was adopted, not original; because, in a speech eminent for its ability and for its fairness of reasoning (however I may disagree both with its principles and its conclusions), this, which he condescended to borrow, was in truth the only very weak and ill-reasoned part.  By my dispatch of the 27th of September the Duke of Wellington was instructed to declare, that ’to any interference by force or menace on the part of the allies against Spain, come what may, His Majesty will not be party’.  Upon this the honourable baronet, borrowing, as I have said, the remark itself, and borrowing also the air of astonishment, which, as I am informed, was assumed by the noble proprietor of the remark, in another place, exclaimed ’"Come what may”!  What is the meaning of this ambiguous menace, this mighty phrase, “that thunders in the index"?—­“Come what may!” Surely a denunciation of war is to follow.  But no—­no such thing.  Only—­come what may—­“His Majesty will be no party to such proceedings.”  Was ever such a bathos!  Such a specimen of sinking in policy? “Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?"’

Undoubtedly, Sir, if the honourable baronet could show that this declaration was applicable to the whole course of the negotiations, or to a more advanced stage of them, there would be something in the remark, and in the inference which he wished to be drawn from it.  But, before the declaration is condemned as utterly feeble and inconclusive, let us consider what was the question to which it was intended as an answer.  That question, Sir, was not as to what England would do in a war between France and Spain, but as to what part she would take if, in the Congress at Verona, a determination should be avowed by the allies to interfere forcibly in the affairs of Spain.  What then was the meaning of the answer to that proposition,—­that, ’come what might, His Majesty would be no party to such a project’?  Why, plainly that His Majesty would not concur in such a determination, even though a difference with his allies, even though the dissolution of the alliance, should be the consequence of his refusal.  The answer, therefore, was exactly adapted to the question.  This specimen of the bathos, this instance of perfection in the art of sinking, as it has been described to be, had its effect; and the Congress separated without determining in favour of any joint operation of a hostile character against Spain.

Sir, it is as true in politics as in mechanics, that the test of skill and of success is to achieve the greatest purpose with the least power.  If, then, it be found that, by this little intimation, we gained the object that we sought for, where was the necessity for greater flourish or greater pomp of words?  An idle waste of effort would only have risked the loss of the object which by temperance we gained!