ly because I had reason to believe that
on questions of public policy my sentiments would generally be found
to be in accordance with those of the present Government, nor yet only
because I felt I owed to the noble Viscount himself, and many at least
of his colleagues, a debt of obligation for the generous support they
uniformly gave me at critical periods in the course of my foreign
career; but also, and principally, because in the critical position in
which this country was placed--at a time when we had only recently
presented to the astonished eye of Europe the discreditable spectacle
of a great country left for weeks without a Government, and a popular
and estimable Monarch left without councillors, during a period of
great national anxiety and peril; when there was hardly a household in
England where the voice of wailing was not to be heard, or an eye
which was not heavy with a tear--it appeared to me, I say, under such
circumstances, to be the bounden duty of every patriotic man, who had
not some very valid and substantial reason to assign for adopting a
contrary course, to tender a frank and generous support to the
Government of the Queen.

Having come to that determination, he had now to ask himself whether
circumstances were so altered as to make it his duty to revoke the pledge
spontaneously given? To this conclusion he could not bring himself.

It seems to me (he said) these Resolutions divide themselves naturally
into two parts. The first part has reference to what I may call the
general policy of the Government with respect to the war; and that
portion of them is conceived in strains of eulogy and commendation--I
may almost say in strains of exultation. The Resolutions speak of firm
alliances, of brotherhood in arms, of a sympathetic and enthusiastic
people; but not a word of regret for national friendships of old
standing broken--desolation carried into thousands of happy
homes--Europe in arms--Asia agitated and febrile--America sullenly
expectant.

This exuberance of exultation, he said, was amply met by the exuberance of
denunciation which characterises the latter part of the Address; but it was
to his mind even less just than the former.

But even (he continued) if I could bring myself to believe, which I
have failed in doing, that censure might be passed in the terms of
these Resol