Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/440

414 soon. The dangers from abroad are great; but to men, even those will never supersede the fixed determination to pursue inflexibly reparation for our rights at home, and security against the like future violations. I wait anxiously to learn the result of the meeting at York. I trust it will aim right; but nothing, I expect, will hit the mark full but the City of London, where the constitution is not yet called faction, and where the modern dictionary does not yet enough prevail to proscribe the word remonstrance."

Chatham was probably hoping to be able to reconstruct the Ministry of 1767 with Shelburne as his principal colleague. In the event of war he was the inevitable minister, and war at this moment seemed most likely, owing to the aggressive attitude assumed by Spain in the matter of the Falkland Islands, where the English settlement at Port Egmont had been seized by an expedition under Don Francesco Buccarelli. The news had first arrived in England in June, and when the details became known the public indignation knew no bounds.

As Secretary of State, Shelburne had attempted by a firm line of conduct to check the aggressive designs of the Bourbon Courts, but the divisions in the Cabinet and the perpetual changes in the Secretary of State's office had rendered a consistent foreign policy impossible. France had seized Corsica; Spain had evaded the payment of the Manilla ransom, and now committed an act of overt hostility; and Prussia, the old ally of England, had been thrown into the arms of Russia, and in conjunction with her was now planning the dismemberment of Poland and the invasion of Turkey. In England itself a vague sense of insecurity was spreading, which made a reasonable policy difficult in the face of recurring fits of excitement, and stimulated a demand for increased naval and military expenditure to provide for eventualities in which it was foreseen the country would stand alone.

The vacillations of the Ministry were endless, for their