aggrandizement. This portentous Napoleonic dynasty is entrenched in the heart of France with greater prospect of continuance than ever; that nation at the call of a Bonaparte overflows its boundaries, and the very country we erected as a dyke against the torrent is in his grasp. After having made tremendous sacrifices, ending in temporary success, we sent a dotard to reap the fruits of our victories, who executed his mission by consulting the wishes of despots, and sacrificing to their interests the natural bonds of nations. We abandoned Italy to Austria at the Congress of Vienna with as little consideration as if it had been Ceylon or the Isle of France. We forced Finland from Sweden to strengthen Russia, and enable her to form a marine which might cope with our own; and we divided the Norwegians from Denmark, whose rule they loved, in order to annex them to Sweden, whose rule they detested. In every instance of readjustment we set at nought the boundaries of nature, or the natural inclinations of men, and allowed each country to be divided by the pen of a secretary rambling at will over the map of Europe, guided by no objects but the interests or caprice of the despots whom he served. In return for this condescension we got the Protectorate of the Ionian Isles, which the. British Minister doubtless accepted with the most lively emotions of gratitude. Thus it has always been with England. Her blood has been shed upon a hundred battle-fields, her treasure has been lavished upon a thousand military projects, in order that the fruits of success might be sacrificed by the blundering incompetence of her diplomatists. At the peace of Utrecht, the triumphs of Marlborough were neutralized by the weakness of Harley. At the Peace of Paris the trophies of Wolf were surren dered by the negligence of Bute; and at the Congress of Vienna the victories of Wellington were rendered fruitless by the imbecility of Castlereagh. Even since the last-mentioned peace our interference in the affairs of the Continent has been marked by the grossest inconsistency, by the absence of an enlarged policy, and by the sacrifice of great objects for petty results. We assisted Russia to destroy Turkey; we have beaten her back when she resumed the task. We sent an armament to Greece to extort compensation for a wretched Jew; at the same time we beheld. Venice surrender her hardly contested liberties to Austrian legions, and, though calling loudly for our protection, we, withheld our hand. When. Charles Albert threw down his glaive to Austria, and the independent nationality of Italy hung in the balance, our diplomatists had no settled objects unless what turned up with the chapter of accidents, and, by their purposeless and hesitating councils, gave Austria time to retrieve her defeats

Blunders of British Diplomacy.

253 and establish her power in Italy upon a wider basis than ever. Throughout the whole of these transactions, down to the present hour, our constant cry has been Respect the sacred treaty of Vienna; our constant fear lest any one of its provisions should be invaded, that most precious of all treaties which obliterated nationalities, rendered British arms subservient to the triumphs of despots, and made our own victories accessory to our own degradation! Nothing must be listened to in the world of protocols which tended to repair that blunder at Vienna. To violate the provisions of that blunder in the world of arms was a crime. Whence comes it that England, so formidable in the field, so powerful in the senate, so illustrious in science, and so eminent in Kiterature, is so contemptible in diplomacy. Why are we, who are quite a match for a world in arms, so easily outwitted in the field of European policy? It is because the nation exercises no surveillance over the external relations of the Government; because the Foreign Office is confined to a clique who do not conduct its affairs upon any enlarged principles, and who have no other anxiety than to push their own individual interests and provide for the exigencies of the hour. Had Canning been a patrician, he would have been sent to Vienna instead of Castlereagh; and had he represented England at that Congress, the immoral treaty which emanated from it would never have received the signature of a British Minister; nor would Count Aglie, on the part of Sardinia, have protested to no purpose in that Assembly against the extension of Austrian rule in Italy. Had we performed our duty when Waterloo made our counsels paramount in Europe, or when Austria violated the treaty of Vienna by invading Naples and Modena, or when Charles Albert put himself at the head of young Italy, the inhabitants of the Peninsula might now have exercised their national rights, not at the behest of a tyrant, but to the profit of themselves and humanity. But England on these occasions was represented in European councils by coroneted heads, and so long as she is represented by such heads there will, we fear, be little sympathy expressed in her name for the rights of suffering humanity. Why have we so much care for what concerns us at home, and leave the outlet open to the wildest extravagance and confusion abroad? If England would retrieve her past follies, if she would fling her full weight into European councils, if she would perform her duties to civilization and leave a reputation behind her not entirely indifferent to national liberty, she must weed the Foreign Office of its aristocratic exclusiveness; she must allow the ranks of her diplomacy, like those of any other profession, a fair chance of absorbing some portion of the talent of the nation; and she

must base the principles which that diplomacy is to enforce, upon respect for the laws of nations and the rights of nationalities. Our duties in each of these respects are narrowly allied to our interests; nor can we neglect them without crippling our resources, retarding our advancement, and forfeiting our influence as a great nation.

The penalty in the present case for neglecting our international duties is very severe. Those funds which ought to have been spent upon social amelioration must be devoted to manning our navy, defending our coasts, and increasing our armaments. Those energies which ought to have been given to internal improvement must be wasted on the destructive art of war. A nation whose right arm we might have evoked in our own behalf may soon be summoned to use her newly-restored nationality against those who would not help her in the hour of need. Two despots are prepared, with the aid of Italy, to give the law to the world. The long-cherished designs of Russia on the European dominions of the Porte, the predilections of France for Egypt, the present feverish condition of Turkey, and the important leverage which the possession of the seaboard of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean must confer on any power entertaining hostile designs against the Turkish territories, ought to make us fearful of the result. A successful blow struck at our interests in the East would be a sure harbinger of the downfall of England. An hostile army need not scramble up the cliffs of Dover, or come by express train from Folkstone, to ruin this country. The feat can be performed quite as well by shutting up Continental ports against our trade and establishing a supremacy destructive to our interests in the Mediterranean and the Dardanelles. The position, then, to which we have been reduced by the foolhardiness of our diplomatists is one of the most critical emergency. We have to deal with a ruler who unites the suppleness and duplicity of Mazarin with the boldness and decision of Richelieu, and who is never more liberal of his professions of sincerity than where he intends to deceive. We have to deal with a people who, when stimulated by victory, have never known what it was to moderate their ardour for conquest. Our position abroad, thanks to the profound wisdom of the Foreign Office, is one of strange isolation. We are hated by despots: our name excites no sympathy among free or oppressed populations. Where will England find a minister fit to lead her at this eventful crisis? Will the present occupants of the ministerial benches be equal to it? Certainly the men for the task are not to be found in the ranks of the opposition. It is neither our interest to use mincing phrases to France; or for the rotten cause of Austria to hold any language but that of the

Duties of Public Censorship.

255

strongest abhorrence. What we require is a minister, who, with the commanding energy and undaunted resolution of a Chatham, will place the weight of England between the contending despotisms, arrest the progress of the victor, and support Italy in extorting not merely the name, but the substance, of freedom from her deliverers. In the absence of such a minister, new duties devolve on the public mind. The people, by the forcible expression of its opinion, must endeavour to fashion the leader of the Foreign Office into an organ of their high behests. The post must no longer be the appanage of a class, or tossed to any perfumed trifler who has no other claim to the position than that his father bore off high diplomatic honours before him. This sort of recklessness, at any time an insult to the majesty of England, would at this crisis be little short of treason. The British public must treat their Foreign Minister as the Athenians treated their Archons. Crown him with laurel, acclaim his praise to the skies if he succeed; but, should they find him sleeping at his post, or wanting in that sagacity and information he ought to possess, let them consign him to perpetual disgrace. In the present dearth of high patriotic ability, the only hope for England at this juncture is in the overwhelming force of enlightened public opinion. If we resolve to tolerate no minister who is not Argus-eyed, who is not prepared to forestall every movement hostile or dangerous to this country as soon as it is breathed in foreign councils, there is still some chance of securing our position, of retrieving the tarnished honours of British diplomacy, and of associating our name once more with the freedom of nations.

OUR EPILOGUE

ON

AFFAIRS.

ONE of the most disgraceful days in the history of English Liberalism, was that on which the resolution of Mr. Milner Gibson opened the way to office for the Derby Ministry. At that juncture, be it remembered, Whigs and Tories were agreed about the expediency of passing a Conspiracy Bill. The decisive vote was not on that question, but on a much more doubtful matter-a matter which, as every man of sense knew, had been subjected to a particular interpretation, for a particular purpose. By that vote, however, it was decided to accept a Tory minority, as a fitting agency to do the work of a Liberal majority.

We condemned this proceeding at the time. We denounced the pretences set up in its defence. We unmasked the vain and pettish feeling which had led to it; and we foretold the penal consequences which an act of political immorality so flagrant would be sure to take along with it. But the mischief was done. The great Whig-Radical party bowed to the great Tory party, and said: 'Gentlemen, be pleased to ' walk into Downing-street, and be so good as to stand prepared, as the price of your being lodged there, to do all sorts of things which you ' have described all your life long as the things which none but knaves or fools would ever think of doing.' This overture was not too bad to be made; and the bait was too tempting to be resisted. The eminence of the virtue on either side was about equal. And now the selfcontradiction and self-degradation necessary as the conditions of place and power were meted out according to the exigency. At length came the dreaded question of reform. The poor Hebrew has parted with tooth after tooth, and has been wonderfully sustained during the

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