tion>Various
Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066165055
Table of Contents
WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM
WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM JANUARY 22, 1770 THE DEFENCE OF WEAKER. STATES
SIR ROBERT PEEL JUNE 1, 1829 PORTUGAL—DON MIGUEL
SIR ROBERT PEEL JULY 16, 1832 BELGIUM
SIR ROBERT PEEL JULY 20, 1832 RUSSIAN DUTCH LOAN
LORD JOHN RUSSELL MARCH 4, 1847 THE ANNEXATION OF CRACOW
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON MARCH 1, 1848 THE POLISH QUESTION
EARL RUSSELL JUNE 27, 1864 DENMARK AND GERMANY
LORD STANLEY JULY 20, 1866 AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA
BENJAMIN DISRAELI EARL OF BEACONSFIELD JULY 18, 1878 BERLIN TREATY
PREFACE
A selection of speeches made for the purpose of illustrating the best rhetorical form of British Oratory has already been published in 'The World's Classics'. The governing principle of this volume is not rhetorical quality, but historical interest. Speeches have been selected from the earliest days of reporting downwards, dealing with such phases of foreign policy as are of exceptional interest at present. They have been chosen so as to cover a variety of international crises affecting various states.
In such a selection some very interesting speeches have had to be set aside, because they represented temporary or individual and sectional views rather than permanent national and official views, and in order to avoid disproportionate reference to the same situation or country.
It is to be hoped that the selection, such as it is, may, through the words of the statesmen of the past, help to prepare our minds for the sound and worthy consideration of the problems of European re-settlement which will arise at the termination of the War.
EDGAR R. JONES.
WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM
MARCH 8, 1738
THE CONVENTION WITH SPAIN
You have been moved to vote an humble address of thanks to His Majesty, for a measure which (I will appeal to gentlemen's conversation in the world) is odious throughout the kingdom. Such thanks are only due to the fatal influence that framed it, as are due for that low, unallied condition abroad, which is now made a plea for this convention. To what are gentlemen reduced in support of it? First, try a little to defend it upon its own merits; if that is not tenable, throw out general terrors—the House of Bourbon is united—who knows the consequence of a war? Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her; she knows it, and must therefore avoid it; but she knows England does not dare to make it; and what is a delay, which is all this magnified convention is sometimes called, to produce? Can it produce such conjunctures as those you lost, while you were giving kingdoms to Spain, and all to bring her back again to that great branch of the House of Bourbon which is now thrown out to you with so much terror? If this union be formidable, are we to delay only till it becomes more formidable, by being carried farther into execution, and more strongly cemented? But be it what it will, is this any longer a nation, or what is an English Parliament, if, with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe, with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable convention? Sir, I call it no more than it has been proved in this debate; it carries fallacy, or downright subjection, in almost every line. It has been laid open and exposed in so many strong and glaring lights, that I can pretend to add nothing to the conviction and indignation it has raised.
