To go to war therefore directly, unsparingly, vigorously against France, in behalf of Spain, in the way in which alone Spain could derive any essential benefit from our co-operation—­to join her with heart and hand, or to wrap ourselves up in a real and bona fide neutrality—­that was the true alternative.

Some gentlemen have blamed me for a want of enthusiasm upon this occasion—­some, too, who formerly blamed me for an excess of that quality; but though I am charged with not being now sufficiently enthusiastic, I assure them that I do not contemplate the present contest with indifference.  Far otherwise.  I contemplate, I confess, with fearful anxiety, the peculiar character of the war in which France and Spain are engaged and the peculiar direction which that character may possibly give, to it.  I was—­I still am—­an enthusiast for national independence; but I am not—­I hope I never shall be—­an enthusiast in favour of revolution.  And yet how fearfully are, those two considerations intermingled, in the present contest between France and Spain!  This is no war for territory or for commercial advantages.  It is unhappily a war of principle.  France has invaded Spain from enmity to her new institutions.  Supposing the enterprise of France not to succeed, what is there to prevent Spain from invading France, in return, from hatred of the principle upon which her invasion has been justified?  Looking upon both sides with an impartial eye, I may avow that I know no equity which should bar the Spaniards from taking such a revenge.  But it becomes quite another question whether I should choose to place myself under the necessity of actively contributing to successes which might inflict on France so terrible a retribution.  If I admit that such a retribution by the party first attacked could scarcely be censured as unjust, still the punishment retorted upon the aggressor would be so dreadful, that nothing short of having received direct injury could justify any third Power in taking part in it.

War between France and Spain (as the Duke of Wellington has said) must always, to a certain degree, partake of the character of a civil war; a character which palliates, if it does not justify, many acts that do not belong to a regular contest between two nations.  But why should England voluntarily enter into a co-operation in which she must either take part in such acts, or be constantly rebuking and coercing her allies?  If we were at war with France upon any question such as I must again take the liberty of describing by the term ‘external’ question, we should not think ourselves (I trust no government of this country would think itself) justified in employing against France the arms of internal revolution.  But what, I again ask, is there to restrain Spain from such means of defensive retaliation, in a struggle begun by France avowedly from enmity to the internal institutions of Spain?  And is it in such a quarrel that we would mix ourselves?  If one of two contending