ion is to be found, but I suppose it would be possible
for antiquaries and men of investigating minds to dig them out from
the recesses of the Foreign Office, and perhaps to make some of them
intelligible to the country. I believe, however, that if we go to the
Baltic we shall find that we have a treaty to defend Sweden, and the
only thing which Sweden agrees to do in return is not to give up any
portion of her territories to Russia. Coming down a little south, we
have a treaty which invites us, enables us, and perhaps, if we acted
fully up to our duty with regard to it, would compel us to interfere
in the question between Denmark and the Duchies. If I mistake not, we
have a treaty which binds us down to the maintenance of the little
kingdom of Belgium, as established after its separation from Holland.
We have numerous treaties with France. We are understood to be bound
by treaty to maintain constitutional government in Spain and Portugal.
If we go round into the Mediterranean, we find the little kingdom of
Sardinia, to which we have lent some millions of money, and with which
we have entered into important treaties for preserving the balance of
power in Europe. If we go beyond the kingdoms of Italy and cross the
Adriatic, we come to the small kingdom of Greece, against which
we have a nice account that will never be settled, while we have
engagements to maintain that respectable but diminutive country under
its present constitutional government. Then, leaving the kingdom of
Greece, we pass up the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and from
Greece to the Red Sea, where-ever the authority of the Sultan is more
or less admitted, the blood and the industry of England are pledged to
the permanent sustentation of the 'independence and integrity' of the
Ottoman Empire.

I confess that, as a citizen of this country, wishing to live
peaceably among my fellow countrymen, and wishing to see my countrymen
free, and able to enjoy the fruits of their labour, I protest against
a system which binds us in all these net-works and complications, from
which it is impossible that we can gain one single atom of advantage
for this country. It is not all glory, after all. Glory may be worth
something, but it is not always glory. We have had within the last few
years dispatches from Vienna and from St. Petersburg which, if we had
not deserved them, would have been very offensive and not a little
insolent. We have had the Ambassador of the Queen