Page:Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738-1914 - ed. Jones - 1914.djvu/462

 of rejecting the friendly counsels now offered by Her Majesty's Government—(No. 3, 162)—

M. Hall promises to withdraw the patent. What interpretation could M. Hall place on that interview? He was called upon to do what he knew to be distasteful, and believed to be impolitic. He is warned of the danger of rejecting those friendly counsels, and in consequence of that warning he gives way and surrenders his opinion. I would candidly ask what is the interpretation which in private life would be put on such language as I have quoted, and which had been acted upon by those to whom it was addressed?

Well, we now come to the federal execution in Holstein. Speaking literally, the federal execution was a legal act, and Denmark could not resist it. But from the manner in which it was about to be carried into effect, and in consequence of the pretensions connected with it, the Danes were of opinion that it would have been better at once to resist the execution, which aimed a fatal blow at the independence of Schleswig, and upon this point they felt strongly. Well, Her Majesty's Government—and I give them full credit for being actuated by the best motives—thought otherwise, and wished the Danish Government to submit to this execution. And what was the sort of language used by them in order to bring about that result? Sir Augustus Paget replied in this way to the objections of the Danish Minister:

I ask any candid man to put his own interpretation upon this language. And on the 12th