Page:Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738-1914 - ed. Jones - 1914.djvu/128

 in one stage of these negotiations, and applied them to another. An honourable baronet (Sir F. Burdett), for instance, who addressed the House last night, employed—or, I should rather say, adopted—a fallacy of this sort, with respect to an expression of mine in the extract of a dispatch to the Duke of Wellington, which stands second in the first series of papers. It is but just to the honourable baronet to admit that his observation was adopted, not original; because, in a speech eminent for its ability and for its fairness of reasoning (however I may disagree both with its principles and its conclusions), this, which he condescended to borrow, was in truth the only very weak and ill-reasoned part. By my dispatch of the 27th of September the Duke of Wellington was instructed to declare, that 'to any interference by force or menace on the part of the allies against Spain, come what may, His Majesty will not be party'. Upon this the honourable baronet, borrowing, as I have said, the remark itself, and borrowing also the air of astonishment, which, as I am informed, was assumed by the noble proprietor of the remark, in another place, exclaimed Come what may"! What is the meaning of this ambiguous menace, this mighty phrase, "that thunders in the index"?—"Come what may!" Surely a denunciation of war is to follow. But no—no such thing. Only—come what may—"His Majesty will be no party to such proceedings." Was ever such a bathos! Such a specimen of sinking in policy? "Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?

Undoubtedly, Sir, if the honourable baronet could show that this declaration was applicable