There is, my Lords, but one course for this country to pursue in its dealings with other States; she must abstain from all interference, all mischievous meddling with their domestic concerns, and leave them to support, or to destroy, or to amend their own institutions in their own way.  Let us cherish our own Government, keeping our own institutions for our own use, but never attempt to force them upon the rest of the world.  We have no such vocation, we have no such duty, no such right.  Above all, we have no right to interfere between sovereigns and subjects, encouraging them to revolt, and urging them to revolution, in the vain hope that we may thus better their condition.  Then, in negotiation, let us avoid the same meddling policy—­shall I falsely call it?—­the same restless disposition to serve one State at another’s expense; showing favour and dislike capriciously and alternately, guided by mere individual and personal feelings, whether towards States or statesmen, displaying groundless likings for some and groundless hatred for others; one day supporting this Power in its aggression upon that, and when defeated, justly and signally defeated, like Sardinia, clinging to the wish that it should obtain from the victorious party an indemnity for its own foul but failing aggression.  Most of all let us abide by the established policy of the country towards our old and faithful friends, not Naples merely, but Austria, whose friendship has been, in all the best times of our most eminent statesmen, deemed the very corner-stone of our foreign policy, ever since the era of 1688; above all, since King William and the Ministers and Government of his successor laid the foundations of that system.  But now I can see in every act done, almost in every little matter, a rooted prejudice against Austria, and the interspersing of a few set phrases does little to prevent any reader from arriving at the same conclusion.  ’Our feelings are friendly towards Austria,’ and ‘God forbid they should be otherwise!’ I say Amen to that prayer, but when I read the dispatches with the light shed on them by the acts of our Government, and of all their agents and Ministers, when by these acts I interpret the fair words used, I perceive the latter to mean exactly nothing, and that those expressions which perpetually recur of an opposite kind speak the true sense of our rulers.  But this policy is opposed to the uniform authority of our greatest statesmen.  Even Mr. Fox, who was sometimes believed to have a leaning towards Russia, from the accidental transactions of 1791, when charged with undervaluing the Austrian alliance in comparison, took immediate opportunity earnestly to disavow any such opinion, and declared that our friendship with Austria was the grand element of our European system.