He quoted
certain words, easily rendered as 'Empire and Liberty'--words (he
said) of a Roman statesman, words descriptive of the State of
Rome--and he quoted them as words which were capable of legitimate
application to the position and circumstance of England. I join issue
with the Prime Minister upon that subject, and I affirm that nothing
can be more fundamentally unsound, more practically ruinous, than the
establishment of Roman analogies for the guidance of British policy.
What, gentlemen, was Rome? Rome was indeed an Imperial State, you may
tell me--I know not, I cannot read the counsels of Providence--a State
having a mission to subdue the world; but a State whose very basis it
was to deny the equal rights, to proscribe the independent existence,
of other nations. That, gentlemen, was the Roman idea. It has been
partially and not ill described in three lines of a translation from
Virgil by our great poet Dryden, which run as follows:
O Rome! 'tis thine alone with awful sway
To rule mankind, and make the world obey,
Disposing peace and war thine own majestic way.
We are told to fall back upon this example. No doubt the word 'Empire'
was qualified with the word 'Liberty'. But what did the two words
'Liberty' and 'Empire' mean in a Roman mouth? They meant simply
this--'Liberty for ourselves, Empire over the rest of mankind'.
I do not think, gentlemen, that this Ministry, or any other Ministry,
is going to place us in the position of Rome.
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