hich enjoin discretion, which show the necessity of
secrecy? They do not appear to an ordinary penetration.'

I have already told the House why I had not made such a notification;
I have told them also that as soon as the restraint of honour was
removed, I did make it; and that the Spanish Government was perfectly
satisfied with it. And with respect to the part which I have just
quoted of the dispatch of M. San Miguel, that in which he solicits our
good offices, and points out the mode in which they are to be applied,
I am sure the House will see that we scrupulously followed _his_
suggestions.

Most true it is, and lamentable as true, that our representations to
France were not successful. The honourable member for Westminster
attributes our failure to the intrigues of Russia; and has told us of
a bet made by the Russian Ambassador in a coffee-house at Paris, that
he would force France into a war with Spain.

[Mr. Hobhouse disclaimed this version of his words. He had put it as a
conjecture.]

I assure the honourable gentleman that I understood him to state it
as a fact: but if it was only conjecture, it is of a piece with, the
whole of the Address which he supports; every paragraph of which teems
with guesses and suppositions, equally groundless.

The honourable member for Bridgenorth (Mr. Whitmore) has given a more
correct opinion of the cause of the war. I believe, with him, that the
war was forced on the French Government by the violence of a political
party in France.

I believe that at one time the French Government hoped to avert it;
and that, up to the latest period, some members of that Cabinet would
gladly have availed themselves of the smallest loophole through which
the Spanish Government would have enabled them to find their retreat.
But we, forsooth, are condemned as dupes, because our opponents
gratuitously ascribe to France one settled, systematic, and invariable
line of policy; because it is assumed that, from the beginning, France
had but one purpose in view; and that she merely amused the British
Cabinet from time to time with pretences, which we ought to have had
the sagacity to detect. If so, the French Government made singular
sacrifices to appearance. M. de Montmorency was sent to Verona; he
negotiated with the allies; he brought home a result so satisfactory
to France, that he was made a duke for his services. He had enjoyed
his new title but a few days when he quitted his office. On this