The dispatch to which I have just alluded, is dated December 16, 1847.
But, somehow or other, events happened soon after which make it hardly
possible to suppose that the same hand which wrote that dispatch,
could have written the subsequent instructions, or that the same
agents who had to obey the former instructions, and to represent the
feelings of old attachment, of which it was impossible to draw the
bonds closer, could have been instructed so soon afterwards as January
18, 1848, to take a course entirely and diametrically opposite.
It would give me great satisfaction if, having thus accidentally
touched upon the transactions of Southern Italy, I could proceed at
once thither in the progress on which I am now asking your Lordships
to accompany me. But I find, my Lords, from what has been taking place
within the last few weeks, how reluctant so ever I may be to discuss
the events of the northern divisions of Italy, and recur to questions
often agitated here, and by none of your Lordships more ably than by
the noble Earl near me (Lord Aberdeen), that I must allude to the
conduct of his late Sardinian Majesty, to the still unfinished
negotiations between Sardinia and Austria, to the still unremoved
fleets of Sardinia in the Adriatic, to the beleaguering of Austria in
her Venetian dominions, and to the prevention of her employing her
undivided resources in crushing the rebellion in the eastern parts of
her empire; and that I cannot examine the whole foreign policy of
this country without adverting to the events which have happened in
Northern Italy.
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