IX
As Bonaparte had cut up and parcelled out nations for the purpose of enlarging the boundaries and strengthening the dominions of France, so the conquerors of Bonaparte spoiled and partitioned with equal zeal, in order to control the boundaries and restrain the dominion of the warlike people they had defeated. The limits imposed by right, justice, antiquity, custom, were all disregarded, and an attempt, by preference, made to throw up against all future schemes of conquest the patchwork barrier of ill-united and discordant populations.
Such had been the termination of affairs in Europe; but our contest with America was also over. We had made a treaty with that Power—a treaty so contrived that it did not settle a single one of those questions for which we had engaged in war. Nor were the circumstances under which this singular arrangement was completed such as compelled us to accede to it. The whole force of the British empire was disengaged; we could no longer say that our fleets were not invincible in one quarter of the world because their strength was exerted in another; whilst, if we meant to keep the dominion of the seas—more important to us than the whole of that continent we had been subsidizing and contending upon—there was every peril to apprehend from leaving unchecked the spirit of a rising rival, who had lately fought and frequently vanquished us on our own element, and who during a long peace would have the opportunity to mature that strength of which she was already conscious and proud. In short, the peace of Europe affected our character for morality, that of America weakened the belief in our power.
Mr. Canning would hardly have joined an Administration which had so mismanaged our foreign affairs, if the glory of our arms had not gilded in some degree the faults of our diplomacy. But the part which that diplomacy had played on the Continent was not without its effect upon things at home. We had become each year more and more alienated from our military allies, who having triumphed by the enthusiasm of their people, seemed disposed to govern by the bayonets of their troops. The Holy Alliance—that singular compact, invented partly by the superstition, partly by the policy of the Emperor Alexander—an alliance by which three sovereigns, at the head of conquering armies, swore in very mystical language to govern according to the doctrines of Christian charity, swearing also (which was more important) to lend each other assistance on all occasions, and in all places—this alliance, which no one could clearly understand, and which our Government refused to join, excited all the suspicion and all the apprehension which mystery never fails to produce, and made Englishmen, while they were rejoicing at having subdued an overgrown and despotic tyranny in one quarter of the world, doubt whether they might not have created as dangerous a one in another.