Then, after alluding to the immense armament by sea and land which France had hurled with such incredible rapidity upon the Austrian Empire during the recent war in Italy, he concluded by saying,—­“Are we to sit supine on our own shores, and not to prepare the means necessary in case of war to resist that power?  I do not wish to say that we should do this for any aggressive purpose.  What I insist upon is, that we are bound to make every effort necessary for our own shelter and protection.  Beside this, the question of expense and of money sinks into insignificance.  It is the price we must pay for our insurance, and it is but a moderate price for so important an insurance.  I know there are persons who will say, ‘Let us run the risk.’  Be it so.  But, my lords, if the calamity should come, if the conflagration should take place, what words can describe the extent of the calamity, or what imagination can paint the overwhelming ruin that would fall upon us?  I shall be told, perhaps, that these are the timid counsels of old age.  My lords, for myself, I should run no risk.  Personally I have nothing to fear.  But to point out possible peril and how to guard effectively against it,—­that is surely to be considered not as timidity, but as the dictate of wisdom and prudence.  I have confined myself to facts that cannot be disputed.  I think I have confined myself to inferences that no man can successfully contravene.  I hope what I have said has been in accordance with your feelings and opinions.  I shall terminate what I have to say in two emphatic words, ’Voe victis!’—­words of solemn and most significant import.”

So spoke the Nestor of the English nation.  Has our country no lesson to learn from the well-considered words of this aged and accomplished statesman?  Are we not paying a large insurance to secure permanent national prosperity?  And is it not a wise and profitable investment, at any cost of blood and treasure, if it promises the supremacy of our Constitution, the integrity of our Union, and the impartial enforcement of our laws?

When it is remembered that Lord Lyndhurst was at this time in his eighty-eighth year, this speech of nearly an hour in length, giving no evidence from first to last of physical debility or mental decay, delivered in a firm, clear, and unfaltering voice, admirable for its logical arrangement, most forcible and telling in its treatment of the subject, and irresistible in its conclusions, must be considered as hardly finding a parallel in ancient or modern times.  We might almost call it his valedictory; for his lordship’s subsequent speeches have been infrequent, and, with, we believe, a single exception, short, and he is now rarely, if ever, seen in the House of Lords.