52 REFORM AND DEMOCRACY 



uncompromising terms, of the attitude of the 

 United States appeared very decisive and made 

 a prodigious sensation both at home and abroad. 

 That so weighty a judgment on a question of 

 world politics should emanate from Washington, 

 satisfied the spirit of the most ardent patriots 

 in America; in England the Whigs and Radicals 

 rejoiced at the alliance of the two English-speak 

 ing nations for the defence of liberty against 

 the despots of the Holy Alliance, and even the 

 Tories found something to approve in the aid 

 given by the Americans to a keen stroke of 

 British policy. The press on both sides of the 

 Atlantic teemed for a time with expressions of 

 amicable feeling. 



Canning accepted with complacency the flat 

 tering tributes to his skill and astuteness in 

 bringing America to the aid of Britain. He 

 had, however, no illusions about the realities of 

 the case. He perceived at first sight, in the 

 salving ointment of Monroe s message, a very 

 unpleasant and dangerous insect. In the par 

 agraphs that have been quoted there was, he 

 saw, a conspicuous lack of care to discriminate 

 precisely among the &quot;European powers,&quot; so as 

 to exclude Great Britain from the warning 

 addressed to them. It was not hard to read 



