The Sun.
London, England, 1824-02-05 00:00:00

The, ,House had, however, recently seen the principles then
-promulgated carried into application; and, what was more
important, had seen them carried into application without any
inteinpt at resistance from the British Government. Ile should
sot press this point any further at present ; he merely men-
dicned it, that it might not be supposed that he concurred in
- tile approbation which had been bestowed on the policy of the
?resent cabinet. He cceld not describe the painful mixture of
aurprite and indignatien by which he was affected, when he
tweed the Right Honourable Secretary declate last night, that
-we ought not to interfere, even if the minor states were going
to be annihilated. He agreed with him fully, when he said
On: it would be Quixotic in us to become the champion of all
the minor states upon every case of grievance which they had
to ailege; but it was one thing to become their champion, and
another to -remonstrate against• manifest injuries which were
nifiicted upon them. To uphold the cause of the weak against
the strang, eto watch (wee the relative interests of the different
states i,f Etirooe, and to hold .the balance of power between
the,n with an impartial hand, was formerly the distinguishing
,tide arid policy of Great Britain ; and he trusted that we
.:scald sop:, return to it, notwithstanding the temporary aber-
r:,tion we hail made from sound, principles under the guidance
af the preeeat cabinet.
Colonel PALMER rose, under feelings of shame and indite-
. nansin,• te, protest SigairiSt the conduct of the Government; and
firmly believing that Europe and the world had never before
—.teen reduced. to a state of such actual and prospective misery
"aid ilegratlatios, and that such state was to be imputed solely
to the conduct of the British Goverment, he considered it to
Int a duty to . his country, as a Member of that House, to de-
niore his opinion upon the subject. If it were true, as the
Ministers had told us, both in and out of Parliament, and more
isnecially in a late speech of the Right Honourable Secretary,
that the weantry had been so long prepared for war, they had.
seeriticid its honour and most vital interests by suffering
Prance to conquer Spain ; if it were false, they had equally
betrayed their duty by deceiving the country to support the
system of their Government: but, whatever was the real state
61 the nation, the conduct of the Ministers towards Spain had
been wholly indefensible ; as, looking to the avowed inten-
tions of France and the Holy Alliance, neutrality on the part
of England was impossible, and could not be maintained :
for what had been the late measure of the Ministers in
sending Consuls to South America but an act of hostility
to those Powers, which, if not resented, was but a further
proof, if any were wanting, that if England had acted with
firmness at the Congress, and declared herself the ally of Spain,
France would not have dared -to invade her ; if, on the other
hand, after abandoning Spain, the country was to be involved
in war for the independence of her colonies, what excuse was to
be made for the Ministers, who might !lane secured the liberties
of bOth at a less expence to the nation than had already been
incurred by the active measures to which their crooked and in-
censistent policy had at last compelled them ? The Ministers
in the last Session, to cool the ardour of the people in the cause
.of Spain, declared that any interference in her behalf would
involve all the expences of the fbrmercontest. But he then
stated to the Right Hon. Gentleman what he now repeated, tha-
no such expence was necessary : all that honour_ and policy ret
quired of England was to render Spain the assistance which her
means afforded,. anti those means wire more than adequate to
the object 'for to have sent but half the force of our naval peace
establishment lying ready in our ports to the defence of Cadiz,
would have prevented all the disasters to the cause of Spanish
liberty which the consummate folly or treachery of the British
Government necessarily had led to. Yet this straight and pru-
dent course, which every consideration for the honour and in-
terests of the nation demanded, had been termed-Quixotism by
the Right Hon. Gentleman. Would that his conduct as Mi-
nister could bear the same comparison; but, unfortunately, it
hod betrayed all the insanity of the character—(Hear, hear!)—_
without a spark of that chivalrous feeling, which, however ro-
mantic in its origin, or thankless in the end to the mind of the
Right Hon. Gentleman, was, in the opinion of the Hon. Mem-
ber, the best foundation of a great or good name, either for states
or individuals. The Right Hon. Gentleman, too, in his late
speeat, further to mark the distinction between his Quixotic
opponents and himself', had openly declared, as the Minister
of England, that in the conduct of political affairs the grand
object of his contemplation was the interest of his own coun-
try : and what had been the result of this most wise and liberal
policy, but to combine the whole world against her? For
where was the nation wherein both with the Government and
the people the name of England was not justly held in detes-
mtion ? She was necessarily hated by all the Governments of
Europe as the only nation wherein that liberty of the press
existed, which, if not destroyed itself, must eventually destroy
:heir tyranny—(cheering)—and she was equally bated by all other
nations, because in every instance of a struggle for ..liberty,
whether in France, since the commencement of her revolution,
or latterly in South America, in Greece, in Italy, or in Spain,
the British Government had invariably opposed it.---(Heriet).—
Thus England, through the system of its Ministers, was. the
enemy of the whole human race ; and whilst the Right Hon.
Gentleman had been exhibiting himself about the kingdom,
trumpeting in alldirections tha praises of.himself and colleagues
—.(alaugh)—therenwas nova: nation but abhorred them, nor a
rower in Europa that was not pledged to destroy the liberties of
the country committed to their hands. . And after all his fine
speeches, what, in fact,- haitheen the measures of the Right
Hen. Gent. to oppose France and the Holy Alliance, up to the
to al destruction of Spanish liberty by the fall of Cadiz? Nothing
whatever, but intemperate abuse of their conduct, and a posi-
tive declaration of strict neutrality. This was not Quixotism,
certainly ; nor did he know a parallel to such conduct in history
or romance. The only resemblance the Hon. Member could
find to it, was in the case of the late atrocious murder, wherein
the Holy Alliance was the bold villain who went straight to his
purpose, whilst the Right Hon. Gentleman was the humane
and consistent accomplice, who, after furnishing the rope and
sank, resolved, come what might, to have no share in the trans-
action—(Hear, hear, and a laugh);—for precisely with the
wane feelings that this miscreant hung back whilst the deed
was perpetrating, so the Ministers of England, who had gone
hand in hand with their accomplices in their plot against li-
berty for the last 30 years, now stood aloof whilst their victim
wen expiring under the blows of its assassins. As to their
accomplices, compared with themselves they were honourable
upright characters, tbr their conduct had been consistent
throughput, and whilst he detested their policy, in justice to
their private characters, and what he believed and knew upon
the subject, he could not agree in all the odium cast on per-
sons, to whom every allowance was to be made for those pre..
indices and impressions which, however hostile to the liberties
of mankind, were ineeparible from human nature, and would
be felt equally by others under similar circumstances. For the
same reason he could excuse the Ministers of those despotic
powers, who were, in fact, their slaves; but he could find no
mediae for the Ministers of England, who were not the slaves,
but the tyrants of the Crown and people, and of all others the
molt bas^ and cruel that ever infested the earth. - Even the
Zing of Spain, madman or monster that he was, had been less
Luc and inhuman; for his conduct had.been consistent with
the feeling of bigotry ant . diVine right ; but where had. been the
consistency or the humanity of Ministers ? For at once to
have declared against Spain would have prevented a struggle
equally disgraCeful and deplorable in its consequences to the
victory and the vanquished. But what had been the refined policy
of Eugiand's Minister, and of that heart, which, by its own ac-
count, beat so high for the interests of humanity, but to create
this cenfusion of Ircnnors in Spain by means
,of a treacherous
neateedity, and having so far succeeded, it was now to perpe-
tuate tile miseries of that wretched country, to prevent France
from reaping the fruits of her victory. So much for the hu-
mmity of the Right Hon. !Gentleman ; and as for consistency,
-lei him reconcile his prayers for th Spanish Constitution,
and Ida contemptuoue anawer to the Regency, with his sub-
sequent congratulations to Ferdinand on his success, and the
treatment of die patriots who sought refuge in Gibraltar ; and
when he had answered that charge of apostasy from radicalism
to divine. right, let him answer the charge of ultra-apostacy from
divine right back to radicalism, in declaring for the patriots
of South America, in the teeth of the Foreign Enlistment Bill,
expres4 enacted against them. And now, continued the
Honoarable Member, as to the real situation of the country.—
He remembered long since, upon a question of the same nature
in the House, they were told by an Honourable and leading
Member of the landed interest, that it was time to speak out
and look the danger in the face. If that was his opinion then,
what did he think now ? When, during eight years of a peace
establishment, no reduction whatever had been made in the
hurilen of die public debt—when, in spite of all the retrench-
ment which, session after session, had been forced upon the
Ministers, the load of taxation still pressed too heavily on
all classes to admit of an increase—When such was our state of
real weakness, that the Ministers, who fn the last war had ex-,
pended millions to delive.r.Spain from thhpower ol,France, now
suffered her to fall without even an attempt to save her—,
wlezn France herself, whom so lately, in conjunction with our
allies, we had humbled to the dust, was r'ow' again on foot,
more greae, powerful, and inveterate as our'hnemy than ever ;
and lastly, when these sanie allies who first '&ornbined with us
against bee liberties, were now combined Whir. France against
.the iiherties of England, and the storm, long gathering around,

,
',a:: now at last ready at any mordent to burst upon its head—.
if, in suet a state of things, he might- be allowed to speak out
and look. die danger in the face, the Hon. Member believed he
could state the cause and the only means to remove it ; but
v•- e.adT occupied so much of the time of tlle House, be
himself cf another occasion to deliver hiS sentiments
subject. .
Jill said, that he merely rose for the purpose of
a misconception from prevailing with the public,
iencc of what had fallen tjyttevening from the.
.oitoura.ole ,Se'cretary. He li4E4
-recelycdinformation
.e lonian Islands, fully corrglipxating that which had
catedto the House by, Op lion. Memba fur West,.

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