business been placed in the hands of Lord Strangford, that it was
thought necessary to summon him to Vienna. Undoubtedly it might be
presumed, from facts which were of public notoriety, that the affairs
of Spain could not altogether escape the notice of the assembled
Sovereigns and Ministers; but the bulk of the instructions which had
been prepared for the Duke of Wellington related to the disputes
between Russia and the Porte: and how little the British Government
expected that so prominent a station would be assigned to the affairs
of Spain, may be inferred from the Duke of Wellington's finding it
necessary to write from Paris for specific instructions on that
subject.

But it is said that Spain ought to have been invited to send a
Plenipotentiary to the Congress.

So far as Great Britain is concerned, I answer--in the first place, as
we did not wish the affairs of Spain to be brought into discussion at
all, we could not take or suggest a preliminary step which would have
seemed to recognize the necessity of such a discussion. In the next
place, if Spain had been invited, the answer to that invitation might
have produced a contrary effect to that which we aimed at producing.
Spain must either have sent a Plenipotentiary, or have refused to do
so. The refusal would not have failed to be taken by the allies as a
proof of the _duresse_ of the King of Spain. The sending one, if sent
(as he must have been) jointly by the King of Spain and the Cortes,
would at once have raised the whole question of the _legitimacy_ of
the existing Government of Spain, and would, almost to a certainty,
have led to a joint declaration from the alliance, such as it was our
special object to avoid.

But was there anything in the general conduct of Great Britain at
Verona, which lowered, as has been asserted, the character of England?
Nothing like it. Our Ambassador at Constantinople returned from Verona
to his post, with full powers from Russia to treat on her behalf with
the Turkish Government; from which Government, on the other hand, he
enjoys as full confidence as perhaps any Power ever gave to one of
its own Ambassadors. Such is the manifest decay of our authority, so
fallen in the eyes of all mankind is the character of this country,
that two of the greatest States of the world are content to arrange
their differences through a British Minister, from reliance on British
influence, and from confidence in British equity and British wisd