I will remind your lordships that, since the peace, and particularly within the last twenty years, three great navies have sprung up in Europe, which are four times as strong as they were at any former period.  Other navies, it is true, are put down; but we remain much the same.  A great deal has been said, by way of comparison, between the strength of our navy in 1792, and in the years 1814 and 1815; but when we talk of strength in this case, we ought not to look at the subject without adverting to the naval establishments of other powers.  Now, although our marine force should even be on the same footing as before, our commerce is not only tripled, but extended to a degree ten times greater than it ever was before; and there is not a part of the earth, from one pole to the other, in which the protection of our navy is not required for our commerce.  I must say that, if we should at any time incur the misfortune of being involved in another war—­which God forbid!—­the only mode of keeping out of the difficulty would be to maintain such a navy as would give protection to her majesty’s subjects in all parts of the globe.

August 14, 1838.

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Neutrality of Belgium.

I hope that it never may be lost sight of in this country, that the original foundation of the independence of Belgium, as a separate kingdom, was this condition, namely, its perpetual neutrality.  That condition I consider to have been the foundation of that transaction, and I hope that this will never be forgotten by this country, or by Europe.

February 5, 1839.

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Aggressions on Canada from the United States.

I must say I should very much wish to see suitable measures adopted to carry into execution the intentions which her majesty declares in her speech, of maintaining her rights of sovereignty over Canada.  The system of levying private war which prevails on that continent is not wholly unknown in other parts of the world.  I have read of it as existing in the deserts of Central Asia; I have heard of its being practised, as a system, by the Asiatics on the frontiers of the Russian monarchy, where a perpetual warfare is going on between those tribes and the troops sent to repress their inroads—­a warfare that has been waged in those countries from century to century.  We read also of circumstances of the same kind occurring in Africa—­of wars carried on by barbarous tribes against the possessions of the British government in Africa, the contests of savages against a civilized people.  But this is a war carried on by a nation supposed to be considerably advanced in the scale of civilization—­by men governing themselves, electing their servants by ballot and general suffrage, and living under institutions of that description.  Yet these are the very men who come in at night, and with fire and torch destroy