Upon this the honourable
baronet, borrowing, as I have said, the remark itself, and borrowing
also the air of astonishment, which, as I am informed, was assumed by
the noble proprietor of the remark, in another place, exclaimed '"Come
what may"! What is the meaning of this ambiguous menace, this mighty
phrase, "that thunders in the index"?--"Come what may!" Surely a
denunciation of war is to follow. But no--no such thing. Only--come
what may--"His Majesty will be no party to such proceedings." Was ever
such a _bathos_! Such a specimen of sinking in policy? "_Quid dignum
tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?_"'
Undoubtedly, Sir, if the honourable baronet could show that this
declaration was applicable to the whole course of the negotiations,
or to a more advanced stage of them, there would be something in the
remark, and in the inference which he wished to be drawn from it.
But, before the declaration is condemned as utterly feeble and
inconclusive, let us consider what was the question to which it was
intended as an answer. That question, Sir, was not as to what England
would do in a war between France and Spain, but as to what part she
would take if, in the Congress at Verona, a determination should be
avowed by _the allies_ to interfere forcibly in the affairs of Spain.
What then was the meaning of the answer to that proposition,--that,
'_come what might_, His Majesty would be no party to such a
project'? Why, plainly that His Majesty would not concur in such a
determination, even though a difference with his allies, even though
the dissolution of the alliance, should be the consequence of his
refusal.
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