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WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM The Convention with Spain The Defence of Weaker States

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN The Partition of Poland The Prussian Subsidy Grant to the Emperor of Germany

WILLIAM PITT Overtures of Peace with France

GEORGE CANNING Negotiations Relative to Spain

SIR ROBERT PEEL Portugal--Don Miguel Belgium Russian Dutch Loan

LORD JOHN RUSSELL, afterwards EARL RUSSELL The Annexation of Cracow

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON The Polish Question

HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM Italian Affairs

EARL RUSSELL, previously LORD JOHN RUSSELL Denmark and Germany

LORD STANLEY, afterwards EARL OF DERBY Austria and Prussia

JOHN BRIGHT Principles of Foreign Policy

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE The Neutrality of Belgium Right Principles of Foreign Policy The Aggrandizement of Russia

BENJAMIN DISRAELI Denmark and Germany

BENJAMIN DISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD Treaty of Berlin

SIR EDWARD GREY Negotiations

HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH Infamous Proposals

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE International Honour

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM

MARCH 8, 1738

THE CONVENTION WITH SPAIN

You have been moved to vote an humble address of thanks to His Majesty, for a measure which is odious throughout the kingdom. Such thanks are only due to the fatal influence that framed it, as are due for that low, unallied condition abroad, which is now made a plea for this convention. To what are gentlemen reduced in support of it? First, try a little to defend it upon its own merits; if that is not tenable, throw out general terrors--the House of Bourbon is united--who knows the consequence of a war? Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her; she knows it, and must therefore avoid it; but she knows England does not dare to make it; and what is a delay, which is all this magnified convention is sometimes called, to produce? Can it produce such conjunctures as those you lost, while you were giving kingdoms to Spain, and all to bring her back again to that great branch of the House of Bourbon which is now thrown out to you with so much terror? If this union be formidable, are we to delay only till it becomes more formidable, by being carried farther into execution, and more strongly cemented? But be it what it will, is this any longer a nation, or what is an English Parliament, if, with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe, with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable convention? Sir, I call it no more than it has been proved in this debate; it carries fallacy, or downright subjection, in almost every line. It has been laid open and exposed in so many strong and glaring lights, that I can pretend to add nothing to the conviction and indignation it has raised.

Sir, as to the great national objection--the searching your ships--that favourite word, as it was called, is not omitted, indeed, in the preamble to the convention, but it stands there as the reproach, of the whole--as the strongest evidence of the fatal submission that follows. On the part of Spain, an usurpation, an inhuman tyranny, claimed and exercised over the American seas; on the part of England, an undoubted right, by treaties, and from God and nature, declared and asserted in the resolutions of Parliament, are referred to the discussion of plenipotentiaries, upon one and the same equal foot. Sir, I say this undoubted right is to be discussed and to be regulated. And if to regulate be to prescribe rules , this right is, by the express words of this convention, to be given up and sacrificed; for it must cease to be anything from the moment it is submitted to limits.

The Court of Spain has plainly told you you shall steer a due course; you shall navigate by a line to and from your plantations in America; if you draw near to her coasts you shall be seized and confiscated. If, then, upon these terms only she has consented to refer, what becomes at once of all the security we are flattered with in consequence of this reference? Plenipotentiaries are to regulate finally the respective pretensions of the two crowns with regard to trade and navigation in America; but does a man in Spain reason that these pretensions must be regulated to the satisfaction and honour of England? No, Sir, they conclude, and with reason, from the high spirit of their administration, from the superiority with which they have so long treated you, that this reference must end, as it has begun, to their honour and advantage.

But gentlemen say, the treaties subsisting are to be the measure of this regulation. Sir, as to treaties, I will take part of the words of Sir William Temple, quoted by the honourable gentleman near me; 'It is vain to negotiate and make treaties, if there is not dignity and vigour to enforce the observance of them'; for under the misconstruction and misrepresentation of these very treaties subsisting, this intolerable grievance has arisen; it has been growing upon you, treaty after treaty, through twenty years of negotiation, and even under the discussion of commissaries, to whom it was referred. You have heard from Captain Vaughan, at your bar, at what time these injuries and indignities were continued. As a kind of explanatory comment upon the convention Spain has thought fit to grant you, as another insolent protest, under the validity and force of which she has suffered this convention to be proceeded upon, 'We'll treat with you, but we'll search and take your ships; we'll sign a convention, but we'll keep your subjects prisoners, prisoners in Old Spain; the West Indies are remote; Europe shall be witness how we use you.'

Sir, as to the inference of an admission of our right not to be searched, drawn from a reparation made for ships unduly seized and confiscated, I think that argument is very inconclusive. The right claimed by Spain to search our ships is one thing, and the excesses admitted to have been committed in consequence of this pretended right, is another; but surely, Sir, reasoning from inferences and implication only, is below the dignity of your proceedings, upon a right of this vast importance. What this reparation is, what sort of composition for your losses, forced upon you by Spain, in an instance that has come to light, where your own commissaries could not in conscience decide against your claim, has fully appeared upon examination; and, as for the payment of the sum stipulated , it is evidently a fallacious nominal payment only. I will not attempt to enter into the detail of a dark, confused, and scarcely intelligible account; I will only beg leave to conclude with one word upon it, in the light of a submission, as well as of an adequate reparation. Spain stipulates to pay to the Crown of England ninety-five thousand pounds; by a preliminary protest of the King of Spain, the South Sea Company is at once to pay sixty-eight thousand of it: if they refuse, Spain, I admit, is still to pay the ninety-five thousand pounds--but how does it stand then? The Assiento contract is to be suspended; you are to purchase this sum at the price of an exclusive trade, pursuant to a national treaty, and of an immense debt of God knows how many hundred thousand pounds due from Spain to the South Sea Company. Here, Sir, is the submission of Spain, by the payment of a stipulated sum; a tax laid upon subjects of England, under the severest penalties, with the reciprocal accord of an English minister, as a preliminary that the convention may be signed; a condition imposed by Spain in the most absolute, imperious manner, and received by the Ministers of England in the most tame and abject. Can any verbal distinctions, any evasions whatever, possibly explain away this public infamy? To whom would we disguise it? To ourselves and to the nation. I wish we could hide it from the eyes of every court in Europe. They see Spain has talked to you like your master; they see this arbitrary fundamental condition, and it must stand with distinction, with a pre-eminence of shame, as a part even of this convention.

This convention, Sir, I think from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expedient, to baffle the resentment of the nation; a truce without the suspension of hostilities on the part of Spain; on the part of England a suspension, as to Georgia, of the first law of nature, self-preservation and self-defence--surrender of the rights and trade of England to the mercy of plenipotentiaries, and in this infinitely highest and sacred point, future security, not only inadequate, but directly repugnant to the resolutions of Parliament, and the gracious promise from the Throne. The complaints of your despairing merchants, the voice of England, has condemned it. Be the guilt of it upon the head of the adviser. God forbid that this committee should share the guilt by approving it!

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM JANUARY 22, 1770 THE DEFENCE OF WEAKER STATES

My Lords, I remember that Minorca was lost for want of four battalions. They could not be spared from hence; and there was a delicacy about taking them from Ireland. I was one of those who promoted an inquiry into that matter in the other House; and I was convinced that we had not regular troops sufficient for the necessary service of the nation. Since the moment the plan of augmentation was first talked of, I have constantly and warmly supported it among my friends: I have recommended it to several members of the Irish House of Commons, and exhorted them to support it with their utmost interest in Parliament. I did not foresee, nor could I conceive it possible, the Ministry would accept of it, with a condition that makes the plan itself ineffectual, and, as far as it operates, defeats every useful purpose of maintaining a standing military force. His Majesty is now so confined, by his promise, that he must leave twelve thousand men locked up in Ireland, let the situation of his affairs abroad, or the approach of danger to this country, be ever so alarming, unless there be an actual rebellion, or invasion, in Great Britain. Even in the two cases excepted by the King's promise, the mischief must have already begun to operate, must have already taken effect, before His Majesty can be authorized to send for the assistance of his Irish army. He has not left himself the power of taking any preventive measures, let his intelligence be ever so certain, let his apprehensions of invasion or rebellion be ever so well founded; unless the traitor be actually in arms--unless the enemy be in the heart of your country, he cannot move a single man from Ireland.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

APRIL 25, 1793 THE PARTITION OF POLAND

The state of Poland was such, that there could scarcely exist two opinions, but that a reformation of its constitution, even at some expense of blood, might be seen without much disapprobation. No confusion could be feared in such an enterprise; because the establishment to be reformed was itself a state of confusion. A King without authority, nobles without union or subordination, a people without arts, industry, commerce, or liberty; no order within, no defence without; no effective public force, but a foreign force, which entered a naked country at will, and disposed of everything at pleasure. Here was a state of things which seemed to invite, and might, perhaps, justify bold enterprise and desperate experiment. But in what manner was this chaos brought into order? The means were as striking to the imagination, as satisfactory to the reason, and soothing to the moral sentiments. In contemplating that change, humanity has everything to rejoice and to glory in, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to suffer. So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated public good which ever has been conferred on mankind. We have seen anarchy and servitude at once removed, a throne strengthened for the protection of the people, without trenching on their liberties, all foreign cabal banished, by changing the crown from elective to hereditary; and what was a matter of pleasing wonder, we have seen a reigning King, from an heroic love to his country, exerting himself with all the toil, the dexterity, the management, the intrigue, in favour of a family of strangers, with which ambitious men labour for the aggrandizement of their own. Ten millions of men in a way of being freed gradually, and therefore safely to themselves and the State, not from civil or political chains, which, bad as they are, only fetter the mind, but from substantial personal bondage. Inhabitants of cities, before without privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs to that improved and connecting situation of social life. One of the most proud, numerous, and fierce bodies of nobility and gentry ever known in the world, arranged only in the foremost rank of free and generous citizens. Not one man incurred loss, or suffered degradation. All, from the King to the day-labourer, were improved in their condition. Everything was kept in its place and order, but in that place and order everything was bettered. To add to this happy wonder not one drop of blood was spilled; no treachery; no outrage; no system of slander more cruel than the sword; no studied insults on religion, morals, or manners; no spoil; no confiscation; no citizen beggared; none imprisoned; none exiled: the whole was effected with a policy, a discretion, an unanimity and secrecy, such as have never been before known on any occasion; but such wonderful conduct was reserved for this glorious conspiracy in favour of the true and genuine rights and interests of men. Happy people, if they know how to proceed as they have begun! Happy prince, worthy to begin with splendour, or to close with glory, a race of patriots and of kings: and to leave

A name, which ev'ry wind to heav'n would bear, Which men to speak, and angels joy to hear. To finish all. This great good, as in the instant it is, contains in it the seeds of all further improvement, and may be considered as in a regular progress, because founded on similar principles, towards the stable excellence of a British constitution.

Here was a matter for congratulation and for festive remembrance through ages. Here moralists and divines might indeed relax in their temperance, to exhilarate their humanity.

Such, Mr. Sheridan said, was the description which the right honourable gentleman gave to that revolution. Was it to be supposed that he would afterwards say, that this ought to have been trampled upon and destroyed, or should suffer such an event to happen, and never utter a word upon the subject? He did not think that monarchs of the present day had fulfilled the promises that some persons had made, and which had been expected from them, so that their names might be handed down to posterity as a glorious example of integrity and justice. With respect to the future views of the different Powers, they might best be conjectured by what had already happened. The Empress of Russia, upon the sincerity of whose motives, and integrity of whose actions, there could be no doubt, previous to the attack on Poland, among other things in her manifesto, said by her Minister:

From these considerations, Her Imperial Majesty, my most gracious mistress, as well to indemnify herself for her many losses, as for the future safety of her Empire and the Polish dominions, and for the cutting off at once, for ever, all future disturbances and frequent changes of government, has been pleased now to take under her sway, and to unite for ever to her Empire, the following tracts of land, with all their inhabitants.

This was the language for which the confederates were to justify perhaps the future taking under their sway, and uniting for ever to their Empire, part of the dominions of France. We had heard much of the abominable system of affiliation adopted by the French; but this was a Russian impartial affiliation, and no doubt the confederate Powers approved of it. In like manner will they affiliate all France, if they can. So will they England, when they have it in their power; and he was sorry to say, that if we joined in that infamous confederacy, and the people agreed to it, England would deserve to be so treated. The Empress then proceeded to state what she expected for the favour she had conferred:

Her Imperial Majesty expects from the gratitude of her new subjects, that they, being placed by her bounty on an equality with Russians, shall, in return, transfer their love of their former country to the new one, and live in future attached to so great and generous an Empress.

On an equality with Russians! This was a glorious equality,--liable to be sent to Siberia with other Russian slaves. For this mighty favour they were to transfer, as naturally might be expected, the whole love they had for their native country, to Russia, their new and happy land; for the same Minister of this equitable and generous Empress proceeded to say:

I, therefore, inform every person, from the highest to the lowest, that within one month, they must take the oath of allegiance before the witnesses whom I shall appoint; and if any gentlemen, or other ranks possessing real or immovable property, regardless of their own interest, should refuse to take the oath prescribed, three months are allowed for the sale of their immovables, and their free departure over the borders, after the expiration of which term, all their remaining property shall be confiscated to the Crown.

Really after such specimens, one would have supposed, but for the well-known character of the council of these confederate Powers, they were actuated under the influence of madness, or they would not thus think of insulting the feelings of human nature. But this was not enough: an oath, it seemed, must be taken, for:

The clergy, both high and low, as pastors of their flocks, are expected to set the example in taking the oath; and in the daily service in their churches, they must pray for Her Imperial Majesty, for her successor, Great Duke Paul Petrovitz, and for all the Imperial Family, according to the formula which shall be given them.

Here again there was evidence of a great and good mind, for this pious Empress was determined that perjury should be very general in her dominions, and that the example should be set by the clergy! Mr. Sheridan then proceeded to take notice of the great and good King of Prussia with respect to Dantzic, as specified in what he called his reason for taking possession of part of Poland with his military forces.

It would certainly militate against the first rules of a sound policy, as well as the duties incumbent on us for the preservation of tranquillity in our State, if in such a state of things in a neighbouring great kingdom, we remained inactive spectators, and should wait for the period when the faction feel themselves strong enough to appear in public; by which our own neighbouring provinces would be exposed to several dangers, by the consequences of the anarchy on our frontiers.

We have, therefore, in conjunction with Her Majesty the Empress of Russia, and with the assent of His Majesty the Roman Emperor, acknowledged that the safety of our States did require, to set to the Republic of Poland such boundaries which are more compatible with her interior strength and situation; and to facilitate her the means of procuring without prejudice of her liberty, a well-ordained and active form of government, of maintaining herself in the undisturbed enjoyment of the same, and preventing, by these means, the disturbances which have so often shaken her own tranquillity, and endangered the safety of her neighbours.

In order to attain this end, and to preserve the Republic of Poland from the dreadful consequences which must be the result of her internal division, and to rescue her from her utter ruin, but chiefly to withdraw her inhabitants from the horrors of the destructive doctrine which they are but too prone to follow, there is, according to our thorough persuasion, to which also Her Majesty the Empress of all the Russias accedes in the most perfect congruity with our intentions and principles, no other means, except to incorporate her frontier provinces into our States, and for this purpose immediately to take possession of the same, and to prevent, in time, all misfortunes which might arise from the continuance of the reciprocal disturbances.

Wherefore, we have resolved, with the assent of Her Russian Majesty, to take possession of the above-mentioned districts of Poland, and also of the cities of Dantzic and Thorn, to the end of incorporating them to our State.

We herewith publicly announce our firm and unshaken resolution, and expect that the Polish nation will very soon assemble in the Diet, and adopt the necessary measures, to the end of settling things in an amicable manner, and of obtaining the salutary result of securing to the republic of Poland an undisturbed peace, and preserving her inhabitants from the terrible consequences of anarchy. At the time we exhort the states and inhabitants of the districts and towns which we have taken possession of, as already mentioned, both in a gracious and serious manner, not to oppose our commanders and troops, ordered for that purpose, but rather tractably to submit to our government, and acknowledge us from this day forward, as their lawful King and Sovereign, to behave like loyal and obedient subjects, and to renounce all connexion with the Crown of Poland.

Now, after this, Mr. Sheridan said, he wished to know whether any robbery that had been committed by the most desperate of the French, or whether any of their acts, were more infamous than this? Of what consequence was it to any man, whether he was plundered by a man with a white feather in his hat, or by one with a nightcap on his head? If there could be any difference, the solemnity with which the thing was done was an aggravation of the insult. The poorer sort of the French could plead distress, and could also say that they had endured the hardships, the toils, and the perils of a winter campaign. But here was nothing but a naked robbery, without any part taken in the calamity which gave birth to it. He had alluded to these things merely for the purpose of giving the Minister an opportunity of disapproving of them: he hoped he should not hear the principle avowed. Crowned heads, he thought, were at present led by some fatal infatuation to degrade themselves and injure mankind. But some, it seems, regard any atrocity in monarchs as if it had lost its nature by not being committed by low and vulgar agents. A head with a crown, and a head with a nightcap, totally altered the moral quality of actions--robbery was no longer robbery--and death, inflicted by a hand wielding a pike, or swaying a sceptre, was branded as murder, or regarded as innocent. This was a fatal principle to mankind, and monstrous in the extreme. He had lamented early the change of political sentiments in this country which indisposed Englishmen to the cause of liberty. The worst part of the revolution in France is, that they have disgraced the cause they pretended to support. However, none, he was persuaded, would deny that it was highly expedient to know the extent of our alliance with Powers who had acted so recently in the manner he had represented, and to have the object of our pursuit in this war distinctly known. The Minister may perhaps in future come down to the House, and say he is sorry, but it has become highly necessary to interfere with the power of Britain farther, as the crowned ladies and gentlemen of Europe cannot agree about the partition of France, or that such a disposition is about to take place, that we shall be worse off than if we had let France remain as it was. Those who feared the attachment of men to French principles, argued wrong. From the effect of the experiment they would never be popular: nothing but crimes and misery swelled all the accounts from that country. If the peasant had been represented happy and contented, dancing in his vineyard, surrounded with a prosperous and innocent family, if such accounts had come, the tidings would have been gladly received. At present we hear of nothing but want and carnage--very unattracting indeed. More danger, he thought, arose from a blind attachment to power, which gains security from the many evils abounding in France. On the same principle that Prussia divided Poland, he contended, they might act here. They declared a prevalence of French principles existed in Poland: His Majesty's proclamation asserts the same here, and is therefore, in this sense, an invitation to come and take care of us. Could such despots love the free constitution of this country? On the contrary, he was persuaded that, upon the very same principle that Poland was divided, and Dantzic and Thorn subjugated, England itself might be made an object for the same fate as soon as it became convenient to the confederates to make the experiment. He would defy any man to show the principle upon which a difference could exist with regard to us and the other sacrificed countries, in the wishes and the desires of the combined Powers. But supposing this to be out of all question, and that this country had nothing to dread in that respect, and that all Europe had nothing to look to but the extermination of French principles, how would the present prospect of our success then appear? Could we entertain so vain a hope that the French, who had all the winter been lying in the snow at some periods, and wading up to their necks in water at others, in an enemy's country, fighting for their rights, will, in their own, submit to give them up in a mild season? The thought was too absurd, and the expectation too extravagant, to be harboured by a man possessed of a spark of rationality.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

FEBRUARY 5, 1795

THE PRUSSIAN SUBSIDY

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