Till then, I shall
be loath to employ towards our allies a language, to which if they
yielded, we should ourselves despise them. I doubt whether it is wise,
even in this House, to indulge in such a strain of rhetoric; to call
'wretches' and 'barbarians', and a hundred other hard names, Powers
with whom, after all, if the map of Europe cannot be altogether
cancelled, we must, even according to the admission of the most
anti-continental politicians, maintain _some_ international
intercourse. I doubt whether these sallies of raillery--these flowers
of Billingsgate--are calculated to soothe, any more than to adorn;
whether, on some occasion or other, we may not find that those on whom
they are lavished have not been utterly unsusceptible of feelings of
irritation and resentment:
Medio de fonte leporum
Surget amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.
But be the language of good sense or good taste in this House what it
may, clear I am that, in diplomatic correspondence, no Minister would
be justified in risking the friendship of foreign countries, and the
peace of his own, by coarse reproach and galling invective; and that
even while we are pleading for the independence of nations, it is
expedient to respect the independence of those with whom we plead. We
differ widely from our Continental allies on one great principle, it
is true: nor do we, nor ought we to disguise that difference; nor to
omit any occasion of practically upholding our own opinion.
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