■ What has just passed makes me fear that my 
 brethren and I shall have to take part with the Pro- 
 testant martyrs, whose ashes are under our feet.' 
 ' Take heart,' said the bishop : 4 1 am going as fast as 
 I can to Kensington ; the Queen is dying ; if, on my 
 arrival, I find that she is dead, I will send a mes- 
 senger to your chapel, who shall wave a white hand- 
 
 * Swift's Works, Scott's edition. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 41 
 
 kerchief from the gallery.' The old minister went 
 in. He began and finished the prayers ; he began 
 the sermon. In the middle of the sermon the mes- 
 senger appeared and waved the handkerchief. The 
 minister finished the sermon. He then said, ' I 
 have to ask you to give thanks to Almighty God for 
 a great deliverance. The Queen is dead. God save 
 King George I ! ' This was the first proclamation of 
 the House of Hanover.* 
 
 Since the death of Queen Anne on August 1, 1714, 
 England has enjoyed more than a century and a half 
 of singular freedom and growing prosperity. Wal- 
 pole, far from being jealous of a colleague who was 
 an earl, said with feigned humility after many years 
 of power, ' I accused of ambition ! I who refused a 
 white staff and an earldom ! ' Being endowed with 
 great sagacity, he saw very clearly that the centre of 
 gravity of the constitution was transferred to the 
 House of Commons. When at length defeated, he 
 accepted a seat in the House of Lords ; he there 
 went up to his great rival Pulteney, recently created 
 Earl of Bath, and with happy irony said to him, 
 4 You and I, my lord, are now two of the most in- 
 significant fellows in the kingdom.' The satirist of 
 the day had already sung, c Great Earl of Bath your 
 reign is o'er.' Since Walpole the House of Commons 
 has been the seat of power. The first Pitt governed the 
 country while he remained in the House of Commons 
 as Secretary of State, Charles Fox pursued a similar 
 course. Lord North, the younger Pitt, Perceval, and 
 
 * See Skeats's History of Free Churches. 
 
42 The Foi^eign Policy of Engla'tid. 
 
 Peel sat in the House of Commons as First Lords of the 
 Treasury. Since the accession of the House of Hanover, 
 no one has held the office of Lord High Treasurer. 
 
 W alpole took the conduct of foreign affairs into his 
 own hands. Peace and an intimate alliance with 
 France were the guiding maxims of his foreign policy. 
 
 Of the war with Spain, into which he was forced 
 by the clamour got up by the Opposition, Burke 
 says : — 
 
 Some years after it was my fortune to converse with 
 many of the principal actors against that Minister, and with 
 those who principally excited that clamour. None of them, 
 no not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt 
 to justify their conduct, which they so freely condemned, as 
 they would have done in commenting upon any proceeding 
 in history in which they were totally unconcerned. Thus it 
 will be. They who stir up the people to improper desires, 
 whether of peace or war, will be condemned by themselves. 
 They who weakly yield to them will be condemned by 
 history.* 
 
 It may be true, as Burke says, that Walpole failed 
 to put forth the whole strength of his case, and 
 weakly yielded to the arguments of the Opposition. 
 But his entering into war was justified by the con- 
 duct of the Court of Madrid, which, irritated by the 
 clamour in England, put itself quite as much in the 
 wrong as the English Opposition had been in the origin 
 of the dispute. The King of Spain, in his turn pro- 
 voked, had complained that a British fleet was sta- 
 tioned in the Mediterranean, and finally announced 
 
 * Thoughts on a Regicide Peace. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 43 
 
 his determination to make war upon England. Wal- 
 pole could not refuse a challenge thus openly given, 
 and could not be blamed for defending the terms of 
 peace which he had himself laid down. He could 
 neither recall the British fleet nor renounce the con- 
 vention of which he was the author. 
 
 What may be truly said of him is, that while he 
 did not seek for glory, he managed by peace and pru- 
 dence to establish the House of Hanover on the 
 throne. In accomplishing this task he gave a secure 
 basis to our free Constitution. While he refused to 
 repeal the Test and Corporation Act, or to provoke 
 the active enmity of the Church, he took care to 
 protect the religious liberty of the subject. By 
 what is improperly termed the Toleration Act the 
 Protestant dissenters of England were already esta- 
 blished.^ They were secured by law in their rights 
 of public worship, and of educating their children. 
 Ministers were most unwilling to disturb the general 
 freedom. 4 1 know,' said Walpole, on a foolish speech 
 of Sir William Wyndham, ' that the Hon. Baronet 
 expects me to move that he shall be sent to the 
 Tower, but I shall do no such thing.' 
 
 The great lights of the preceding generation were 
 by this time extinguished. Johnson could say with 
 truth — 
 
 From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow, 
 And Swift expires a driveller and a show. 
 
 * See Lord Mansfield's Judgment, delivered in the House of 
 Lords, 1768. 
 
44 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 But though the arm of valour was paralysed, and the 
 star of wit sunk below the horizon, the people of 
 England were assured in the enjoyment of personal 
 and political liberty, with freedom for every man 
 to think what he pleased and say what he thought 
 to a degree unknown on the continent of Europe, 
 or in England in any previous age. The precept 
 Quieta non movete, which was adopted by Walpole, 
 was a severe restraint upon any passion for aggran- 
 disement and upon the love of glory, but it suited 
 very well with the easy and jovial character of a 
 statesman who was content with making Old England 
 happy, and with leaving New England to work her 
 way to freedom and greatness without taxing and 
 tormenting a rising people. During this period the 
 House of Commons rose in importance, and of Wal- 
 pole it might be said, as Lucan has said of Pompey, 
 
 Rectorque senatus 
 Sed regnantis erat. 
 
 The husbandry of Walpole, and the growing wealth 
 of the nation, enabled Chatham, when England 
 drifted into the war of 1756, to conduct it happily 
 and gloriously. 
 
 France, having been forced by the Treaty of 
 Utrecht and subsequent engagements to renounce 
 all protection of the House of Stuart, and all claim 
 to dispose of the throne of England, attempted in 
 the Seven Years' War to struggle for dominion in 
 America and in India. In America, France, having 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 45 
 
 the mouths of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, 
 hoped to wedge the British colonists into a limited 
 space and a very narrow sovereignty. Had not she 
 been confronted by a man of the genius of Chatham, 
 she would probably have succeeded, and the French 
 troops, overrunning Xew England and the back 
 settlements, would have dispersed and destroyed 
 the provincial forces commanded by Braddon and 
 Washington. But Chatham took measures which 
 defeated French aggression. He sent to Canada 
 
 CO 
 
 General Wolfe, who at the price of his life conquered 
 that noble province. But he took a still more effec- 
 tual security. He furnished ample subsidies to 
 Frederic of Prussia, who routed the armies of France 
 near her own frontier. Chatham himself said, c I 
 have conquered America in Germany.' 
 
 The truth of these words may be proved by 
 historical documents. I will make some references 
 to the Parliamentary History of Hansard, which will 
 be sufficient for the purpose. 
 
 On May 11, 1756, the King sent a message to the 
 House of Commons, announcing that he had made a 
 treaty with Prussia. On the 13th of the same month, 
 1,000,000/. were voted to enable the Crown to de- 
 feat the enemy's designs, and on the 17th of the 
 same month the Commons voted 20,000/. more to 
 enable the King to fulfil his engagements with 
 Prussia. This treaty was opposed by Pitt ; but 
 in February 1757, Pitt being then Secretary of 
 State, and the treaty of January 1756 having been 
 
46 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 referred to a Committee of Supply, they came to the 
 following resolution : — 
 
 That a sum not exceeding 200,000/. be granted to His 
 Majesty to assist him in forming and maintaining during the 
 present year an army of observation, for the just and neces- 
 sary defence and preservation of His Majesty's electoral 
 dominions, and those of his allies, and towards enabling His 
 Majesty to fulfil his engagements with the King of Prussia, 
 for the security of the empire against the irruption of foreign 
 armies, and for the support of the common cause* 
 
 In 1758 the Commons granted 861,600/. on a vote 
 of credit, and at the end of the session the King said 
 to his Parliament : — 
 
 His Majesty has cemented the union between him and his 
 good brother the King of Prussia, by new engagements with 
 which you have been already fully acquainted. 
 
 In 1759 the Commons voted 60,000 men and 
 14,845 marines for the navy, and for operations by 
 land a body of troops amounting to 52,543 effectives, 
 besides the auxiliaries of Hanover, Hesse, Bruns- 
 wick, Saxe Gotha, and Brandenburg, to the number 
 of 50,000 men. A million was likewise voted on a 
 vote of credit. Pitt now treated his opponents 
 with great haughtiness. Horace Walpole, likening 
 the debates in Parliament to the proceedings on the 
 Stock Exchange, says : 4 Though the Parliament is 
 met, no politicks are come to town ; one may describe 
 the House of Commons like the price of stocks — 
 debates, nothing done; votes, under par; patriots, 
 no price ; oratory books, shut/ 
 
 * Pari. Hist., Vol. XV., p. 783. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 47 
 
 In 1761 a new treaty was made, and new subsi- 
 dies promised to Prussia. Thus Mr. Pitt fulfilled 
 his intention of conquering America in Germany. 
 France, busied at home, had no troops to send 
 to Louisiana or Canada. The foreign policy of 
 England gave her the possession of Canada at the 
 peace. Nothing but ignorance can have induced 
 some persons to represent the British victories in 
 North America as due entirely to the efforts of the 
 colonists, and their unaided exertions. 
 
 In the East Indies similar success crowned the 
 British arms. The French forces were ably led, but 
 the valour and enterprise of Clive secured for his 
 country the laurels which the commanders of Lewis 
 expected to win. 
 
 At the end of the war, and when the treaty of 
 peace was ready for signature, Mr. Wood, the Under- 
 Secretary, brought it to Lord Granville, the Presi- 
 dent of the Council, then sinking into the grave : — 
 
 ' I found him so languid/ says Mr. Wood, in his Essay On 
 Homer, e that I preferred postponing my business for another 
 time ; but he insisted that I should stay, saying it could 
 not prolong his life to neglect his duty. He then desired to 
 hear the treaty read, to which he listened with great atten- 
 tion, and recovered spirits enough to declare the approbation 
 of a dying statesman (I use his own words), on the most 
 glorious war and the most honourable peace this nation ever 
 saw.'* 
 
 The American war, the seeds of which were sown 
 soon after the German war closed, was not in its 
 
 * Essay on the original Genius and Writings of Homer* 
 
48 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 principal features connected with foreign policy, and 
 was rather terminated than carried on by the hostility 
 of France. I wish only to remark that even the 
 statesmen and the sovereign most engaged in it were 
 by no means eager in its support. When Lord Gower 
 resigned, thinking the success of the war hopeless, 
 Lord North avowed that since 1779 he had held the 
 same opinion as Lord Gower. Even George III. 
 recommended to his Ministers that the British troops 
 should be recalled from North America, and that all 
 the warlike eiforts of the British nation should be 
 directed against France. The Duke of Richmond 
 and Charles Fox declared in 1778 in favour of re- 
 cognising the independence of the Congress of North 
 America. Fox would have willingly served under 
 Lord Weymouth as Prime Minister, provided the 
 evacuation of the North American provinces by the 
 British troops were ordered. But Sir Gilbert Elliot 
 has left on record his opinion that even the royal 
 authority could not have sustained a Ministry which 
 at that period acknowledged American independence. 
 In fact, the recognition of the revolted colonies as a 
 new and independent state was retarded by the ob- 
 stinacy and pride of the British nation much more 
 than by the resistance of the Sovereign and the folly 
 of the Minister. 
 
 Thus we have arrived at the eve of the French 
 Revolution, which scattered to the winds all previous 
 systems of policy and all subsisting connections of 
 party. It may be convenient in this place to give 
 a summary of the foreign policy of the British 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 40 
 
 Government, from the time of the establishment of 
 free institutions by the Revolution of 1689. 
 
 I have shown that the wars against France under- 
 taken by King William were entered into and main- 
 tained for the national purposes of having on the 
 throne a Sovereign of our own choice instead of a 
 Viceroy of France; of preserving personal and poli- 
 tical liberty, and of allowing Protestant Dissenters 
 the right of worship in their own chapels, without 
 restriction or penalty. These positions are easily 
 established by a few references to unquestionable 
 authorities. 
 
 The despatches of Barillon unveil completely the 
 policy of the Stuart kings, Charles and James. They 
 likewise show partially and by snatches the conduct 
 of the popular party during these reigns. The 
 objects of Charles and James did not essentially 
 differ, though they were not equally active in pur- 
 suit of them. They both maintained that the Habeas 
 Corpus Act was fatal to the due authority of the 
 Crown, and ought not to be observed. In order to 
 attain the end of dispensing with the laws, they both 
 held that the King ought not to live in dependence 
 upon his Parliament, and that the only security 
 he could have for his just authority was a pension 
 from the French king sufficient to absolve him from 
 the necessity of calling Parliament together. The 
 brothers likewise agreed that the Roman Catholic 
 religion ought to be the religion of the State, and 
 that dissenters from the State Church ought not to 
 
 E 
 
50 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 be allowed any freedom, either in the pulpit or in 
 schools. 
 
 It was from this slavery that King William, and 
 the House of Hanover, Somers, Halifax and Walpole 
 rescued the people of England. The nation gladly 
 welcomed their deliverers, and fought with a courage 
 and success which enabled Marlborough and Chatham 
 to carry on glorious wars, and force the French King 
 to banish the Stuart pretenders from his dominions. 
 The triumph of the Whig cause was assured in 
 Europe, America, and Asia. 
 
 A new war was produced by the resistance of the 
 thirteen provinces of North America to the unjust 
 exactions of George Grenville, and the heedless folly 
 of Charles Townshend. But at the peace of 1783 
 England was in a state to recover from her losses, 
 and, by the wise policy of William Pitt, her disordered 
 finances were regulated, and her position in Europe 
 recovered. 
 
 In entering upon a new period, it may be well to 
 note that the language of our day differs much from 
 that employed before the French Revolution. Thus 
 in politics, what was formerly called Despotism is 
 now called Personal Government ; and what was 
 called Freedom, or Free Government, is now called 
 Parliamentary Government. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 51 
 
 II. 
 
 The great war, commonly called the French Revo- 
 lutionary War, was filled with memorable events, 
 and produced memorable consequences. It lasted, 
 not taking into account the peace of Amiens 
 and the short interval between the accession of 
 Lewis XVIII. and the hundred days, more than 
 twenty-two years. The National Debt of the United 
 Kingdom was increased from about 240 millions 
 to nearly 900 millions, an augmentation of 660 
 millions. 
 
 Mr. Pitt, the powerful Prime Minister, had shown 
 a remarkable want of foresight both before and 
 during the war. In 1792, in bringing forward his 
 budget, he declared his conviction that England had 
 never enjoyed a fairer prospect of fifteen years of 
 peace. After the war commenced he expressed con- 
 fidently to his colleagues and intimate friends his 
 opinion that it would be of short duration.* But, 
 at length, when the war had extended its ravages 
 and swallowed its victims, Pitt perceived he had 
 been wanting in foresight. It has been truly said, 
 however, by a serious author, experience is never 
 borrowed, but always bought.f Other Ministers of 
 England who aspire to the fortitude and patriotism 
 
 * Canning's Speeches. 
 
 ■J" Mason, On Self-Knowledge. 
 
 e 2 
 
52 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 of Pitt should beware lest they copy his unwise 
 security and improvident parsimony. 
 
 It was not in the contemplation of Pitt to make 
 war against France. Nor is it probable that any 
 internal disorders, or even the judicial murder 
 of the King, would have induced the calm and re- 
 forming Minister to incur the hazards and the cost 
 of hostilities against France. Three changes in the 
 state of Europe shook his determination, and finally 
 carried him into the rapid tide of the Revolution, to 
 strive against it without success, to be the most 
 hated of the enemies of France, and the most egre- 
 gious dupe of his own allies. 
 
 The first of these was the rise of the Girondist 
 party, composed of men of extraordinary eloquence, 
 but aspiring to objects only to be attained by the 
 destruction of the French Monarchy, and by a cru- 
 sade on behalf of democracy flooding every country 
 in Europe. This party imagined itself destined to 
 open a new era for the benefit, the happiness, and 
 the enlightenment of mankind. Its success was 
 great, when with brilliant declamation it assailed the 
 unhappy Lewis, and with impetuous courage at- 
 tacked a victim already fallen to the ground and 
 bound for sacrifice. But behind this party stood 
 Robespierre, Danton, and their accomplices, who, 
 when they had beheaded the Sovereign, and de- 
 clared war on the Continental Powers, found no dif- 
 ficulty in sending to the guillotine the Girondist pro- 
 moters of a bloody revolution and a desolating war. 
 
 The second cause which hastened on this destruc- 
 tive war was the position already occupied by France. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 53 
 
 She had not only repelled from her soil her German 
 invaders, bnt had conquered the greater part of the 
 Austrian Netherlands. When in a similar posture of 
 affairs, Sir William Temple had in the name of 
 Charles II. invited the statesmen of Holland to call 
 upon Lewis XIV. to relinquish his conquests, De 
 Witt had rejoined that although such a proposal at 
 an earlier period might have been practicable, yet 
 after the triumphant progress of the French arms he 
 thought it far more prudent to prevent her from 
 making any further conquests, but to leave her in 
 possession of the territory already acquired.* 
 
 Had Pitt been as wise and as experienced a states- 
 man as De Witt, he might have followed a similar 
 course. It was not probable that a young republic 
 flushed with success, and exulting in the hope of 
 future victories, would be more moderate than 
 Lewis in the pride of his ambitious career. Had 
 Pitt interfered before the armies of Dumouriez 
 entered Belgium, or had he lowered his demands 
 in proportion to the lateness of his interference, 
 he might have been successful. But his mind was 
 too unbendino;, and his knowledge of foreign affairs 
 too limited to admit of wise concession for the sake 
 of permanent peace. The ultimatum of England 
 was, therefore, conveyed in a despatch of Lord 
 Grenville dated Dec. 31, 1792. In this despatch 
 Lord Grenville says: — 
 
 This Government, adhering to the maxims which it has 
 followed for more than a century, will also never see with 
 indifference, that France shall make herself, either directly 
 
 * See Ante, p. 8. 
 
54 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 or indirectly, sovereign of the Low Countries, or general 
 arbitress of the rights and liberties of Europe. If France 
 is really desirous of maintaining friendship and peace with 
 England, she must show herself disposed to renounce her 
 views of aggression and aggrandisement, and to confine her- 
 self within her own territory without insulting other govern- 
 ments, without disturbing their tranquillity, without violating 
 their rights.'* 
 
 Considering that the Government of England had 
 seen the armies of Austria and Prussia advance into 
 the heart of Champagne in order to punish the 
 French Assembly and the French civil authorities 
 authorised by law, and had even viewed their pro- 
 gress with some favour, it was rather too much 
 to ask, when the invasion had been repelled and 
 the invaders defeated, that the French should confine 
 themselves within their own territory, and not reta- 
 liate on a province of their enemy. To stop further 
 aggressions was the utmost that could fairly be pre- 
 tended. But, unfortunately, in 1792, when the Duke 
 of Brunswick made his wicked invasion, Mr. Pitt and 
 Lord Grenville were persuaded that England could 
 avoid interference. 
 
 Mr. Cobden says of Lord Grenville's remonstrance, 
 ■ It would have added much to the force of this 
 remonstrance if a similar tone had been taken a year 
 earlier, when the famous Declaration of Pilnitz was 
 published, 'f 
 
 The third cause of war, although the least reason- 
 
 * Pari. Hist., Vol. XXX. p. 258. 
 
 f Cobden's Political Writings, Vol. I., p. 400. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 55 
 
 able, was that which in England was the most 
 prevailing. On January 21, 1793, the head of Lewis 
 XVI. fell upon the scaffold. This cruel act excited 
 horror and indignation everywhere. But as a punish- 
 ment inflicted on a constitutional kiug, however 
 unmerited, it was the right of the French people 
 to behead Lewis XYI. as it was the right of 
 the English people to behead Charles I. When 
 England put her king to death, the Governments of 
 France and Spain became only the more anxious to 
 conciliate the favour of Cromwell. Pitt, however, 
 either infected by the fury of Burke, or struck with 
 the expediency of taking advantage of the popular 
 sentiment, at once dismissed M. Maret, the French 
 diplomatic agent, and refused all further intercourse 
 with the chiefs of the French Executive. The 
 French Assembly, already full of resentment at the 
 unfriendly behaviour of the English Government, was 
 moved to anger at the interference of England in the 
 internal affairs of France, and at once declared war. 
 
 A calmer temper, and a juster appreciation of the 
 miseries of war, would have induced a minister of 
 England to do more to avoid so great a calamity as 
 a war undertaken with all the forces of England 
 against the Jacobin Convention, armed with all the 
 forces of France. 
 
 Alison, the historian, has attributed the war of 
 1793, on the part of England, to a policy similar to 
 that of Henry IV. : — 
 
 Be it thy care to busy giddy minds 
 
 With foreign quarrels, that action hence borne out 
 
 May waste the memory of former days. 
 
56 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 Only instead of the memory of former days, Alison, 
 after remarking that ' the desire of power under the 
 name of reform was rapidly gaining ground among 
 the middle ranks,' and that ' the institutions of the 
 country were threatened with an overthrow as violent 
 as that which had recently taken place in the French 
 monarchy/ adds: 4 In those circumstances the only 
 mode of checking the evil was by engaging in a 
 foreign contest, by drawing off the ardent spirits into 
 active service, and in lieu of the modern desire for 
 innovation, rousing the ancient gallantry of the 
 British nation.'* 
 
 There are two answers to this vindication of 
 Pitt's great war: first, there is no ground for the 
 assertion that the desire for reform was so rapidly 
 gaining ground among the middle ranks that there 
 was danger of a violent overthrow of the institu- 
 tions of the country. On the contrary, the wise 
 administration of Pitt had so far satisfied the public 
 mind that there was no call even for his own 
 moderate plan of parliamentary reform, and that 
 since 1786, he had not thought it worth his while to 
 press that subject on the attention of the House of 
 Commons. Secondly, to inflict hostilities on France, 
 and prevent her settlement of her own institutions, 
 in order that ours might not be exposed to danger, 
 was a policy as unjust and wicked as it was likely 
 to be costly and calamitous. 
 
 A far wiser policy for Great Britain in 1793 
 
 * Alison, Vol. IV., p. 7. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 57 
 
 would have been a firm and liberal administration 
 of domestic affairs, and a powerful armed neutrality 
 in foreign affairs. We should thus have avoided 
 the taint of the ambitious projects, the despotic 
 theories, the perfidy, and the covetousness of the 
 decrepid governments of the continent of Europe. 
 
 Let us observe the circumstances favourable to 
 such a policy, and all the evils wantonly incurred by 
 following an opposite course. The means of carrying 
 on a maritime war on the part of England were in 
 1793 far superior to those of France. The flag of 
 France had at that time nearly disappeared from the 
 seas. The French navy, at the commencement of 
 the war, consisted of 82 ships of the line, and 77 
 frigates, besides smaller ships of war ; Great Britain, 
 on the other hand, had 129 ships of the line fit for 
 sea, besides 24 guard-ships, and 100 frigates : 90 of 
 each class were speedily put in commission.* The 
 victory of the 1st of June, gained by Lord Howe, 
 speedily showed that Britannia still ruled the waves, 
 and that, if she had chosen in 1793 the character and 
 conduct of an armed neutrality, she would have saved 
 treasure beyond counting and lives beyond price. 
 
 In contrast to her naval superiority, the alliances 
 of England on the Continent displayed weakness, 
 discord, and conflicting pretensions. Austria and 
 Prussia, while affecting great zeal to save Lewis X VI. 
 and put down Jacobin rule in Paris, were far more 
 eager to obtain increase of territory for themselves 
 
 * Alison, Vol. III., p. 378. 
 
58 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 than to save the life of their royal brother, or to 
 arrest the progress of democracy in France. A pro- 
 visional agreement was made at Mayence by which 
 the two great German Powers agreed in principle 
 that an accession of territory obtained by the one 
 should be balanced by an equal share to accrue to 
 the other. But the practical application of this 
 principle was as difficult as it is to make a fair divi- 
 sion of plunder among robbers. Prussia pretended 
 to a large share of Poland ; Austria asked that 
 Prussia should yield Bareith and Anspach in com- 
 pensation. This proposal Prussia at once rejected. 
 A notion of these difficulties may be gathered from 
 the account of a celebrated interview between the 
 King of Prussia and some diplomatic agents of Aus- 
 tria, when the Prussian army had reached the French 
 frontier on its return from the passes of Argonne. 
 
 The King was at Merle, a village close to the gates 
 of Luxemburg, when he received the Austrian 
 envoys, Spielmann, Mercy, and Thugut. Were his 
 thoughts entirely bent on giving freedom to Lewis, 
 on restoring authority in France, and on arresting the 
 rapid progress of democracy, which threatened to 
 destroy social order in Europe ? Far from it : his 
 first thought was how he could procure a larger share 
 of territory for Prussia than was to be annexed to 
 Austria. He therefore rejected at once the cession 
 of Bareith and Anspach, and demanded a larger share 
 of Poland, in case of his raising more than 20,000 
 men for the French war. Spielmann argued that 
 equality in respect to acquisitions had always been 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 59 
 
 laid down as the basis of agreement between the t wo 
 Powers ; how, then, could Prussia ask for a whole 
 Polish province for herself, while Austria, even if 
 she exchanged Belgium for Bavaria, would not 
 obtain the addition of a square mile of territory ? 
 Haugwitz replied that this was * not a war made on 
 the part of two Powers equally endangered : Austria 
 alone was attacked, and if Prussia offered help of 
 her own free will, she was entitled to an indemnity 
 in proportion to her voluntary exertions. ' This,' 
 cried Spielmann, c is something quite new ; this is 
 the grave of all alliances.' Hangwitz produced, in 
 reply, a map of Poland where a large portion of 
 Polish territory, double the size of the portion 
 marked at Mayence, was drawn out in the King 
 of Prussia's own hand, as the new Prussian province 
 of Poland. 
 
 Such was, in fact, as Spielmann said, the grave of 
 the German alliance. The Emperor of Austria and 
 King of Prussia were far more intent on the aggran- 
 disement of their respective states, than on the re- 
 storation of peace and social order in France. But 
 while these two weak monarchs hesitated and 
 squabbled, at one time praying Russia to help them to 
 despoil Poland, and at another time stretching out their 
 hands to grasp money from the British Treasury, the 
 supposed object of the war was forgotten. Francis 
 of Austria cared little for the King and Queen of 
 France, his near relations, provided he could secure 
 the fortresses of Valenciennes and Conde for himself; 
 the King of Prussia, supposed to be the Sovereign in 
 
60 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 Europe the most sincerely intent upon crushing revo- 
 lution, was quite ready to clutch at large subsidies 
 from England, with the alleged design to carry into 
 effect the anti- Jacobin views of Burke ; but when 
 he had got the money he employed it in transporting 
 his army to Poland, and occupying the Polish pro- 
 vinces which he had marked on the map as his own 
 portion of the plunder. 
 
 It is well observed by Machiavel that wicked men 
 fail, not so much from their extreme depravity, as 
 from the hesitations, doubts, and scruples, which 
 beset their course. Catherine of Russia had none of 
 these obstacles in her way : cruelty, treachery, hypo- 
 crisy, greediness, were as undiluted in her public 
 policy as licentiousness in her private life. 
 
 Burke, who wished to see the throne of the 
 Bourbons restored, and Pitt, who was bent on pre- 
 serving Belgium from French aggression, were 
 equally foiled and perplexed at this new com- 
 plexion of affairs. Pitt had great talents as an 
 orator and a rhetorician, but he had none of that 
 genius which shone in every speech and act of 
 Chatham. His inflexible resolution was admirable, 
 and saved England from peril in the dark days of 
 1797, when the Bank could not pay in gold, and the 
 Mutiny of the Nore threatened to deprive the nation 
 of its right arm. But in the crisis of 1793, when France 
 was in a state of frenzy, the determination to refuse 
 any concession in Belgium, and the policy of bribing 
 the Continental Powers to send their armies to de- 
 fend the Low Countries, could produce nothing but 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 61 
 
 discord and disaster. Let us examine a little further 
 the state of that part of the Continent left untouched 
 by the troubles of France. 
 
 Leopold, Emperor of Germany, was a wise and 
 cautious sovereign. As ruler of Tuscany he had 
 promoted freedom of trade, and had made some ad- 
 vances towards religious liberty. In his difficult 
 position as Emperor of Germany, he strove to main- 
 tain peace, declared he would not make war except in 
 defence of his own dominions, and was well inclined 
 to be on friendly terms with France in her new shape 
 as a constitutional monarchy. But at a critical 
 moment Leopold died, and Francis, his successor, was 
 more disposed to follow the footsteps of his rash 
 and ambitious uncle, than those of his cautious and 
 reflecting father. 
 
 Catherine, Empress of Russia, saw very clearly 
 that the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia were beg- 
 gars at her door, and that Poland was a loaf in her 
 hand, to be doled out to the hungry supplicant she 
 might choose to prefer. 
 
 Catherine had no predilections in favour of either 
 monarch : indeed, in politics, as in love, men were her 
 playthings, whom she attracted or repelled, favoured 
 or jilted, as it suited her present convenience or her 
 transient passion. Although she had many lovers, no 
 one ever gained her heart ; although she employed 
 many Ministers, no one ever governed her mind. She 
 nourished the turbulent parties in Poland, and when 
 they imagined they might rely on her support she 
 crushed them, and reduced them to dust. She 
 
62 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 tempted the ambition of the King of Prussia with the 
 bait of a large share of Polish territory, and when 
 he hung back and pretended that no farther partition 
 should take place, she rebuked his pretended unself- 
 ishness with an exposure, of which he did not venture 
 to deny the truth. It was thus that Catherine held 
 with a firm hand the balance between Austria and 
 Prussia. 
 
 On the 28th of November, 1794, the King of Prussia 
 sanctioned a Note, by which he asked for a large terri- 
 tory in Poland, and especially Cracow, as part of the 
 Prussian share in the third partition. The Note con- 
 cluded, 4 If this settlement is not to be obtained, 
 Prussia would prefer the continuance of the arrange- 
 ment of 1793 without any question at all of a new 
 partition of Poland.' 
 
 Austria, on her side, represented to Catherine that 
 Prussia was extortionate in her demands. It was ne- 
 cessary for her safety that her own territory should be 
 enlarged. Thugut declared that Austria had always 
 regretted the partitions of Poland, as injurious to her 
 interests. If such a partition was unavoidable, she 
 must, of course, ask for her own share, that she might 
 not be altogether thrown into the shade by perfidious 
 Prussia. He therefore claimed the country between 
 the Prussian borders, the Pilica, the Vistula, the Bug, 
 Lipsk, and the Russian frontiers. Besides this, he 
 claimed additional compensation, either in a French 
 district, or in the Venetian provinces. # 
 
 Catherine was neither to be cajoled nor coerced into 
 
 * Von Sybel, Vol. IV., p. 166, Perry's Translation. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 63 
 
 giving up her lion's share of Poland. i Take half 
 France,' she said, 'take Venetia, take Turkish lands: 
 we have no objection; but in Poland the Bug must be 
 our frontier.'* 
 
 There was no spirit in Austria to contend against 
 so firm a will. The Empress perceived — indeed she 
 was plainly told — that, provided Prussia were not 
 gratified, the Austrian Court was ready to yield to the 
 utmost desires of Russia. Then Austria gave up her 
 demand of Volhynia, and a treaty was signed at St. 
 Petersburg on January 3, 1795. By this third and 
 final partition, Russia was to receive a country com- 
 prising about 44,500 square miles, Austria somewhat 
 more than 20,000 square miles, Prussia, on condition 
 of her assent and her guarantee of the territory 
 assigned to Russia and Austria, about 16,000 square 
 miles. 
 
 The grasping ambition of Catherine extended to 
 a further project. She wished to erect a Principality 
 of Dacia for a Russian Grand Duke, while Austria 
 was to receive Servia and Bosnia as her share of the 
 spoils of Turkey. 
 
 The Prussian Minister Tauenzien protested against 
 the treaty of partition, and said that unless Cracow 
 and Sendomir remained Prussian provinces the par- 
 tition was impossible, and there was no other course 
 than to leave Poland in the same position she had 
 held since the last rebellion. But the Russian Chan- 
 cellor here intervened, and said, ' The three Courts 
 have acknowledged the partition to be necessary to 
 
 * Von Sybel, Vol. IV., p. 167. 
 
64 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 their self-preservation : Prussia herself was the first 
 to moot the question and to maintain the unavoidable 
 necessity of the measure : Poland is dead and gone 
 for ever, and the dead cannot at pleasure be called 
 to life again.'* Finis Polonice might then truly have 
 been declared. 
 
 The complete subjugation and final partition of 
 Poland had cost Catherine infinite pains. It was not 
 enough to excite internal dissensions; to give Potocki 
 and others hopes of ruling their country, to be 
 thrown away as broken tools when they had served 
 her purpose; it was not enough to cover the whole 
 country with her invincible legions. Beyond all 
 this, it was necessary to obtain the aid of Austria 
 and Prussia, and this aid was not to be obtained if 
 the eyes of those Powers were fixed on Poland alone. 
 4 1 rack my brain/ said Catherine to a confidant, 4 to 
 make the Viennese and Berlin Cabinets interfere in 
 the affairs of France. I should like to see their 
 hands full of business, that my own might be free ; 
 for I have very many unfinished schemes before me, 
 and Austria and Prussia ought to be fully occupied 
 that they may not hinder me.'f 
 
 This occurred at the beginning of the intrigues of 
 the Powers to bring about the third partition. When 
 the treaty of Petersburg was signed, and Poland was 
 doomed to perish, a declaration in more solemn form 
 was made in a Russian memorial to the Government 
 at Berlin. The Empress, it was said, had heard with 
 
 * Von Sybel, Vol. IV., p. 174. f Ibid ; VoL IL > P- 303 - 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 65 
 
 the greatest astonishment the proposition of Prussia 
 to preserve, under certain contingencies, the existence 
 of Poland. This was one of those wishes which 
 might indeed arise in the heart, but the fulfilment of 
 which could not be hoped for, because it was contrary 
 to the nature of things.* Ostermann, her Chan- 
 cellor, to show how much the heart of his Imperial 
 Mistress had been affected by the miseries of Poland, 
 added : c We may boldly affirm that the title of the 
 Empress to her portion of Poland is not the work of 
 a moment, or of chance, but the creation of thirty 
 years of labours, cares, and colossal efforts of every 
 kind ; we may affirm that, in comparison with these, 
 Austria and Prussia have received as an unbought 
 gift all the advantages which they have reaped, and 
 will reap in Poland.' f 
 
 Such was the maze of intrigue, selfishness, treach- 
 ery and hypocrisy in which Great Britain found 
 herself involved while pursuing the task of delivering 
 Europe from the spectre of the French Revolution. 
 The separate aims of Austria and Prussia in the pro- 
 secution of the war complicated every movement, and 
 paralysed every plan of campaign, while Pitt heaped 
 upon them subsidy after subsidy at the cost of the 
 Treasury of Great Britain. 
 
 From the period when Lord Townshend signed 
 the Barrier Treaty the Court of Vienna had felt the 
 obligation of defending Belgium as a burthen and a 
 sacrifice.J At the time of the French Revolution 
 
 * Von Sybel, Vol. IV., p. 178. t Ibid. 
 
 % See Coxe's House of Austria. 
 
6Q The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 Austria was bent upon exchanging the Belgian pro- 
 vinces for Bavaria, and it was said that the Elector 
 was not averse to the bargain. Indeed, some French 
 generals, highly placed, had hinted that France 
 would willingly see the Low Countries in the hands 
 of a king not more powerful than the Elector. 
 
 Pitt, on the other hand, insisted strongly on the 
 defence of Belgium by his allies. But all his repre- 
 sentations, and even his lavish gifts of British money 
 were made in vain. Plans of campaign ending in a 
 march to Paris were proposed, discussed, and aban- 
 doned; victories were gained by the Austrian and 
 Prussian arms leading only to the retreat of the 
 victorious troops; the cause of Lewis was openly 
 abandoned, and the fortresses taken by the Austrians 
 hoisted the Austrian flag. At a later period Russia 
 sent to Belgium General Korsakoff, who reported 
 retreats without battles, nay, even in the moment of 
 victory. i Is it treachery?' said Suboff, a Russian. 
 1 It is not possible for us,' said MarkofF, another 
 Russian, ' to imperil Russian troops in your unfortu- 
 nate war.' 
 
 Pitt, his colleagues and agents, Grenville, Wind- 
 ham, and Malmesbury, were enraged at this be- 
 haviour of the allies. 
 
 In fact, the mismanagement of the war arose not 
 from any want of capacity in the Austrian and 
 German generals to whom the direction of military 
 movements was entrusted, but from the entire want 
 of harmony in the political designs of the allied 
 Cabinets. While the British Treasury was paying 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 67 
 
 50,000£. a month into the Prussian Exchequer in 
 order to secure Brussels and Antwerp against the 
 French, the King of Prussia was intent upon march- 
 ing his army to Posen, and securing his share of the 
 spoils of Poland. While Lord Spencer and Mr. 
 Grenville were writing from Vienna to complain of 
 the want of energy of Thugut, abundant activity was 
 displayed by that Minister in securing for Austria 
 territory in France, or in Bavaria, or in Yenetia, or 
 in Turkey, or anywhere except in the Low Countries, 
 which the British Government wished at any price to 
 defend. 
 
 The fall of a coalition founded on such discordant 
 views was easily to be foreseen. Pitt could at any 
 time obtain loud cheers from his supporters in the 
 House of Commons, and a large majority at the end 
 of every debate. But to resist the enthusiasm of 
 the young Republic of France, and to enable the 
 Duke of York and the Prince of Coburg to defeat 
 the skilful advances of Pichegru, of Hoche, and of 
 Moreau, was far beyond his power. His guineas 
 failed to purchase glory. 
 
 The rapid success of France astounded the polite 
 world of London, of Vienna, and of Berlin, but 
 answered the expectations of all sound thinkers. 
 In 1794, Holland fell before the French advance, and 
 the British troops were hooted on their way to the 
 sea. In 1795, Prussia made a treaty at Basle with 
 the French Republic, yielding the whole left bank of 
 the Rhine, and for eleven years sank into an in- 
 glorious neutrality. In 1799 Austria, repeatedly 
 
 F 2 
 
68 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 defeated in the field, and driven out of Italy by. 
 the marvellous genius of ^Napoleon Bonaparte, signed 
 the treaty of Campo Formio, by which she sur- 
 rendered the Low Countries, which she had long 
 wished to lose, and absorbed the territory of the 
 Venetian Eepublic, which she had long wished to 
 acquire. 
 
 During all this period the French Eepublic had 
 not done otherwise than repeat the lessons which, in 
 the infancy of Rome, had been taught by the people 
 of Rome to the people of Veei. c The people of Veei,' 
 says Machiavel, c believed that by attacking the Ro- 
 mans disunited they should defeat them ; and the 
 attack, on the contrary, caused the union of the 
 Romans, and their own ruin. . . . And so for 
 the future will be deceived whoever, in a similar way, 
 and for a similar cause, shall think to oppress a 
 nation. ' * 
 
 As Rome in her vigorous infancy strangled the 
 serpents which invaded her cradle, so France in her 
 luxurious old age grasped her weapons and drove off 
 the robbers who sought to rifle her. 
 
 At length, but not till after Pitt's death, the 
 nations of Europe, tormented by the exactions, op- 
 pressed by the despotism, and enraged by the 
 insolence of France, rose in resistance, and vin- 
 dicated their rights to independence. Had Pitt 
 waited for that time, he might have lived to see 
 Spain achieve her wished -for vengeance against her 
 cruel invader ; Germany combine by a glorious 
 
 * Machiavel, Discorsi. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 69 
 
 effort of patriotism and virtue ; Holland recall 
 the House of Orange ; and his own country, 
 England, triumphant at Salamanca, Vittoria, and 
 Waterloo. Yet who can wonder that England, upon 
 seeing that her debt had been increased from 240 
 to 900 millions, and her hands bound by so many 
 coalitions in support of vicious and selfish Courts, 
 should turn with disgust from continental alliances, 
 and even doubt the obligation of fulfilling solemn 
 treaties ? 
 
 Such being the general view which I take of the 
 Great Eevolutionary War, I think it may interest 
 those who study the historical events of past times 
 to look back to some particular periods which between 
 1792 and 1815 attract attention from special circum- 
 stances, or from their bearing on the present and 
 future state of Europe. 
 
 A treaty between England, Prussia, and Holland 
 was negotiated and signed at the Hague in May 1794, 
 By this treaty England agreed to pay, in conjunction 
 with the Dutch Kepubiic, 50,000/. a-month, on cer- 
 tain conditions, to the King of Prussia. But as the 
 King of Prussia, intent upon aggrandisement in 
 Poland, entirely failed to comply with those con- 
 ditions, Pitt, full of indignation, gave orders that 
 no further instalments of the subsidy should be 
 paid. On October 25, 1794, Baron Hardenberg 
 delivered a note to Lord Malmesbury, by which he 
 declared that his royal master considered this sus- 
 pension of payment as a rupture of the Treaty of the 
 Hague, and should no further trouble himself with 
 
70 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 its provisions. Upon this abrupt declaration, Lord 
 Malmesbury wrote to Lord Grenville : — 
 
 I should feel myself undeserving of any indulgence if I 
 could impute to myself the failure of this great measure ; but 
 no experience, nor habits of business, no prudence, nor care, 
 can read so deep into the human mind as to foresee that a 
 great Sovereign and his Ministers would be so regardless of 
 their personal honour, and so forgetful of their public in- 
 terests and glory as to refuse to be bound in June by a 
 Treaty, ratified with their full consent and approbation in 
 
 But while Prussia was acting with so much perfidy, 
 and Austria with so much selfishness, Pitt induced 
 the House of Commons to gorge both Powers with 
 extravagant subsidies, and successfully loaded his 
 rival with reproaches for his consistent and unex- 
 tinguishable love of peace. Mr. Cobden says with 
 true and honourable admiration : — 
 
 It is impossible to read the speeches of Fox, at this time, 
 without feeling one's heart yearn with admiration and grati- 
 tude for the bold and resolute manner in which he opposed 
 the war, never yielding and never repining, under the most 
 discouraging defeats ; and although deserted by many of his 
 friends in the House, taunted with having only a score of 
 followers left, and obliged to admit that he could not walk 
 the streets without being insulted, by hearing the charge 
 made against him of carrying on an improper correspondence 
 with the enemy in France, yet bearing it all with uncom- 
 plaining manliness and dignity. The annals of Parliament 
 do not record a nobler struggle in a nobler cause, f 
 
 * Diaries and Correspondence of the Earl of Malmesbury, Vol. 
 III., p. 243. 
 
 \ Cobden's Political Writings, Vol. I ., p. 415, 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 71 
 
 In the month of May 1794 Lord Elgin asked 
 Thugut whether the Emperor would not send fresh 
 troops to Belgium to follow up the successes which 
 the allies had already gained. Thugut replied that 
 no fresh troops would be sent, and added that it was 
 very doubtful whether the possession of the Nether- 
 lands were worth any further efforts on the part of 
 Austria. Lord Elgin, not a little surprised, said that 
 in that case England would have to confine herself to 
 the protection of Holland. Thugut replied coolly 
 that such a course would be the right one, and that 
 no better measure could be adopted than the imme- 
 diate evacuation of the Netherlands. This answer 
 astonished Lord Elgin, and when reported in London, 
 made the British Ministers very indignant. Some 
 soothing expressions were then used, but no long 
 time elapsed before the Emperor returned to Vienna, 
 and gave orders for the total evacuation of the Aus- 
 trian Netherlands by his troops. In fact the eyes of 
 the Austrian Court were directed, not to Brussels 
 and Antwerp, but to Cracow ; nor was the prevailing 
 feeling of Vienna one of horror at the Erench mas- 
 sacres, but one of jealousy at Prussian conquests in 
 Poland. Indeed, some Austrian agents spoke with 
 complacency of peace with France, then under the 
 sole guidance of Robespierre. 
 
 Nor was the British Government entirely disin- 
 terested in its policy, or in its direction of the con- 
 duct of the war. Sir Archibald Alison speaks in the 
 following terms of the siege of Dunkirk, undertaken 
 at Mr. Pitt's express desire : — 
 
72 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 If the conduct of the allies had been purposely intended 
 to develop the formidable military strength which had grown 
 up in the French Republic, they could not have adopted 
 measures better calculated to effect their object than were 
 actually pursued. Four months of success, which might 
 have been rendered decisive, had been followed by the most 
 blameable inactivity. After having broken the frontier line 
 of fortresses, and defeated the covering army of France in a 
 pitched battle, when within fifteen marches of Paris, and at 
 the head of a splendid army of a hundred and thirty thou- 
 sand effective men, after fully providing for their communi- 
 cations, they thought fit to separate their forces, and instead 
 of pushing on to the centre of the Republican power, pursue 
 independent plans of aggrandisement. The British, with 
 their allies, amounting to above thirty-five thousand men, 
 moved towards Dunkirk, so long the object of their mari- 
 time jealousy, while forty-five thousand of the Imperialists 
 sat down before Quesnoy, and the remainder of their vast 
 army was broken into detachments to preserve the communi- 
 cations. 
 
 From this ruinous division may be dated all the subse- 
 quent disasters of the campaign. Had they held together, 
 and pushed on vigorously against the masses of the enemy's 
 forces, now severely weakened and depressed by defeat, there 
 cannot be a doubt that the object of the war would have 
 been gained. The decrees for levying the population en 
 masse were not passed by the Convention for some weeks 
 afterwards, and the forces they produced were not organised 
 for three months. The mighty genius of Carnot had not 
 as yet assumed the helm of affairs ; the Committee of Public 
 Salvation had not hitherto acquired its terrible energy ; 
 everything promised great results to vigorous and simul- 
 taneous operations. It was a resolution of the British 
 Cabinet, in opposition to the declared and earnest wish of 
 Cobourg and all the allied generals, which occasioned this 
 fatal division. The impartial historian must confess with a 
 sigh, that it was British interests which here interfered with 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 73 
 
 the great objects of the war, and that by compelling her 
 contingent to separate for the siege of Dunkirk, Great 
 Britain largely contributed to postpone for a long period, 
 its glorious termination. Posterity has had ample room to 
 lament the error : a war of twenty years, deeply checkered 
 with disaster, the addition of six hundred millions to the 
 public debt, the sacrifice of millions of brave men, may be 
 in a great degree traced to this unhappy resolution. For its 
 adoption, on selfish grounds, Britain is still suffering a just 
 punishment.' * 
 
 It may well be doubted whether the author is right 
 in supposing that if the allies had pushed on in one 
 body the object of the war would have been attained. 
 But there can be no doubt that when the allied 
 Powers, instead of placing before their eyes the 
 liberation of Lewis, the integrity of the French 
 monarchy, and the restoration of order, fixed their 
 minds on the aggrandisement of Austria and Prus- 
 sia, the subjugation of Poland, and the protection 
 of English trade by the capture of Dunkirk, they 
 gave intense force to the motives of Frenchmen for 
 resisting the arms of the Coalition. Every Royalist 
 felt that the advance of the Austrian frontier to the 
 Somme, and the restoration of Alsace to Germany 
 were not objects for which he would fight with en- 
 thusiasm, or rejoice at if attained. 
 
 In fact, the prolongation of the war from 1795 to 
 1801 had no sufficient cause. The fury of the 
 Jacobin democracy had greatly subsided, and, on the 
 other hand, Pitt had no reasonable prospect of 
 
 * Alison's Hist, of Europe , Vol. III., jjp. G4 and 65. 
 
74 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 rescuing Belgium or even Holland from the French. 
 When, therefore, he was freed from the pride and ob- 
 stinacy of his colleague, Lord Grenville, he willingly 
 lent his aid to Mr. Addington to put an end to the 
 war, and in Parliament heartily supported the peace 
 of Amiens, which he had privately promoted.* But 
 the feverish ambition of Bonaparte would not rest 
 satisfied with the supremacy he had acquired in 
 France. Mr. Addington on his side, instead of plainly 
 saying that the treatment of Holland and Switzerland 
 was unbearable, and if extended to other parts of 
 Europe would make war inevitable, refused to fulfil the 
 conditions of the definitive Treaty of Amiens, and thus 
 put himself in the wrong in form if not in substance. 
 Napoleon hoped on this occasion to have the Conti- 
 nent on his side ; but the Powers clearly saw that their 
 danger lay on the side of France, and not on that of 
 England : they therefore speedily gave their sympathy 
 and their hopes to Great Britain, f 
 
 It is not necessary to record here the splendid tri- 
 umphs of Austerlitz, of Jena, and of Wagram. The 
 battle of Austerlitz was the knell of the dying Pitt. 
 Many errors, and much ignorance of the Continent 
 had marked the close of his career ; his former financial 
 skill and caution were sacrificed to public extravagance 
 and waste ; in his latter years he threw aside, in com- 
 pliance with the King's insanity, the assistance he 
 might have derived from Fox and Grey, Windham 
 and Spencer. These were faults and failings, but, in 
 
 * Diaries of the Earl of Malmesbury, 
 f See Thiers' Le Consulat et V Empire. 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 75 
 
 spite of all, he had a soul devoted to the welfare of 
 his country ; he was above every mean and sordid 
 passion ; he gave his life to his duty, and if not wise 
 in his means, he was always noble in his ends. 
 
 The keen sagacity of Lord Wellesley saw clearly 
 that a passion for glory and for power so insatiable as 
 that of Napoleon, even when guided by his astounding 
 abilities both for war and administration, could not 
 always be successful, and must in the end lead to a 
 catastrophe. The conquest of Spain roused the pride 
 of that noble and fallen people to a degree of hatred 
 and energy which did not seem to be in them. I re- 
 member seeing, in 1808, the young and florid Mata- 
 rosa, afterwards Count Toreno, and the dark olive- 
 coloured Arguelles at a breakfast at Lady Spencer's, 
 at Wimbledon. Their appearance as delegates from 
 Asturias, to implore the aid of England to throw off 
 the yoke of Napoleon excited general sympathy. 
 The Spanish peasant bore in his scrip the pebble 
 by which the Goliath of Europe was to be 
 struck. 
 
 The next cause of the fall of Napoleon was the 
 attempted conquest of Russia. 
 
 England had now two allies who were in earnest, 
 and who would not shrink from the contest till it was 
 won. The extraordinary military talents of the Duke 
 of Wellington made Spain and Portugal successful ; 
 the determination of the Russian people overcame the 
 hosts of the greatest general of the age. The Duke 
 of Wellington was of opinion that if the autumn of 
 1812, instead of being prematurely cold, had been of 
 
76 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 average mildness, the great army of Napoleon would 
 have been more surely and more completely de- 
 stroyed.* I leave that opinion to skilful strategists 
 to discuss. 
 
 When, after Leipzig, the Austrian, Prussian, and 
 Eussian armies arrived on the banks of the Rhine, they 
 put forth a proclamation remarkable for the modera- 
 tion and magnanimity of its tone. They acknowledged 
 the valour and previous successes of the French army. 
 
 s The allies/ they affirm, ' do not make war on France, 
 but on that preponderance which, to the misfortune of 
 Europe and of France, the Emperor Napoleon has long 
 exercised beyond the limits of France. They desire that 
 France should be powerful and happy; that commerce 
 should revive and the arts flourish; that its territory 
 should preserve an extent unknown under its ancient 
 kings ; because the French power, great and strong, is, 
 in Europe, one of the fundamental bases of the social edi- 
 fice ; because a great people can only be tranquil so long 
 as they are happy ; because a brave nation is not to 
 be regarded as overthrown because in its turn it has ex- 
 perienced reverses in an obstinate and bloody struggle in 
 which it has fought with its accustomed valour. But the 
 allied powers wish themselves also to be tranquil and happy 
 — they wish a state of peace which, by a wise division of 
 power, by a just balance, may hereafter preserve their 
 people from the calamities without number which for twenty 
 years have oppressed Europe. 'f 
 
 Had the just balance here spoken of included the 
 people of Italy and Germany, as well as the Sove- 
 reigns ; and had the ruler of France not attempted 
 
 * MS. Letter to Lord Dalhousie. 
 j- Declaration of Frankfort, 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 11 
 
 again to extend her preponderance beyond her 
 stipulated limits, peace might have been long un- 
 shaken. 
 
 Unhappily it was not Fox, or Grey, or Canning, 
 but Lord Castlereagh who presided over the new 
 distribution of Europe. It seemed to be a main ob- 
 ject with the military monarchies of Europe to extin- 
 guish republics. Holland, our old ally, who had 
 been one of the first victims of the democratic rob- 
 beries of the French Convention, became a monarchy 
 under the House of Orange. Yenice was annexed to 
 Austria, Genoa to Piedmont. But besides these 
 triumphs of monarchy, the Northern Powers, or Holy 
 Alliance, proclaimed as an eternal truth that innova- 
 tions which came from below could produce nothing 
 but discord and ruin, whereas if they came from 
 above they would be fertile in harmony and happi- 
 ness. In pursuance of this political dogma Piedmont, 
 Naples and Spain were restored to darkness and 
 despotism. But the Revolution of France in 1830, 
 and the fall of the Tory supremacy in England, which 
 likewise occurred in 1830, changed the aspect of two 
 of the chief and most enlightened countries of Europe. 
 By degrees, or rather by fits and starts, Italy and 
 Spain shook off the degrading yoke under which they 
 had long groaned, and Belgium, under the auspices of 
 Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston, became a free and 
 neutral country. England and France, Spain and 
 Portugal made a quadruple alliance to establish and 
 maintain what was wrongly supposed to be the liberal 
 dynasty of Queen Isabella. Italy, under the wise 
 
78 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 government of Count Cavour, and with the help of a 
 French army, threw off the chains of Austria. It 
 cost England little effort to prevent the ruler of 
 France from saving the Bourbon Dynasty of Naples. 
 Garibaldi conquered Naples, and Victor Emanuel, 
 the heir and representative of the House of Savoy 
 became King of Italy. The event was happy, and 
 the Italian people, guiltless of excesses, and moderate 
 in the enjoyment of their new-found liberty, proved 
 themselves worthy of union and freedom. Some 
 of the advanced Liberals and the greater part of 
 the press of England believed that Italy was in- 
 capable of union and unworthy of liberty. But 
 the Government of Lord Palmerston never de- 
 spaired. 
 
 A greater work than the union of Italy, and one 
 threatening not only the supremacy of Austria, but 
 the military primacy of France in Europe, remained 
 to be accomplished. The sagacity of Count Cavour, 
 and his patient achievement of a difficult task in the 
 midst of obstacles and interruptions, had their parallel 
 in a German statesman. While Austria blundered 
 and Denmark outraged the feelings of Germans, 
 Count Bismarck saw his way to that height of power 
 which he has now so successfully reached. 
 
 The first provocation to the impulse of German 
 patriotism came from Denmark. An exclusive nar- 
 row-minded Danish ministry, assisted by some shreds 
 and patches of English parties, attempted to convert 
 the German inhabitants of Sleswig into Danes ; to 
 deprive them of the ministrations of clergymen of 
 
The Foreign Policy of England, 79 
 
 their own nationality, and to drive their children from 
 the common schools in which they had been accus- 
 tomed to learn their letters in the language of their 
 fathers. The excitement in Germany was deep, but 
 it did not at once burst into flame. For twelve years 
 the smouldering fire lay beneath the ashes, growing 
 hotter and hotter, till tradesmen and soldiers, philo- 
 sophers and ministers of state were burning with 
 resentment, sympathy and indignation. 
 
 The British Government tried in various ways to 
 conduct the lightning, and carry off harmlessly the 
 storm which they foresaw. An attempt at conciliation 
 between Germany and Denmark had nearly proved 
 successful. Founded on a concession to Sleswig of 
 full autonomy, and a concert of the four parts of the 
 kingdom in making provision for extraordinary ex- 
 penses, this plan obtained the assent of Austria and 
 Prussia, and of such men as M. Quaade, the most 
 calm and judicious of Danish statesmen. Denmark 
 would thus have obtained the integrity of her domi- 
 nions which five great Powers had declared to be de- 
 sirable ; France was ready to give her assent, and the 
 Germans of Sleswig would have had spiritual minis- 
 trations for themselves and competent German 
 teachers for their children. 
 
 It pleased some English advisers of great influence 
 to meddle in this affair; they were successful in 
 thwarting the British Government, and in the end, 
 with the professed view, and perhaps the real inten- 
 tion, of helping Denmark, their friendship tended to 
 deprive her of Holstein and Sleswig altogether. 
 
80 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 It is true that Germany, so long as there was a 
 hope of arresting the oppressions of the Danish 
 Ministry had no just cause for going to war. It 
 could not be denied, indeed, that these were very 
 grievous: the British Government had asked as a 
 moderate concession that German proprietors in 
 Sleswig should be allowed to employ private tutors 
 for their children ; but the Danes refused to allow 
 two or more families to employ one teacher ; each 
 family was forced to maintain a separate tutor. 
 This restriction on families of moderate means was 
 very grievous and injurious. 
 
 Still the British Government held on. Lord Kim- 
 berley was sent to Copenhagen to induce the Danish 
 Cabinet not to absorb Sleswig, in spite of treaties 
 and promises, into the Danish monarchy. 
 
 There was something rotten in the state of Denmark. 
 Five Powers — France, Russia, Prussia, Austria, 
 and England — had promised to acknowledge under 
 the then heir to the Crown the integrity of the 
 Danish Monarchy. Of these five, Prussia and Aus- 
 tria were hostile ; France and Russia, while they 
 acknowledged the King of Denmark, were indifferent ; 
 England alone sincerely endeavoured to fulfil her pro- 
 mise. Denmark still refused to comply with her 
 own repeated engagements to the German Powers. 
 Yet it must not be supposed that the German Powers 
 were compelled to embrace war as the only remedy 
 left to them. Ambition mingled largely with their 
 motives. Sleswig was a convenient possession; 
 Kiel a harbour well worth having. That German 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 81 
 
 enthusiasm was not excited solely by sympathy for 
 the wrongs of their persecuted and oppressed country- 
 men, has been clearly proved by recent events. The 
 Lutherans of Livonia and the German provinces on 
 the Baltic coast have suffered persecutions more 
 severe than those inflicted by the Danes in Sleswig. 
 But those provinces are barren, and in the posses- 
 sion of a powerful ally. The consequence has been 
 that Germans have seen the ill-usage of the Lutheran 
 subjects of Eussia in silence. 
 
 Lord Palmerston used to say that in certain cases 
 a State was bound to make war ; in certain other 
 cases a State had a right to make war. One of the 
 former is where a guarantee has been given ; one of 
 the latter where title and possession have been re- 
 cognised by treaty. 
 
 The Danish treaty fell under the latter category. 
 
 It thus became a grave question for Lord Palmer- 
 ston's Cabinet whether, if they could obtain a binding 
 stipulation from Denmark in favour of her German 
 subjects, they should advise the Queen to offer to the 
 King of Denmark naval and military aid for his 
 defence. 
 
 The Cabinet, after much deliberation, decided that 
 in the case supposed they should offer to assist 
 Denmark by force only in case France would join in 
 an alliance for that purpose. 
 
 Although somewhat reluctant at the time to insist 
 upon that condition, I am fully persuaded it was a 
 condition not only wise but absolutely essential. 
 Lord Palmerston was convinced that it would be 
 
 G 
 
82 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 inexcusable to rush into a war against the whole of 
 Germany, inflamed and excited, without the security 
 of a substantial alliance. 
 
 France would have furnished us that alliance. 
 Had England and France guaranteed the performance 
 by Denmark of her own solemn engagements, Prussia 
 and Austria would have had no case for war; had 
 they entered upon it, the military forces of France 
 and England, the naval forces of England and France, 
 would have been a powerful assistance to Denmark. 
 
 The Emperor of the French twice rejected this 
 proposal. At this time he favoured the cause of the 
 nationalities. For his own sake, it is to be regretted 
 that he ever adopted that cause, or that, doing so, 
 he did not respect it in 1870. 
 
 A further attempt at pacification was made at the 
 Conference of London. But Denmark, with a small 
 army, and guns which could not reach the Prussian 
 army, was confident in her own power of resistance 
 to the end. She declined the good offices of the 
 neutral Powers, and fell a victim to her blindness. 
 Lord Palmerston, by a happy suggestion, saved her 
 from the probable destruction of her capital. 
 
 In the war of 1866 Lord Derby, then Prime 
 Minister, prudently declined to interfere. German 
 patriots had long desired to exclude Austria from 
 Germany ; by the treaty of Prague she was excluded 
 both from Germany and Italy. 
 
 It was now obvious that Germany was one day to 
 be united under the Hohenzollerns. The process 
 might have been slow, might have been peaceable ; 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 83 
 
 the Imperial Government of France, hurried on by 
 a packed Assembly, decided that the stream should 
 be a torrent, and a torrent mingled with blood. 
 
 The marvellous scene has passed so lately before 
 our eyes that it is needless to recall its promi- 
 nent parts. But there are some grave matters 
 for reflection which have hardly attracted due at- 
 tention. 
 
 The extreme futility of the pretences for a declara- 
 tion of war put forth by the French Government 
 seem almost to have escaped from memory. The 
 first announcement was that the King of Prussia had 
 allowed a member of the House of Hohenzollern to 
 be a candidate for the throne of Spain, and that 
 France must go to war. Then it was known that 
 the King of Prussia had induced the Prince of 
 Hohenzollern to withdraw his son's name as a can- 
 didate. Next it appeared that the French Am- 
 bassador had urged the King of Prussia to declare 
 that at no time and in no circumstances should Prince 
 Leopold of Hohenzollern be a candidate for the 
 throne of Spain. The King, having declined to make 
 this degrading declaration, the French Ambassador 
 demanded another audience. The King naturally 
 asked whether he had any new request to make, and 
 when the Ambassador said he wished only to argue 
 again in favour of his former proposal, the King said 
 in effect, c If you have only the same proposal to 
 make to which I have already given an answer, you 
 had better speak to my Ministers.' This was the 
 grave insult which the blood of a million of men was 
 
 . G 2 
 
84 The Foreign Policy of England, 
 
 to revenge. Such was the absurd frivolity of the 
 French pretexts for war. 
 
 It had been understood that the French Govern- 
 ment took no interest in the choice of a successor to 
 the Spanish throne. Had it been otherwise, the 
 Emperor of the French might fairly have proposed 
 that the five great Powers of Europe should forbid 
 any member of their reigning families to accept the 
 crown of Spain* All the Powers, and Prussia among 
 the rest, would in all probability have assented to 
 so equitable an agreement. 
 
 War having been declared on these shallow pre- 
 texts, and M. Rouher having boasted in the name of 
 the Senate of the preparations which four years 
 of unceasing vigilance had enabled the Emperor to 
 complete, it was found, when the war broke out, 
 that instead of 250,000 men, only 140,000 could be 
 placed on the frontier of France ; that the commis- 
 sariat was defective, the transport defective, the stra- 
 tegy defective, the tactics defective. This proved 
 little more than the fact that the Emperor, though a 
 man of sense and prudence, had not that marvellous 
 genius, which had put his uncle on a par with 
 Alexander and Caesar, and made him superior, 
 in point of talents, to any other man who had 
 undertaken to lead mankind in the field and in the 
 Cabinet. 
 
 Still, had the bulk of the French forces retired on 
 Paris, and occupied the forts of the capital, it is 
 doubtful whether the German legions could have 
 overcome a well disciplined and numerous garrison 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 85 
 
 ready to make sallies day after day on any point to 
 which they might be directed. 
 
 But neither General Trochu nor any other man 
 could hope to create a new army, and to fling a body 
 of recruits against the veteran hosts of Germany with 
 any chance of success. It became a question of skill 
 and patience, and in that contest General Moltke had 
 no competitor. 
 
 The French having failed in their unjust aggression, 
 bethought themselves of deposing their sovereign, 
 arid making a mob revolution in favour of a small 
 minority of the representatives of the people. The 
 ruin which the Empire had begun, the Republic 
 completed. Before the siege of Paris commenced, 
 when the prospects of France were most cloudy, 
 when the catastrophe of Sedan had taken place, 
 when Strasburg and Metz were bending to capitula- 
 tion, Count Bismarck and M. Jules Favre met at 
 Ferrieres. Count Bismarck proposed an armistice, 
 and, without laying down terms of peace, intimated 
 that Germany would expect the cession of Alsace 
 and a part of Lorraine. M. Jules Favre thundered, 
 on the other side, ' Not an inch of our territory, not 
 a stone of our fortresses.' 
 
 It appeared to me that Count Bismarck's suggestions 
 were moderate and reasonable. I did not conceal my 
 opinion; my friends, some of them members of the 
 Government, were well aware of it. One of our 
 weekly newspapers alluded to my opinion as that of 
 an old-fashioned politician. My judgment was 
 founded, however, not on the treaties of old times, 
 
86 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 or on the precedents of Napoleon's days of conquest, 
 but on a calm comparison of the existing means of 
 France, with her young undisciplined forces, opposed 
 to the admirable legions of artillery, infantry, and 
 cavalry led by German Princes and German Generals. 
 The daily lies poured into the ear of France, the 
 boast that no German soldier would escape alive 
 from French valour, the restless energy of Citizen 
 Gambetta, seemed to me all to portend such a 
 treaty of peace as the Government of M. Thiers 
 has signed. 
 
 But a kind of political romance at this time seized 
 upon the minds of the English people. 
 
 The idea that appeared to pervade the popular or- 
 gans of opinion and a liberal 4 Review' was that we were 
 approaching a golden age when, if war could not be 
 altogether prevented, cessions of territory were never 
 to be made or allowed. One very able newspaper 
 quietly suggested that England, after forcing Ger- 
 many to be content without an inch of French terri- 
 tory, should next turn round upon France and go to 
 war to prevent her acquisition of the left bank of the 
 Rhine. In the words of a Spanish orator, I should 
 be disposed to say, c These are dreams — dreams of a 
 good man — but still dreams.' 
 
 To come down from these Saturnian skies, it must, 
 I think, be admitted that, Germany having prevailed 
 in the war, it was for her to lay down terms of peace, 
 and for France to reject or accept them, under pain, 
 if they were rejected, of a continuance of the war. 
 Count Bismarck's calculation, founded on his know- 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 87 
 
 ledge of the opinions and wishes of Germany, seemed 
 to be that France defeated would be sure to pant for 
 revenge, and that the best way of either preventing 
 her from going to war, or repelling her attack 
 successfully if she could not be held back, was to 
 add Strasburg and other fortresses to Landau, and 
 to hold Alsace and part of Lorraine as German 
 territory. 
 
 The Emperor of the New German Confederation is 
 a man of military honour ; his son, the Crown Prince, 
 is distinguished no less for his abhorrence of war, and 
 civil virtue, than for valour and conduct in the field 
 of battle. Such was the guarantee of peace. 
 
 On the other hand, the attachment of the Alsatians 
 to France was held to be inextinguishable, and the 
 junction of Alsace to Germany was glibly compared 
 with the union of Venice to Austria. 
 
 Of Venice, peopled by Romans, or Eomanised 
 Italians, who fled from Alaric in the fifth century, 
 and who, till the end of the eighteenth, had re- 
 mained attached to Italy ? Of Alsace, which was 
 so German that when it was joined to France 
 Lewis XIV. offered to make himself a member of 
 the German Confederation in order to qualify him- 
 self to hold it? Of Alsace, where the sons of the 
 peasantry were obliged by law to go to school in 
 order that they might by compulsion learn French? 
 Of Alsace, which even now is preparing to relin- 
 quish its French habits, and learn the lesson of 
 German nationality? 
 
 Really, these ideas are too absurd. 
 
88 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 In the midst of all this hubbub Lord Granville 
 preserved the even tenor of his way, and pursued 
 the steady path of neutrality, without bending to the 
 right hand or to the left. The despatch to St. 
 Petersburg of October 16 was a mistake, but the 
 attempt to mitigate Germany's exactions of money, 
 however unlikely to succeed, was honourable and 
 praiseworthy. The reputation of Lord Granville as 
 Foreign Minister was raised by his maintenance of 
 peace with dignity and honour. 
 
 And now? What is the change effected? What 
 are we to expect ? 
 
 It may be said, in answer, that nothing has hap- 
 pened which ought to surprise us. As the nations 
 of Europe grew in strength, and as they became 
 united under a firm authority, they extended their 
 power, and made themselves formidable to their 
 neighbours. The process has gone on from the 
 fifteenth to the nineteenth century. When Ferdinand 
 and Isabella had united Castile and Aragon, and by 
 their combined arms conquered the last Moorish king- 
 dom of Spain, they aimed at supremacy in Europe. 
 When Charles Y. became Emperor of Germany, and 
 extended his dominions from Flanders, Milan and 
 Naples to Mexico and Peru, his supremacy was con- 
 firmed, and the Spanish Tercios were acknowledged 
 to be the finest troops in Europe. When France 
 had settled her government, subduing her rebellious 
 princes and factious nobles, the spirit of Conde 
 and the charge of the French chivalry overthrew 
 the Spanish armies, weakened by civil and spiritual 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 89 
 
 despotism. For centuries France fought England 
 and divided Germany. Cardinal Richelieu always 
 sought by intrigue and bold policy to win over to 
 French interests the weaker princes and more power- 
 ful nobles. According to Montesquieu, he taught 
 Austria the secret of her weakness, and France the 
 secret of her strength. When Napoleon as First 
 Consul was about to make war on Germany, he said 
 to a political adherent, 4 1 know I cannot make France 
 stronger than she is, but I can make her enemies 
 weaker.' 
 
 The empire of Napoleon was dissolved by excess 
 of ambition ; the Sovereigns of Europe allied at 
 Frankfort and in London gave back to a Bourbon 
 king the territories of the old monarchy. Only 
 two conditions were virtually annexed to this re- 
 storation of the France of 1790. In 1818 all the 
 Powers agreed at Aix-la-Chapelle that the family 
 of Napoleon should not be restored to the throne. 
 It was implied that the boundaries of 1814 and 
 1815 should not be passed. In 1851-2 the first 
 of these conditions was dispensed with by the con- 
 sent of Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Rus- 
 sia. On the other hand, Napoleon III. agreed to 
 be bound by existing treaties, and during several 
 years appeared to adhere to the spirit of this con- 
 dition. The annexation of Savoy and Nice was 
 the first open violation of it. Gradually the treaties 
 of 1815 were more and more openly denounced, and 
 were declared to be objects of detestation to the 
 French Sovereign. The path of peace, the pursuit 
 
90 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 of trade and of national wealth, which had been 
 wisely followed, the counsels of England, which 
 had been accepted, were abandoned, and the pro- 
 ject of making France secure by the conquest of 
 the fortresses on the left bank of the Rhine was 
 ostentatiously proclaimed. Thus the whole compact 
 of 1815 was violently broken, and had Germany been 
 placed in any real danger it would have been the duty 
 of England and of Russia to have armed in her be- 
 half. But Nemesis was not sleeping, nor was Prussia. 
 On the 13th of July the French Government pro- 
 claimed war in the Legislative Body; on the 3rd of 
 August the battle of Weissenberg was fought by the 
 Crown Prince of Prussia on French territory. Sedan, 
 Strasburg, Metz, and Paris completed what Weissen- 
 berg had begun. The sceptre, or rather the sword 
 of Europe has passed from the arm of France, to be 
 wielded by the arm of Germany. She has completed 
 by war a process which France had not the smallest 
 right to interrupt. 
 
 But more remains. 
 
 The account of Prussia and France is thus given 
 by Col. Stoffen, a French military attache at 
 Berlin : — 
 
 Again, looking at the moral condition of the contending 
 countries, one cannot but admit that Prussia is not only the 
 more cautious and the more vigilant of the two, but that 
 her people are also the most highly educated and disciplined 
 in the world. Who that has lived here (Berlin) will deny 
 that the Prussians are energetic, patriotic, and teeming with 
 youthful vigour; that they are not corrupted by sensual 
 pleasures, but are manly, have earnest convictions, do not 
 
The Foreign Policy of England. 91 
 
 think it beneath them to reverence sincerely what is noble 
 and lofty ? What a melancholy contrast does France offer 
 in all this ! Having sneered at everything, she has lost the 
 faculty of respecting anything. Virtue, family life, patriot- 
 ism, honour, religion, are represented to a frivolous gener- 
 ation as fitting subjects of ridicule. The theatres have 
 become schools of shamelessness and obscenity. Drop by 
 drop poison is instilled into the very core of an ignorant and 
 enervated society, which has neither the insight nor the 
 energy left to amend its institutions, nor — which would be 
 the most necessary step to take — to become better informed 
 or more moral. One after the other the fine qualities of the 
 nation are dying out. Where is the generosity, the loyalty, 
 the charm of our esprit, and our former elevation of soul ? 
 If this goes on, the time will come when this noble race of 
 France will be known only by its faults. And France 
 has no idea that while she is sinking more earnest na- 
 tions are stealing a march upon her, are distancing her on 
 the road to progress, and are preparing for her a secondary 
 
 position in the world I should wish some enlightened 
 
 and unprejudiced Frenchmen to come to Prussia and make 
 this country their study. They would soon discover that 
 they were living in the midst of a strong, earnest, and intel- 
 ligent nation, entirely destitute, it is true, of all noble and 
 delicate feelings, of all fascinating charms, but endowed with 
 every solid virtue, and alike distinguished for untiring in- 
 dustry, order, and economy, as well as for patriotism, a 
 strong sense of duty, and that consciousness of personal 
 dignity which in their case is so happily blended with res- 
 pect for authority and obedience to the law. They would 
 see a country with firm, sound and moral institutions, whose 
 upper classes are worthy of their rank, and by possessing 
 the highest degree of culture, devoting themselves to the 
 service of the State, and setting an example of patriotism, 
 know how to preserve the influence legitimately their own. 
 They would find a State with an excellent administration, 
 where everything is in its right place, and where the most 
 
92 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 admirable order prevails in every branch of the social and 
 political system. Prussia may be well compared to a mas- 
 sive structure of lofty proportions and astounding solidity, 
 which, though it has nothing to delight the eye or speak to 
 the heart, cannot but impress us with its grand symmetry, 
 equally observable in its broad foundations as in the strong 
 and sheltering roof. 
 
 After reading this description, can anyone wonder 
 at the result? The Almighty Maker of heaven and 
 earth has not ill-bestowed His gifts. If He has 
 made man, in possession of freedom of will, liable 
 to yield to temptation and subject to sin, He has 
 also endowed him with a moral sense, and a religious 
 faculty. By a firm moral sense Scipio and Cato, 
 Psetus and Arria, Mucius and Regulus conquered 
 pain and the love of life. By religion martyrs have 
 been enabled to welcome death as a glorious de- 
 liverance, and pious women have been taught to lead 
 a holy life in the midst of luxury and licentiousness. 
 Voltaire, indeed, thought that the rich might indulge 
 in vice and infidelity, while virtue and credulity 
 might be maintained among the poor. Burke was 
 persuaded that ' vice itself lost half its evil by losing 
 all its grossness.' 
 
 But such is not the world ordained by the Creator. 
 It was not indifference or indolence that made the 
 Reformation ; it was not infidelity that inspired the 
 soul of Luther, or sharpened the swords of the soldiers 
 of Cromwell. 
 
 Are we in any danger of allowing our venerable 
 Institutions to expire from languid doubts of their 
 
The Foreig7i Policy of England. 93 
 
 utility, or from a selfish wish to consult on every 
 occasion the expediency of the moment, the chances 
 of an election, the passing whim of the multitude? 
 I hope not; but unless some real attachment to 
 true religion, to unshackled liberty, to institutions 
 which deserve to be preserved, and a country which 
 is worthy to be defended, prevail among us, not 
 as a tame acquiescence but as a vivifying pas- 
 sion, we too may embrace the vices and follow the 
 fate of France. There is no reason to despair. 
 The spirit of England is still high; her naval 
 and military resources require only vigilance and 
 a liberal expenditure. It is absurd to say that 
 England is governed at a cost of seventy millions 
 a-year. Nearly thirty millions are absorbed by 
 the national debt and the sums appropriated to its 
 gradual diminution. Does anyone wish to repu- 
 diate our obligations and refuse to pay the dividends 
 due to the national creditor? No one. There are 
 several millions of payments to the judges and con- 
 stabulary necessary for the due administration of 
 justice. Does anyone wish to dispense with judges 
 and constabulary? No one. It is needless to go on 
 with this examination. The real cost of establish- 
 ments which might admit of reductions is, I believe, 
 under thirty millions. It is, therefore, a gross fallacy 
 to say that England is governed at an expense of 
 seventy millions a-year. Let England only preserve 
 her old spirit, and exercise sufficient vigilance to be 
 ready to meet any dangers by which she may be 
 assailed. We are happily not obliged to watch a 
 
94 The Foreign Policy of England. 
 
 frontier which an enemy may pass with a million of 
 men by railroad, or a night march. To invade 
 England in force requires docks and harbours, build- 
 ing of steam -ships, preparations the note of which 
 must reach our shores many weeks before actual 
 invasion can take place. But for the purpose of 
 defending ourselves, and our intimate allies, a navy 
 and army are absolutely essential. 
 
 How to constitute and maintain this navy and army 
 in an efficient state is a duty which the Government 
 have taken upon themselves, and which they have 
 hitherto very insufficiently performed. Happily, the 
 tone has been lately raised, and it is admitted by 
 a leading Minister of State that it will not be suffi- 
 cient to make preparations for war, when war has 
 been already begun. If this tone be fostered, the 
 arm of England will still be powerful, and the 
 peace which would otherwise be endangered may 
 be preserved by the revived spirit of England — of 
 England as it was, and will be. At the present 
 time dangers exist which care may avert, and weak- 
 ness may precipitate. Russia is about to rebuild 
 her fleets, and her fortresses on the coast of the 
 Black Sea. If she keeps the promises in Prince 
 Gortchakoff's despatch, and observes faithfully the 
 conditions of the Treaty of 1856, Europe may enjoy a 
 long period of peace. But if she is tempted by the 
 possession of an immense military and naval force, 
 increased beyond all reasonable proportions — if she 
 is encouraged by the forced inactivity of the Aus- 
 trian Empire — Europe may be disturbed by war, 
 
The F 07* eign Policy of England. 95 
 
 Turkey threatened with extinction, and England with 
 decline.* 
 
 But the legions of the great civilised nations may 
 secure Europe against the danger of such a war. 
 
 Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia. 
 
 * See an article on the Military Policy of Russia, in the Edin- 
 hurgli Review of July, 1871. 
 
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