Government was to bring Portugal also into subjection, and against this
danger he provided by a bold announcement of policy. He declared in the
House of Commons that if Portugal were, of her own accord, to engage
herself in a war with France, the English Government would not feel bound
to take any active part in the struggle, but that if the King of Spain
were to accept or call in the assistance of the King of France to
suppress Portugal, the Government of England would put its armies into
the field to maintain its ancient ally. Then there arose a great
question concerning the Spanish colonies and possessions across the
Atlantic. The policy of France was to enable Spain to reconquer some of
her American colonies which had long been withdrawing themselves from
their condition of subjection, and the scheme of French statesmen
evidently was that Spain would hand over some of her American possessions
as a tribute of gratitude to France for the services she had rendered to
the cause of absolutism in Spain.

On this question, too, Canning announced to the House of Commons a
determination on the part of the English Government which put an
effectual stop to this audacious policy. Canning declared that, although
Spain had long since lost any real control over her transatlantic
colonies, yet if she were to attempt their actual reconquest for herself
England, however little in sympathy with such a purpose, might not feel
that it was any part of her business to interfere by force of arms. But
he went on to tell the House that, if Spain should claim the right to
hand over any of those colonies to France as a part of the policy
arranged between France and Spain, the English Government would then
intervene directly and at once on behalf {44} of the Spanish-American
colonies. This was the course of action which Canning described to the
House of Commons in an immortal phrase when he told the House "that he
had called in the New World to redress the balance of the Old." No words
employed by an English minister during the last century have been more
often quoted, and none have ever more thoroughly justified themselves in
history. The schemes of the French and the Spanish Bourbons were
blighted in the bud by Canning's memorable declaration.

[Sidenote: 1822-27--The Monroe Doctrine]

Canning had indeed called in the New World to redress the balance of the
Old in a sense more complete than the accepted meaning of his words, at
the