done by a gallant people attached to freedom, who now
seemed to rally round their Sovereign with the unanimous determination
to encounter every extremity rather than submit to injustice or
disgrace. Remember the siege of Haarlem--remember the exploits that
had been achieved on that and numberless other occasions by the same
gallant nation. Before Ministers asked the House to sanction a new
crusade against Holland, implying approbation of their policy, let
them accede at least to this reasonable request, that they would
either afford the House information respecting the nature of our
foreign relations, or postpone this vote. These were the grounds upon
which he protested against being made a judge in the question at
present before the House. He had not the necessary information to
enable him to give a vote upon it. The present agony and crisis of
Holland was not the time for calling upon the House for a ratification
of this treaty. Let it be remembered, that this vote was for the
postponement of the question, and not for its rejection. The course
which he, for one, should pursue, should the House determine to ratify
this treaty, would be to vote a negative, and leave the responsibility
of the transaction upon those who proposed it; but with a solemn
protest, on his part, against the unfairness and injustice of the
proceeding.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL MARCH 4, 1847 THE ANNEXATION OF CRACOW

The hon. member for Montrose (Mr. Joseph Hume) having made his motion,
I shall, without entering on the general argument which has been
stated by him and by my noble friend opposite, shortly state to the
House the view which I take of the motion which he has made. With
respect to the argument which has been stated, that the three
Powers were not justified by the Treaty of Vienna in concluding for
themselves the consideration, whether the free state of Cracow should
be maintained or extinguished--with respect to that argument I cannot
but concur with my hon. friend who made the motion, and my noble
friend who seconded it. I think it is clear from the words of the
Treaty of Vienna, and from the prominence which the arrangement
respecting Poland took, both in the conferences which preceded that
treaty and in the articles of the treaty itself, that these articles
were not immaterial parts of the treaty, but did form one of the
principal stipulations upon which the great Powers of Europe agreed at
the termination of a bloody and destr