themselves with the utmost force, they have condescended to borrow my words.  For the Address goes on:  ’... principles destructive of the rights of all independent States, which strike at the root of the British Constitution, and are subversive of His Majesty’s legitimate title to the throne.’  Now by far the strongest expression in this sentence—­the metaphor (such as it is) about ’striking at the root of the British Constitution ’—­is mine.  It is in my dispatch to Sir Charles Stuart of the 4th of February, I claim it with the pride and fondness of an author:  when I see it plagiarized by those who condemn me for not using sufficiently forcible language, and who yet, in the very breath, in which they pronounce that condemnation, are driven to borrow my very words to exemplify the omission which they impute.

So much for the justice of the Address:  now for its usefulness and efficacy.

What is the full and sufficient declaration of the sense of the House on this most-momentous crisis, which is contained in this monitory expostulation to the throne?  It proceeds:  ’Further to declare to His Majesty the surprise and sorrow with which this House has observed that His Majesty’s Ministers should have advised the Spanish Government, while so unwarrantably menaced’—­(this ‘so’ must refer to something out of doors, for there is not a word in the previous part of this precious composition to which it can be grammatically applied)—­’to alter their constitution, in the hope of averting invasion; a concession which alone would have involved the total sacrifice of national independence, and which was not even palliated by an assurance from France, that on receiving so dishonourable a submission, she would desist from her unprovoked aggression.’ (I deny this statement, by the way; it is a complete misrepresentation.) ’Finally to represent to His Majesty that, in the judgement of this House, a tone of more dignified remonstrance would have been better calculated to preserve the peace of the Continent, and thereby to secure this nation more effectually from the hazard of being involved in the calamities of war.’  And there it ends!—­with a mere conjecture of what ‘would have been’!

Is this an Address for a British Parliament, carrying up a complaint that the nation is on the eve of war, but conveying not a word of advice as to the course to be followed at such a moment?  I, for my own part, beg the House not to agree to such an Address—­for this reason, amongst others, that as it will be my duty to tender my humble advice to His Majesty as to the answer to be given to it, I am sure I shall not know what to advise His Majesty to say:  the only answer which occurs to me as suitable to the occasion is, ’Indeed!  I am very sorry for it.’