It was at the beginning of the present session of
Parliament that I had occasion to foretell before your Lordships the
speedy discomfiture of the then monarch of Sardinia by the victorious
troops of Marshal Radetzky. After a temporary success the year before,
his Sardinian Majesty had been repulsed, had been compelled to repass
the Ticino, had been driven to seek protection within the walls of his
own capital, and had only not been pursued within those walls because
his opponents had mercifully abstained from urging their victory
to the utmost, and had preferred the redemption of their pledge of
maintaining the Treaties of Vienna and the settlement of territory
made under them, to the enlargement of their dominions and to the
exaction of security against any repetition of the offence which
they had so signally chastised. The firmest friend of Sardinia,--the
stoutest champion of that distribution of territory to which I have
referred,--my noble friend himself near the wool-sack (the Duke of
Wellington), who completed by his skill in negotiation the still more
glorious triumph of his arms in the field, not one of these parties
could have objected to the Austrians crossing the Ticino, exacting
vengeance from Sardinia, and taking from its monarch, according to
all the laws of war, according to the strict law of nations, ample
security against the repetition of a similar transgression. Marshal
Radetzky, however, acted a merciful part, and was wiser in so doing
than if he had justifiably acted with greater severity.
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