230 The Conference, and the Five Great Powers. [|Sept. 



must be sacred under all circumstances ; and we believe, that it might 

 be easily ascertained, from a slight review of history, that few nations, 

 perhaps none, ever committed a determined breach of treaty, let the 

 motive be what it might, without being deeply scourged for it by the 

 retributive hand of Heaven. France, and her breach of treaty in the 

 American war, is a memorable example, and should be perpetually before 

 the eyes of kings. If Poland is to be saved, it must be by other acts than 

 the violation of public faith. 



But let the consequence be what it may, Poland has infinitely exalted 

 her own character ; if her soldiers and statesmen should at last be 

 forced to abandon the struggle, they will be received in every part of 

 Europe with honour ; a generous sympathy will attend them wherever 

 they go ; and the time may not be distant when they shall be summoned 

 under more powerful auspices, and with a happier fortune, to achieve 

 the independence of their country. 



The debates in the British parliament on the French attack on Don 

 IVIiguel have passed away without effect. We have no great respect for 

 the Duke of Wellington's sincerity in public affairs, and as little for 

 Lord Aberdeen's wisdom. His lordship, in the eagerness of his opposi- 

 tion, forgot that he himself was one of the most virulent, the most 

 j)ei-tionallif virulent, accusers of Don IMiguel, and that there was no 

 language in the vocabulary of contempt which he did not lavish on the 

 milucky usui-per. The Duke chose to forget that the policy which 

 made all alliance with Don IMiguel impossible, was his own, and that 

 the Wellington cabinet treated the Portuguese with the most inflexible 

 haughtiness. Of course Lord Grey forgot none of those things, and the 

 Lord and the Duke were equally laughed at, and with equal justice. 

 France has chastised this contemptible prince — and why not ? He 

 insulted her, and in the spirit of the same folly which had offered the 

 ijifult, he refused the compensation. She forced the Tagus, seized his 

 fleet, which seems to have behaved most miserably, and is now com- 

 pelling him to pay £10,000 for the trouble of punishing him. He is 

 evidently a Avretched coxcomb. 



But what cares England about the difference between him and Don 

 Pedro, or the little Donna Maria. What fitness has any one of them 

 exhibited for being at the head of a people ? Don Pedro has been turned 

 out of his kingship, and now, instead of retiring into that solitude which 

 would be the only thing congenial to a great mind fallen undeservedly 

 from power, is nightly flourishing about ball-rooms and dinner-parties, 

 bedizened like an ambassador's footman — the only thing svich fellows 

 are fit for. Such are not the beings for whom the manly people of 

 England will ever int( rest themselves, much less go to war. Let them 

 have their mazurkas and gallopades, their coats daubed Avith lace, and 

 their faces covered with moustaches — and they have all they can want. 

 British gold or British blood would be thrown away criminally, if either 

 the one or the other were hazarded in the quai'rels of dandyism. 



