Before I quit Verona, there are other detached objections which have been urged against our connexion with the Congress, of which it may be proper to take notice.  It has been asked why we sent a Plenipotentiary to the Congress at all.  It may, perhaps, be right here to observe, that it was not originally intended to send the British Plenipotentiary to Verona.  The Congress at Verona was originally convened solely for the consideration of the affairs of Italy, with which, the House is aware, England had declined to interfere two years before.  England was, therefore, not to participate in those proceedings; and all that required her participation was to be arranged in a previous Congress at Vienna.  But circumstances had delayed the Duke of Wellington’s departure from England, so that he did not reach Vienna till many weeks after the time appointed.  The Sovereigns had waited to the last hour consistent with their Italian arrangements.  The option was given to our Plenipotentiary to meet them on their return to Vienna; but it was thought, upon the whole, more convenient to avoid further delay; and the Duke of Wellington therefore proceeded to Verona.

Foremost among the objects intended to be discussed at Vienna was the impending danger of hostilities between Russia and the Porte.  I have no hesitation in saying that, when I accepted the seals of office, that was the object to which the anxiety of the British Government was principally directed.  The negotiations at Constantinople had been carried on through the British Ambassador.  So completely had this business been placed in the hands of Lord Strangford, that it was thought necessary to summon him to Vienna.  Undoubtedly it might be presumed, from facts which were of public notoriety, that the affairs of Spain could not altogether escape the notice of the assembled Sovereigns and Ministers; but the bulk of the instructions which had been prepared for the Duke of Wellington related to the disputes between Russia and the Porte:  and how little the British Government expected that so prominent a station would be assigned to the affairs of Spain, may be inferred from the Duke of Wellington’s finding it necessary to write from Paris for specific instructions on that subject.

But it is said that Spain ought to have been invited to send a Plenipotentiary to the Congress.

So far as Great Britain is concerned, I answer—­in the first place, as we did not wish the affairs of Spain to be brought into discussion at all, we could not take or suggest a preliminary step which would have seemed to recognize the necessity of such a discussion.  In the next place, if Spain had been invited, the answer to that invitation might have produced a contrary effect to that which we aimed at producing.  Spain must either have sent a Plenipotentiary, or have refused to do so.  The refusal would not have failed to be taken by the allies as a proof of the duresse of the King of Spain.  The sending one, if sent (as he must have been) jointly by the King of Spain and the Cortes, would at once have raised the whole question of the legitimacy of the existing Government of Spain, and would, almost to a certainty, have led to a joint declaration from the alliance, such as it was our special object to avoid.