He conjured the Ministers to satisfy the House, if they were about to enter into alliance with any Power to coerce a third, of the justice of that alliance.  Let them bear in mind what could be done by a gallant people attached to freedom, who now seemed to rally round their Sovereign with the unanimous determination to encounter every extremity rather than submit to injustice or disgrace.  Remember the siege of Haarlem—­remember the exploits that had been achieved on that and numberless other occasions by the same gallant nation.  Before Ministers asked the House to sanction a new crusade against Holland, implying approbation of their policy, let them accede at least to this reasonable request, that they would either afford the House information respecting the nature of our foreign relations, or postpone this vote.  These were the grounds upon which he protested against being made a judge in the question at present before the House.  He had not the necessary information to enable him to give a vote upon it.  The present agony and crisis of Holland was not the time for calling upon the House for a ratification of this treaty.  Let it be remembered, that this vote was for the postponement of the question, and not for its rejection.  The course which he, for one, should pursue, should the House determine to ratify this treaty, would be to vote a negative, and leave the responsibility of the transaction upon those who proposed it; but with a solemn protest, on his part, against the unfairness and injustice of the proceeding.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL MARCH 4, 1847 THE ANNEXATION OF CRACOW

The hon. member for Montrose (Mr. Joseph Hume) having made his motion, I shall, without entering on the general argument which has been stated by him and by my noble friend opposite, shortly state to the House the view which I take of the motion which he has made.  With respect to the argument which has been stated, that the three Powers were not justified by the Treaty of Vienna in concluding for themselves the consideration, whether the free state of Cracow should be maintained or extinguished—­with respect to that argument I cannot but concur with my hon. friend who made the motion, and my noble friend who seconded it.  I think it is clear from the words of the Treaty of Vienna, and from the prominence which the arrangement respecting Poland took, both in the conferences which preceded that treaty and in the articles of the treaty itself, that these articles were not immaterial parts of the treaty, but did form one of the principal stipulations upon which the great Powers of Europe agreed at the termination of a bloody and destructive war.  Nor can I think that, while the arrangement which placed the Duchy of Warsaw under the dominion of the Emperor of Russia formed the subject of many discussions and a long correspondence, not only between the Ministers of the different Courts, but also of a singular correspondence between the