On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
J ^ nd we shall speedily find , as the world begins to settle , that liberal institutions are the concomitants of prosperity . We do not despair of seeing Spain amongst the most rapidly-progres&ivs nations of Europe . A few years of quiet freedom will develop her immense , but hitherto abused or neglected , resources . But no extent of territory , no severity of regulation , no artificial and forced combination , will avail to fertilize and enrich the northern
states . Interests and institutions are linked together by the l&Wfc of national existence ; and instead of the purblind calculations of a sordid selfishness , that defeats its own purposes , England will find , in sympathy with freedom , that principle of foreign policy which will best enlarge her national wealth , while it can alone sustain and dignify her national character .
The timid and short-sighted councils which have neutralized so much of the effect of our Reform Bill on the publiq opinion and public spirit of England , have had a similar influence upon our foreign politics . The opportunity has been lost for investing our country with a moral supremacy over Europe . To the gaze of all continental liberals , the name of Canning remains
uneclipsed . The spirit with which he dissevered this country from the Holy Alliance , and the warm frankness of his tone on all European topics , won their hearts , and have left little relish for the cold trimmings of Whiggism . Would that this were the worst , or that we had merely shared with France the contempt due to impotent sympathies and disregarded remonstrances for Poland , crushed by the insolent cruelty of the barbarian
Despot . Or that we had only trifled with Spain , by that sort of inefficient aid which is perhaps rather a prejudice than an advantage . There is a far deeper blot fixed upon * us by the baffled at * tempt at a counter-revolution in Portugal . The subject has already drifted out of public attention , but it ought to be revived as the meeting of Parliament approaches , and occasion should be found for searching inquiries into all the particulars of
Ministers in connection with that memorable event . As ground for such inquiry , it is quite enough to know that a British naval armament , together with a French squadron , were moored in the Tagus , in such a position as that Lisbon might have been lauj in ashes , on the eve of a premeditated violation of Royal faith , for the purpose of robbing the Portuguese people of the freedom they
had conquered , and imposing on them the Oligarchy of a House of Peers . This has been only justified by the pretext of securing the Queen's person from peril ; the Queen shaving- been in no peril whatever , nor likely to incur any , but from the contemplated treason . The strong arm of Britain , which hangs So heavily when patriotism is beaten to the duat , was thus upraised to shelter premeditated treachery against a friendly and allied nation Disgrace and disgust have been thereby attached tq the firitifth
Untitled Article
Foreign Policy . S §
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 1, 1837, page 55, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1828/page/8/
-