, education, and a
thorough knowledge of the routine of business? The only term which we
can give to this `desideratum is' presence of mind--not the presence of
mind required in danger, but that presence of _mind_ which enables him,
when a proposition is made, at once to seize all its bearings, the
direction to which it tends, and the ultimate object (for that will
always be concealed at first) which the proposer may have in view.
Diplomatists, when they enter the field, are much in the situation of
two parties, one defending and the other attacking a stronghold.
Admissions are highly dangerous, as they enable the adversary to throw
up his first parallels; and too often, when you imagine that the enemy
is not one jot advanced, you find that he has worked through a covered
way, and, you are summoned to surrender. It is strange that, at the
very time that they assert that it would be impossible to employ those
as diplomatists who have not been regularly trained to the service,
officers in the army, and captains in the navy are continually so
employed, and often under circumstances of vital importance. Now it
would be supposed that the latter of all people they must be the most
unfit; as, generally speaking, they are sent to sea, _as unfit for
anything else_. But it appears that once commanding a frigate, they are
supposed to be fit for everything. A vessel is ordered for "particular
service," why so called I know not, except that there may be an elision,
and it means "particularly _disagreeable_ service." The captain is
directed by the Admiralty to consider himself under the orders of the
Foreign Office, and he receives a huge pile of documents, numbered,
scheduled, and red-taped (as Bulwer says in his pamphlet), the contents
of which he is informed are to serve as a guide for his proceedings. He
reads them over with all their verbiage and technicalities, sighs for
Cobbett's pure Saxon, and when he has finished, feels not a little
puzzled. Document Number 4 contradicting document Number 12, and
document Number 1 opposed to Number 66; that is, as _he_ reads and
understands English. Determined to understand them if possible, he
takes a dose of protocol every morning, until he has nearly learnt them
by heart, and then acts to the best of his knowledge and belief. And it
is undeniable that, with very few exceptions, the navy have invariably
given satisfaction to the Foreign Office when they have been so
employed, and