Page:Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738-1914 - ed. Jones - 1914.djvu/38



honourable gentleman [Mr. Wilberforce] who has just sat down, and said he rose only to save himself from misinterpretation, has declared that he has no objection to peace. Now I should expect a warmer declaration from that honourable gentleman, when I recollect his conduct on a former occasion. I recollect a time when he came to rebuke the violence of the Minister. [Mr. Sheridan read a motion, made by Mr. Wilberforce, for an address to His Majesty, praying that the Government of France might not be made an obstacle to peace, when an opportunity should arrive.] Now, as the honourable gentleman is anxious to escape from the charge of inconsistency, I should expect he would state the reason for this difference in his conduct now. Then the Government was a provisional government; a government from its nature not intended to stand; a government of furious Jacobins; and yet the honourable gentleman implored to supplicate His Majesty that it might not be suffered to stand in the way of peace; but now, when it is of a less objectionable description, he justifies his friend from an arrogant, vio-