'Our feelings are
friendly towards Austria,' and 'God forbid they should be otherwise!'
I say Amen to that prayer, but when I read the dispatches with the
light shed on them by the acts of our Government, and of all their
agents and Ministers, when by these acts I interpret the fair words
used, I perceive the latter to mean exactly nothing, and that those
expressions which perpetually recur of an opposite kind speak the
true sense of our rulers. But this policy is opposed to the uniform
authority of our greatest statesmen. Even Mr. Fox, who was sometimes
believed to have a leaning towards Russia, from the accidental
transactions of 1791, when charged with undervaluing the Austrian
alliance in comparison, took immediate opportunity earnestly to
disavow any such opinion, and declared that our friendship with
Austria was the grand element of our European system.
My Lords, I have detained you longer than I could have desired; but I
felt it absolutely necessary to give your Lordships an opportunity of
fully considering this momentous subject. That such things as have
been done by the Government in Italy and elsewhere during the last
twelve months, should pass without awakening your attention, and that
your examination of the details should not call down a censure, if
for no other purpose than to warn the Ministers against persisting in
fatal errors, appears to me hardly within the bounds of possibility.
I have, therefore, deemed it my duty to give you an opportunity of
expressing the opinion which I believe a majority of this House holds,
and which I know is that of all well-informed and impartial persons in
every part of the world.
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