ound a persevering though a gallant foe.
Therefore, so far as moral obligations are concerned, while there
are none which should influence England, there is a great sense of
gratitude which might have influenced the councils of France. But,
looking to the treaty, there is no legal obligation incurred by
England towards Denmark which is not equally shared by Russia and by
France.

Now, the question which I would first ask the House is this: How is it
that, under these circumstances, the position of France relative
to Denmark is one so free from embarrassment--I might say, so
dignified--that she recently received a tribute to her demeanour and
unimpeachable conduct in this respect from Her Majesty's Secretary
of State; while the position of England, under the same obligation,
contained in the same treaty, with relation to Denmark, is one, all
will admit, of infinite perplexity, and, I am afraid I must add,
terrible mortification? That, Sir, is the first question which I will
put to the House, and which, I think, ought to receive a satisfactory
answer, among other questions, to-night. And I think that the answer
that must first occur to every one--the logical inference--is that
the affairs of this country with respect to our obligations under the
treaty of 1852 must have been very much mismanaged to have produced
consequences so contrary to the position occupied by another Power
equally bound with ourselves by that treaty.

Sir, this is not the first time, as the House is aware, that the
dominions of the King of Denmark have been occupied by Austrian and
Prussian armies. In the year 1848, when a great European insurrection
occurred--I call it insurrection to distinguish it from revolution,
for, though its action was very violent, the ultimate effect was
almost nothing--but when the great European insurrection took place,
there was no portion of Europe more influenced by it than Germany.
There is scarcely a political constitution in Germany that was not
changed at that period, and scarcely a throne that was not subverted.
The King of Denmark, in his character of a sovereign prince of
Germany, was affected by that great movement. The population of
Germany, under the influence of peculiar excitement at that time, were
impelled to redress the grievances, as they alleged them to be, of
their fellow countrymen in the dominions of the King of Denmark who
were his subjects. The Duchy of Holstein and the Duchy of Schleswig
were