Page:Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738-1914 - ed. Jones - 1914.djvu/262

 to ascertain which had the better title, and one of them had gained a verdict and had entered up judgement, this winning party would accept an offer to refer all the matters in dispute to arbitration, just before execution issued. In such a case the matter in dispute is at an end, and though the party who has lost the cause may have no objection to such a reference, it will never be so with the party who has gained it. I therefore told my friend, Sir H. Ellis, who was appointed to superintend the proceedings of our mediation, that as the matter in dispute between Austria and Sardinia was at an end, I did not anticipate that with all his skill he would have any success as a negotiator in this strange arbitration. 'Oh,' I was told, 'Austria will abide by it.' Yes, I know that Austria certainly would, if she submitted to the mediation and perhaps Sardinia also; but little did I know Sardinian counsels when I said so.

I stated, however, that very same night, to your Lordships in this House, that it was my deliberate belief, that before the end of a few weeks there would be an end of the Sardinian monarchy. On that occasion I was, indeed, a true prophet. Almost while I was speaking, the King of Sardinia broke the armistice, again attacked the Austrians, was again defeated, and then abdicated his crown. That monarch was much to be blamed for the former part of his conduct, but was much to be pitied for its close; he was driven on by the fear of a mob—the most paltry and the most perilous of all fears. He was urged on to his ruin by the worst of all advisers, those fears. He threw himself into the hands of the Red Republican party of Paris and of Turin, and, worse than all, of Genoa;