treaty of May 8,
1852. (No. 2, 130.)

Sir, I think that was a very prudent step on the part of the Secretary
of State. It was virtually a reminder of the offer which France had
made some months before. Yet, to the surprise, and entirely to the
discomfiture of Her Majesty's Government, this application was
received at first with coldness, and afterwards with absolute refusal.

Well, Sir, I pause now to inquire what had occasioned this change in
the relations between the two Courts. Why was France, which at the
end of the session of Parliament was so heartily with England, and so
approving the policy of the noble lord with respect to Denmark and
Germany that she voluntarily offered to act with us in endeavouring to
settle the question--why was France two or three months afterwards so
entirely changed? Why was she so cold, and ultimately in the painful
position of declining to act with us? I stop for a moment my
examination of this correspondence to look for the causes of this
change of feeling, and I believe they may be easily discerned.

Sir, at the commencement of last year an insurrection broke out in
Poland. Unhappily, insurrection in Poland is not an unprecedented
event. This insurrection was extensive and menacing; but there had
been insurrections in Poland before quite as extensive and far more
menacing--the insurrection of 1831, for example, for at that time
Poland possessed a national army second to none for valour and
discipline. Well, Sir, the question of the Polish insurrection in 1831
was a subject of deep consideration with the English Government
of that day. They went thoroughly into the matter; they took the
soundings of that question; it was investigated maturely, and the
Government of King William IV arrived at these two conclusions--first,
that it was not expedient for England to go to war for the restoration
of Poland; and, second, that if England was not prepared to go to war.
any interference of another kind on her part would only aggravate the
calamities of that fated people. These were the conclusions at which
the Government of Lord Grey arrived, and they were announced to
Parliament.

This is a question which the English Government has had more than one
opportunity of considering, and in every instance they considered
it fully and completely. It recurred again in the year 1855, when a
Conference was sitting at Vienna in the midst of the Russian War, and
again the English Government--the Go