124 The Year 1830. [Fa*. 



evidently of an order which might have been turned into serious injury 

 to English interests in Greece and the Mediterranean. The remonstrance 

 failed, and was thrown into contempt by even the French gazeteers. 

 The French expedition sailed, took possession of every spot of the Morea 

 that it found desirable ; and there remained undisturbed masters, and 

 would probably have remained there masters until they required the 

 presence of a British expedition to drive them out, but for the triumph 

 of Russia. 



In the new crisis produced by that triumph, what was the obvious 

 policy of the English Cabinet? To conciliate the French nation, to 

 raise up a powerful fellow-feeling in that most powerful people, and 

 interpose France as an European barrier against the tremendous force of 

 Russia. How has this been done ? Has the Polignac alliance invigor- 

 ated the cause of England ? Has the imputed tampering with the French 

 Cabinet cemented the connexion ? Or has not the whole intrigue broken 

 down ? Has not the whole public mind of France risen as with one voice 

 of scorn and indignation, and the name of the English Administration, 

 and of England along with it, been a watchword of wrath and bitter- 

 ness ? Is not the Polignac Cabinet called the Wellington ? and is not 

 the mere appellative enough at once to mark and excite the loudest hos- 

 tility of the French people ? 



Of their dealings with Portugal we have already spoken. Of the 

 perplexity, incompleteness, and precarionsness of all their relations with a 

 country of such essential importance to our Peninsular interests, can time 

 be required to give further proofs ? Do the English Cabinet consider Don 

 Miguel at this hour an usurper or a king ? They give him no title ; 

 yet they send him a minister, under the name of Consul ; they denounce 

 him in Parliament, yet they correspond with him in their offices ; they 

 entertain a young Queen of Portugal here, receive her at court, and 

 allow her royal attendance, and an actual court; yet at the same hour they 

 allow their merchant ships to recognise Don Miguel's embargoes ; they 

 negociate with him ; and in the same breath which proclaims Don Pedro 

 still Sovereign of Portugal, give all the actual rights of sovereignty to 

 the man who supersedes him, who sets at nought his resentment, and 

 proclaims himself authentic master of their ally's hereditary throne. 



What has been their diplomacy with Russia ? Feebleness, from begin- 

 ning to end ; insolent menaces cast back in their teeth, and paltry acqui- 

 escences, cast back with the same scorn. In the very hour when the 

 Cabinet declare that the Turkish dominions must be kept inviolate, the 

 Russian army haughtily answers the declaration by invading the frontier. 

 Lord Heytesbury is sent post haste to St. Petersburg!! to warn the Czar 

 of the terrors of British hostility. The Czar listens, bows out the 

 ambassador, orders his horse that evening, and the next tidings of him 

 are, tfyat he and his troops are passing the Danube. 



Demosthenes, in his most contemptuous description of the weak minded 

 among his native politicians, eminently marks those who built the public 

 security on human casualty. " Philip is sick, Philip is dead," says the 

 great Greek statesman and philosopher ; " and you think that now all 

 danger is at an end, and you have only to dance and feast. Fools, and 

 ready for the chain, if Philip were dead to-morrow, your imbecility and 

 infatuation would raise up another Philip the day after/' 



The reverses of the Russian army in the first campaign supplied the part 

 of t( Philip dead" to the British Cabinet. Their triumph was clamorous ; 

 all their instruments were active in propagating the belief that the blow 



