Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/479

 of Verona: The people the origin of all power, the object of all governments the good of the governed.

Nor were suitable opportunities left unavailed of by the Premier for strengthening and cementing the ties of friendship between his own and this country. In a speech which he delivered to his townsmen of Liverpool, on the 25th of August, 1823, at a banquet which they gave to Christopher Hughes, our excellent Minister to the Netherlands, he said, among other things: "On such an occasion he might be permitted to express the gratification he felt, in common with the great mass of the intelligent and liberal men of both countries, to see the animosities necessarily attendant on a state of hostility so rapidly wearing away, and giving place to feelings so consonant to the true interests of the two nations, united by a common language, a common spirit of commercial enterprise, and a common regard for well-regulated liberty. It appeared to him that of two such nations the relative position was not wholly unlike that which occasionally occurred in families, where a child having perhaps displeased a parent—a daughter, for instance— in contracting a connection offensive to that parent's feelings, some estrangement would for a while necessarily ensue; but, after a lapse of time, the irritation is forgotten, the force of blood again prevails, and the daughter and the mother stand together against the world."

About the time this speech was delivered, Mr. Canning is reported to have had an interview with our Minister near the Court of St. James, in which he explained the policy of his Government with respect to Spain and the South American States, desiring the co-operation of the United States, if necessary, in its enforcement. Our Minister, it appears, had no instructions upon the subject, but transmitted the proposal to Washington for consideration. On the 31st of March previous the Prime Minister wrote to the British Minister at Madrid to intimate to the French Minister near that Court, in terms sufficiently distinct to admit of no misconception, that while Great Britain utterly disclaimed any intention of appropriating to herself any of the former colonies or dependencies of Spain, she would not tacitly consent to their acquisition, or that of either of them, by France. This led to a conference between himself and the Prince de Polignac, the French Minister, on the 9th of October, 1823, in which the latter proposed: "That in the interests of humanity, and especially in that of the Spanish colonies, it would be worthy of the European Governments to concert together the means of calming, in those distant and scarcely civilized regions, passions blinded by party spirit, and to endeavor to bring back to a principle of union in government, whether monarchical or aristocratical, people among whom absurd and dangerous theories were now keeping up agitation and disunion."

But the conference terminated without a result, Mr. Canning no doubt deeming it better to await intelligence from this capital relative to his proposal to our Minister. The world-renowned message contained Mr. Monroe's answer. It was as unexpected as a destructive earthquake, and dispelled every hope which had been indulged in Paris, and in autocratic circles elsewhere, of the re-establishment of Spain in her lost possessions. It was thus that the triumph of England over the Holy Alliance was effected, as was explained, when Parliament