cal result of our didactic reprehensions. In truth,
the principle of _non-interference_ is one on which we were already
irrecoverably at variance in opinion with the allies; it was no longer
debatable ground. On the one hand, the alliance upholds the doctrine
of an European police; this country, on the other hand, as appears
from the memorandum already quoted, protests against that doctrine.
The question is, in fact, settled, as many questions are, by each
party retaining its own opinions; and the points reserved for debate
are points only of practical application. To such a point it was that
we directed our efforts at Verona.

There are those, however, who think that with a view of conciliating
the Continental Powers, and of winning them away the more readily
from their purposes, we should have addressed them as tyrants and
despots--tramplers on the rights and liberties of mankind. This
experiment would, to say the least of it, be a very singular one in
diplomacy. It may be possible, though I think not very probable, that
the allies would have borne such an address with patience; that they
would have retorted only with the 'whispering humbleness' of Shylock
in the play, and said,--

Fair Sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You called me--dog; and, for these courtesies,

'we are ready to comply with whatever you desire.' This, I say, may be
possible. But I confess I would rather make such an experiment, when
the issue of it was matter of more indifference. Till then, I shall
be loath to employ towards our allies a language, to which if they
yielded, we should ourselves despise them. I doubt whether it is wise,
even in this House, to indulge in such a strain of rhetoric; to call
'wretches' and 'barbarians', and a hundred other hard names, Powers
with whom, after all, if the map of Europe cannot be altogether
cancelled, we must, even according to the admission of the most
anti-continental politicians, maintain _some_ international
intercourse. I doubt whether these sallies of raillery--these flowers
of Billingsgate--are calculated to soothe, any more than to adorn;
whether, on some occasion or other, we may not find that those on whom
they are lavished have not been utterly unsusceptible of feelings of
irritation and resentment:

Medio de fonte leporum
Surget amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.

But be the language of good sense or good taste in this Hou