In thus unavoidably introducing the names of the French Ministers, I
beg I may be understood to speak of them with respect and esteem.
Of M. de Montmorency I have already said that, in voluntarily
relinquishing his office, he made an honourable sacrifice to the
sincerity of his opinions, and to the force of obligations which he
had undertaken but could not fulfil. As to M. de Chateaubriand, with
whom I have the honour of a personal acquaintance, I admire, his
talents and his genius; I believe him to be a man of an upright mind,
of untainted honour, and most capable of discharging adequately the
high functions of the station which he fills. Whatever I may think of
the political conduct of the French Government in the present war, I
think this tribute justly due to the individual character of M. de
Chateaubriand. I think it further due to him in fairness to correct a
misrepresentation to which I have, however innocently, exposed him.
From a dispatch of Sir W. A'Court, which has been laid upon the table
of the House, it appears as if M. de Chateaubriand had spoken of the
failure of the mission of Lord F. Somerset as of an event which had
actually happened, at a time when that nobleman had not even reached
Madrid. I have recently received a corrected copy of that dispatch, in
which the tense employed in speaking of Lord F. Somerset's mission
is not _past_ but _future_; and the failure of that mission is only
anticipated, not announced as having occurred.

The dispatch was sent _in cipher_ to M. Lagarde (from whom Sir W.
A'Court received his copy of it), and nothing is more natural in such
cases than a mistake in the inflection of a verb.

It is also just to the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, to allude
(although it is rather out of place in this argument) to another
circumstance, of which I yesterday received an explanation. A strong
feeling has been excited in this country by the reported capture of a
rich Spanish prize in the West Indies by a French ship of war. If
the French captain had acted under orders, most unquestionably those
orders must have been given at a time when the French Government was
most warm in its professions of a desire to maintain peace. If this
had been the case, it might still perhaps be doubtful whether this
country ought to be the first to complain. Formal declarations of war,
anterior to warlike acts, have been for some time growing into disuse
in Europe. The war of 1756, and the Spanis