eseen and provided for at Verona: and so far
as I know, there has not occurred, since the Congress of Verona any
new case to which the assistance of the allies can be considered as
pledged; or which has, in fact, been made the subject of deliberation
among the Ministers of the several Courts who were members of the
Congress.

We quitted Verona, therefore, with the satisfaction of having
prevented any _corporate_ act of force or menace, on the part of _the
alliance_, against Spain; with the knowledge of the three cases on
which alone France would be entitled to claim the support of her
Continental allies, in a conflict with Spain; and with the certainty
that in any other case we should have to deal with France alone,
in any interposition which we might offer for averting, or for
terminating, hostilities.

From Verona we now come, with our Plenipotentiary, to Paris.

I have admitted on a former occasion, and I am perfectly prepared to
repeat the admission, that, after the dissolution of the Congress
of Verona, we might, if we had so pleased, have withdrawn ourselves
altogether from any communication with France upon the subject of
her Spanish quarrel; that, having succeeded in preventing a joint
operation against Spain, we might have rested satisfied with that
success, and trusted, for the rest, to the reflections of France
herself on the hazards of the project in her contemplation. Nay, I
will own that we did hesitate, whether we should not adopt this more
selfish and cautious policy. But there were circumstances attending
the return of the Duke of Wellington to Paris, which directed our
decision another way. In the first place, we found, on the Duke of
Wellington's arrival in that capital, that M. de Vilelle had sent back
to Verona the drafts of the dispatches of the three Continental allies
to their Ministers at Madrid, which M. de Montmorency had brought
with him from the Congress;--had sent them back for reconsideration;
--whether with a view to obtain a change in their context, or to
prevent their being forwarded to their destination at all, did not
appear: but, be that as it might, the reference itself was a proof
of vacillation, if not of change, in the French counsels.

In the second place, it was notorious that a change was likely to take
place in the Cabinet of the Tuileries, which did in fact take place
shortly afterwards, by the retirement of M. de Montmorency: and M. de
Montmorency was as notoriously th