and which he afterwards revised and published, stated the admitted principle of non-intervention—

That is, the principle that every nation has a right to manage its own internal affairs as it pleases, so long as it injures not its neighbours; and that one nation has no right to control by force of arms the will of another nation in the choice of its government or rulers. To this principle I most cordially assent. It is sound, it ought to be sacred; and I TRUST ENGLAND WILL NEVER BE FOUND TO SET THE EXAMPLE OF ITS VIOLATION.'-Hansard, vol. 21, p. 1646.

We could select twenty passages to the same effect from the speeches and publications of his majesty's present ministers—but these will suffice. But a very short possession of office convinced them that they had entered into an unwary pledge. They had made and promulgated it when they fancied that intervention was likely to be employed against revolution-they were very much embarrassed with it, when they found themselves in power, and saw that intervention might be most usefully employed in furthering revolution. They were caught, like the Crotonean of old, in a cleft stick of their own rending; and they never could have extricated themselves from it, but that-fortunately for the revolutionists of Belgium, of Portugal, and of Spain-the epidemic mania of reform seized the people of England, and so entirely absorbed all the national faculties, that foreign affairs were for a season totally forgotten, and when at length remembered, the democratic party had acquired so overwhelming an ascendancy in the counsels of England, that there was not only a willingness but an anxiety that, in defiance of promises and pledges, of law, of justice, and of policy, the British ministry should intervene-even to the sword-wherever and however their intervention could further the progress of revolution over the face of Europe. Then came the concerted intervention of France and England in the affairs of Belgium-the very altar on which the non-intervention principle had been so recently consecrated. Naval blockade, military invasion, everything that could exaggerate their private inconsistency and their breach of public faith was shamelessly employed, and the astonished world saw the non-intervention cabinet of England intervening by force of arms against her most ancient ally, and, with the furious zeal of apostates, overturning the system of policy which, from the days of Elizabeth, we had thought it alike our interest and our duty to maintain.

The impunity of this unprecedented outrage encouraged them to proceed still further; and the ally which-next to Hollandwas our oldest and best connexion-Portugal-was destined to be our next victim. How miserably for that unhappy country Lord Carnarvon has shown; how fatally for our own honour and safety, no distant day will, we fear, irremediably prove! Having

thus

thus dismembered ourselves of our two nearest and best continental alliances, our next stroke of policy was to aid, if we did not cause, the disorganization and desolation of that other country, which had been so lately the scene of our glory, and by which, as a fulcrum, we had been enabled to overthrow the gigantic despotism of Buonaparte, and elevate Europe from a state of almost hopeless prostration. We intervened in Spain-with what profit to Spain, with what honour to ourselves, we are not now inquiring-but we intervened! Now, we will ask, is there in the annals of party, in the history of nations, so sudden, so entire, so flagrant, so unjustifiable a breach of pledge—a desertion of principle

a contempt of personal consistency-a forfeiture of national faith, as the British ministry have individually and collectively exhibited in these-we can hardly refrain from calling them scandalous-tergiversations? In November, 1830, they came into office under a solemn undertaking towards the king and the people of the broad principle of NON-INTERVENTION: and in every succeeding month from that day to this, they have been pushing intervention, both in its principle and details, to a degree before unknown in the transactions of nations.

If their intervention had been directed to objects by which British interests were to be benefited-if it had been discreetly and honourably conducted-if it had been successful-if it had conduced to the tranquillity and the happiness of the nations whom we undertook to guide or to drive-it would still have been, in these men, gross inconsistency, and a flagrant violation of their own principles of public law. But how much deeper must be the indignation, when we see the deplorable consequences of this policy-when we see that what with cooling our friends and heating our enemies,' England has not now one single sincere friend among all the millions that inhabit the continent of Europe. We talk not of the governments only-but of the people? In those countries in which ten years ago, and for two hundred years before, an Englishman was welcomed as a friend, or honoured as a protector, he is now an object-in Holland of insult -in Portugal of violence-and Down with the English,' and 'Death to the English,' are the salutations-varied according to the national temper-which we individually receive in those countries on which we have inflicted our intervention.

But if such is our odour amongst the people, our public position, with relation to their Governments,-those very governments which our interventions have established,-is still worse. TO BELGIUM we have given a king, who, both figuratively and literally, has passed from the arms of England into those of France; and although there is still a show of independence in the mimicry of a court at Brussels, every one sees and feels that-though the transfer

VOL. LVIII. NO. CXV.

U

transfer is not yet formally made-we have signed and sealed the eventual cession to France of that country which, for one hundred and fifty years, she had been endeavouring to obtain, and which England, by William, by Marlborough, and by Wellington, had, for one hundred and fifty years, preserved from her domination! To SPAIN we had given constitutions and governments, and they have vanished-we had guaranteed the Estatuto Real, and it has been overthrown; a serjeant of the line, and two companies of National Guards, overthrew, in five minutes, at La Granja, five years of Lord Palmerston's diplomacy, and erected in Madrid that most monstrous of tyrannies, a military democracy. Even before this last revolution hear what Lord Carnarvon says was the feeling of the government under the Estatuto Real :

'Their real views and principles are hostile to the system upon which the government is conducted and society is based in England. They hate us for our established church; they hate us for our laws of primogeniture; they hate us for our house of lords. Desirous of rooting out the last vestiges of aristocratic institutions in their own country, they abhor a system of liberty, preserved and tempered as it is in England, by a graduated subordination of ranks, and by aristocratic checks.'-vol. ii. pp. 294, 295.

What, then, must be our influence with the government formed under the auspices of Serjeant Garcias? And who was it, we ask with shame-double shame-shame for England and shame for Spain-who was it that reduced that high-minded and chivalrous nation to such a state of imbecility as to place her queen, her cortes, her nobles, and her people-her ancient institutions and her modern charters, all at the mercy of a drunken serjeant? That question shall be answered by authorities which, differing in their principles and wishes on the subject of Spain, yet concur in their view of the facts, and are therefore, on that point, entitled to implicit confidence. Lord Carnarvon says

It is most difficult to reconcile, with any notion of good policy, the obstinate attachment with which our ministers continued, by acts of increasing favour, to support the democratic party in Spain, in spite of their increasing atrocities; at a time, too, when it was evident that, by such a course, they were not promoting the interests of good government, or even of the queen, but were feeding the fire so quickly destined to involve in a common destruction the Estatuto Real, the child of their adoption, and the more ancient institutions of Spain.'-vol. ii. pp. 346, 347.

And on the other hand, the National, the organ in France of the ultra-revolutionary party in Spain-in replying to the disapprobation, which the English ministerial journals affected to express of the revolution of La Granja, and the subsequent and similar revolt in Portugal, says,—

"The English ministry has been directly accused of having been ac

complices

complices of the new revolutionary movements in Spain and Portugal. The replies of the Whig journals have been awkward, obscure, and contradictory. And if the British government (adopting the tone of their defenders) were now to profess a kind of affected neutrality in this new aspect of the contest, its conduct would be not less shameful after all the encouragements, SECRET or public, which it has given to the Spanish revolution.'-National, Oct. 1836.

This whole affair of La Granja is really, we believe, the most shameful which the history of the world can produce. John of Leyden and Masaniello, were heroes and demigods compared to our new ally, Serjeant Garcias. We say, our ally, because the quadruple treaty, which languished so miserably under his predecessors, Martinez de la Rosa and Torreno, has been put into zealous and belligerent activity, in support of the Mendizabal government established under Garcias' auspices.*

The recent Portuguese revolt, indeed, was operated by hands not quite so mean; but the principle of military violence was the same, and as regards us, the event was much more humiliating. Garcias, as Lord Carnarvon and the National agree in thinking, was only working out Mr. Villiers' diplomacy, and does not seem to have had to encounter even his disapprobation; but the last Portuguese revolution was effected in the teeth, and against the earnest wishes-we do him the credit of believing-of the British minister-in the face of British soldiers, and under the guns of British ships collected there-if for any comprehensible object— for that of preventing such catastrophes. There too we had enthroned a queen, established a charter, and dictated a ministry, and there, we confess that-much as we disapproved and deplored the policy of our intervention-we at least thought that it was likely to be successful; and that our enormous force might have been able to keep the peace at Lisbon, and to protect the person of the queen, and the authority of the glorious constitution that Dom Pedro, under our countenance, had imposed on the Portuguese people and so, we have no doubt, they would have been against

* While this sheet is passing through the press, we learn from Madrid that Serjeant Garcias has again appeared on the scene; but not with so high an object or such splendid success as at La Granja. Garcias, it seems, complains of the ingratitude of Mendizabal, who has not sufficiently rewarded the serjeant's services. On the 4th of February Garcias, who, it seems, could not otherwise obtain an interview with his quondam patron, waited for him at the door of his residence, and began to urge his claim; but being unfavourably received, he proceeded rather warmly to reproach Mendizabal with his ingratitude to the man who had made him minister,' adding, that he would be deceived no longer, and seized the minister by the collar. Mendizabal called the guard, and the poor serjeant was sent to gaol, whence he loudly demands justice and a trial. The latter, it is said, will not be granted, as it would be too fruitful in scandal relative to the La Granja revolution; and accordingly we find by the last reports that his mouth is stopped by his being kept in solitary confinement, and it is conjectured at Madrid that he will be spirited away to the colonies without further noise. Garcias, it seems, could seize the queen and overturn the constitution with impunity; but when he collars Mendizabal, he is sent to gaol. U 2

any

any attempt of the legitimate prince, or the friends of the ancient monarchy-against them, we have no doubt, our forces would have acted effectually; but our anti-legitimate policy did not dare to oppose an anarchical revolt, of which, indeed, it was itself the The gale rose in an unexpected quarter-our fleet was taken aback-our diplomacy was washed overboard-and our whole system of Portuguese policy went in a moment to the bottom.

cause.

This, considering the position in which we had chosen to place ourselves, was an intolerable outrage and affront. Even Lord Palmerston seems to have felt it. The King of Belgium, whose nephew had married Queen Maria da Gloria, made a journey to London, and there and then, we have no doubt, was concocted that notable scheme for the re-establishment of the royal authority, and for repairing the insult to British policy, which was soon after attempted with the happy result of still further diminishing the royal power, and still more deeply injuring the honour and the interests of England. A counter-revolution was attempted. The queen, her consort, her ministers, and her court eloped to the castle of Belem, and proclaimed the Pedro charter-but no one joined her;-she was, as it were, besieged in the castle, and reduced to the necessity of parleying with the rebels. The British marines were landed—this only inflamed the mischief-the insurgents refused even to treat while the territory was defiled by these foreign mercenaries-and they were obliged to re-embark. In the meanwhile, the young queen began to discover that the castle of Belem was not quite so well furnished as her palace-that her bed-chamber in the fortress was rather uncomfortable, and that in the hurry of her elopement her cook had been left behind. These considerations were decisive-her majesty surrendered almost at discretion, taking nothing by her motion but mortification; and things returned into the status quo ante-a cheering sight to the five or six thousand British officers and men who had come so far, and stayed so long, to have a distant prospect of this lamentable farce-at which, we believe, we may say with the old Chronicler, Les Anglais se divertirent moult tristement!'

The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel in the debate on the address, while they regretted the false policy of the Quadruple Treaty,' admitted, with the candour of honest statesmen, that public faith now required that it should be executed-but they showed that the way in which our ministry seemed to understand that treaty, and their armed co-operation—so lamentable in Spain and so ridiculous in Portugal-were alike unwarranted and unjustifiable. Six sail of the line were collected,' said Sir Robert, in the Tagus, for the purpose, it must be supposed, of protecting the queen, but in fact to be the witnesses of her humiliation;' and the Duke of Wellington asked whether the country was prepared

to