The Express.
London, England, 1846-11-09 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.

Pay DAT. —it;;liilli:237llll:PAlZAiteTOC:76 min. put 5.
10-3101120. F.—Morning, S min. past ; Afternoon, 30 min. put 6.

LONDON, MONDAY, NOV. 9.

WE should strongly recommend oar Foreign Se-
ciliary to haul in his sails, lower his top-gallant
masts, and put on his hard-weather hat. There is
evidently a storm brewing, and not far from burst-
ing, which, if it catches him unprepared, will most
decidedly swamp him. An experienced eye can
already mark its symptoms, not only in the cloud
of ill humour, which hangs over the marriage festi-
vities of the Tuileries, and in the spiteful coruscation
of the Afrancesado press here, but in the low mur-
muring wind which begins to whistle through the
columns of Printing-house-square. All was sun-
shine there for oar Foreign Minister till a day or
two ago, when the aspect became changed to sober
and disparaging sadness. He will soon have the old
thunder and the hail of vituperation falling thick
upon his shoulders.

We are in no wise anxious to hasten to the rescue.
However indignant every one must feel at the way
in which this country has been tricked and humi-
liated by the French King, this is a sentiment quite
apart from the belief that the Foreign-office adopted
the best means for either preventing or resenting the
injury. Lord ABERDEEN, with childish weakness,
mumbled away all the right that England could
derive from the Treaty of Utrecht, to oppose the matri-
monial absorption of Spain by France. Lord PAL-
MERSTON, in striving to regain that firm and inde-
pendent position from which his predecessor had
descended, provoked a counter-move by which he was
defeated, and one of the chief aims of England's
policy for the last fifteen years was utterly marred.
Dut we would avoid as much as possible embarras-
sing the future conduct of our foreign policy, by blend-
ing this or that portion of it with the personal merits
or fortunes of particular ministc re. The country has
already advanced so far as to consider and decide the
most important questions of domestic policy without
much reference to the chiefs or colours of parties.
Such a rule would tell with a hundred-fold advantage,
if applied to the management of our relations with
foreign countries. Whether Lord PAulEarrox was
right or was wrong in the attitude which he assumed
towards Prance in 1810, there cannot be a doubt but
that the country has
_very much suffered in its
influence and its interests by the outcry, which
assailed and pulled down hint who represented, even
though he may have exaggerated, the proud and
defiant spirit of the country.

Perhaps, we might find considerable benefit in
being provided with two sets of foreign ministers,—
with one who, like CANNING, inspired European
courts with salutary fear, and who awed insidious
foes by the knowledge that he was not to be trifled
with,—that he had a voice potential to call upon this
spirit of the country, and to find it alert and alive.
Such a minister might spare to the country many
humiliations and many wars. But on the other hand,
there are certainly times end conjunctures, when
meekness is tfioke advisable:than pride, and when the
lion should giie way to the lamb. The long and
glorious war, which filled thefirst fourteen years ofthis
century, raised England to such a pitch of ascendancy
and pride, that it naturalt- assumed privileges and
pretensions and—

- superiority in all seas
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it is but in the

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