ated, evaded, or set at naught. We
are ready, in the face of Europe, however inconvenient some of those
stipulations may be, to hold ourselves bound, by all our engagements,
to keep the fame, and the name, and the honour of the Crown of England
unsullied, and to guard that unsullied honour as a jewel which we will
not have tarnished. With that sentiment, Sir, if I should ask my noble
friend to go to the Court of Russia, and say, 'To be sure you have
violated a treaty--to be sure you have extinguished an independent
state. We have allowed this to be done. You shall hear no threat of
war. We will not arm for the purpose. We will admit that the state of
Cracow is extinguished. We will admit that her inhabitants are reduced
to subjection. The names of freedom and of independence to them are
lost for ever. But this we will do. There is a claim of some thousand
pounds which we can make against you, which we now pay, and which we
will now throw upon your shoulders; and in that way we will revenge
ourselves for your violation of treaties'--we should be taking a part,
we should be using language which is not becoming the position England
has hitherto held; which is not becoming the position I wish her in
future to hold against the world. Having thus stated as shortly as I
could the views I entertain upon the subject, I ask you not to come
in this House of Commons, which does not usually interfere with the
foreign relations of this country, to any idle resolution upon which
you don't intend to act; and I ask you, in the next place, not to
lower this question to a mere question of money value, not to go and
demand how much this Russian-Dutch stock may be worth in the market,
but to preserve that which, as I think, is of inestimable value; I
wish you to allow, as this House has hitherto allowed, by its silent
acquiescence, the protest which the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs has delivered, to remain in full force, as a declaration upon
our part--a declaration which will have its value, depend upon it,
in regard to future transactions--that we do not abstain from the
observance of treaties which we believe to have been violated; and let
us be able to say that we have sought no interest of England in this
matter. We have not looked to any interest, either large or petty, in
regard to ourselves; we have regarded the great interests of Europe;
we have desired that the settlement which put an end to a century of
bloodshed should