about it--a man of business, and not
surpassed by any one as a man of business, declare, after a long
examination of the details of the question, that he would undertake to
do everything that is done not only for the defence of the country,
but for many other things which are done by your navy, and which are
not necessary for that purpose, for half the annual cost that is voted
in the estimates!

I think the expenditure of these vast sums, and especially of those
which we spend for military purposes, leads us to adopt a defiant and
insolent tone towards foreign countries. We have the freest press in
Europe, and the freest platform in Europe, but every man who writes an
article in a newspaper, and every man who stands on a platform, ought
to do it under a solemn sense of responsibility. Every word he writes,
every word I utter, passes with a rapidity, of which our forefathers
were utterly ignorant, to the very ends of the earth; the words become
things and acts, and they produce on the minds of other nations
effects which a man may never have intended. Take a recent case; take
the case of France. I am not expected to defend, and I shall certainly
not attack, the present Government of France. The instant that it
appeared in its present shape, the Minister of England conducting
your foreign affairs, speaking ostensibly for the Cabinet, for his
Sovereign, and for the English nation, offered his congratulations,
and the support of England was at once accorded to the re-created
French Empire. Soon after this an intimate alliance was entered into
between the Queen of England, through her Ministers, and the Emperor
of the French. I am not about to defend the policy which flowed from
that alliance, nor shall I take up your time by making any attack upon
it. An alliance was entered into, and a war was entered into. English
and French soldiers fought on the same field, and they suffered, I
fear, from the same neglect. They now lie buried on the bleak heights
of the Crimea, and except by their mothers, who do not soon forget
their children, I suppose they are mostly forgotten. I have never
heard it suggested that the French Government did not behave with the
most perfect honour to this Government and this country all through
these grave transactions; but I have heard it stated by those who must
know, that nothing could be more honourable, nothing more just, than
the conduct of the French Emperor to this Government throughout the