Page:The Letters Of Queen Victoria, vol. 1 (1908).djvu/52

30 as far as was consistent with maintaining British interests, from any sort of intervention in European afiairs ; Palmerston was a disciple of Canning, who had definitely broken with the principles of the Congress of Vienna, and openly avowed his approval of a policy of intervention, to any extent short of actual war, in the interests of liberty and good government. The only other man who had any title to speak with authority on foreign affairs was the Duke of Wellington, who had held the seals as Foreign Secretary for a few months in 1834 and 1835. He had, however, lost much of the reputation for political sagacity which he had held at the time when he was the arbiter of Europe and virtual ruler of France. Moreover, being, as he was, a much occupied man, with varied business to transact, and at the mercy of his almost excessive conscientiousness, he held himself to a considerable extent aloof from current politics, though he never lost his absorbing interest in Continental affairs.