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SUBSTANCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 GEORGE CANNING, 
 
 AT A. 
 
 PUBLIC DINNER 
 
 GIVEN TO HIM ON HIS VISIT T* 
 
 Itoerpool, 
 
 IN THE MONTH OF JANUARY 1814. 
 
 (JOHN BOLTON, ESQ. IN THE CHAIR J 
 
 LIVERPOOL: 
 
 WWMTWD BY THOS. KAYE, 40, CASTLE-STREC> 
 
DA 5 35 
 
 C3S 
 
 MR. CANNING'S 
 
 SPEECHES. 
 
 THE following Speech was delivered by the 
 Right Hon. GEORGE CANNING, on his health being 
 drank at a Dinner given to him by 400 of his 
 Friends and Constituents, on the 10th of January, 
 1814: 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 As your guest, I thank you from my heart for 
 the honourable and affectionate reception which you 
 have given me. As the representative of Liverpool, 
 I am most happy in meeting my constituents again, 
 after a year's experience of each other., and a year's 
 separation : a year, the most eventful in the annals 
 of the world ; and comprising within itself such a 
 series of stupendous changes as might have filled the 
 history of an age. 
 
 Gentlemen, you have been so good as to couple 
 with my name the expression of your acknowledg- 
 ments for the attention which I have paid to the inter- 
 ests of your town You, Gentlemen, I have no doubt, 
 recollect the terms upon which I entered into your 
 service ; and you are aware, therefore, that I claim 
 no particular acknowledgment at your hands for 
 attention to the interests of Liverpool, implicated as 
 they are with the general interests of the country. 
 I trust at the same time that I have not been wanting 
 
 P. 181 
 
to all or to any of you, in matters of local or indivi- 
 dual concern. But 1 should not do fairly by you if 
 I were not to take this opportunity of saying that a 
 service ( which certainly I will not pretend to des- 
 cribe as without some burden in itself) has been 
 made light to me, beyond all example, by that 
 institution which your munificence and provident 
 care have established I mean the Office in London 
 through which your correspondence with your 
 Members is now carried on. I had no pretension, 
 Gentlemen, to this singular mark of your considera- 
 tion : but neither will it, I hope, be thought pre- 
 sumptuous in me to confess that I might not have 
 been able to discharge the service which I owe you 
 in a way which would have satisfied my own feelings 
 as well as yours ; that I might, in spite of all my 
 endeavours, have been guilty of occasional omissions 
 if I had not been provided with some such medium 
 of communication with my constituents. Of an 
 absent and meritorious individual it is as pleasing as 
 it is just to speak well: and I do no more than 
 justice to the Gentleman whom you have appointed 
 to conduct the office in question, (with whom I had 
 no previous acquaintance,) in bearing public testi- 
 mony to his merit ; and in assuring you that it would 
 be difficult to find any one who would surpass him 
 in zeal, intelligence, and industry. 
 
 Having despatched what it was necessary for 
 me to say on these points, I know, Gentlemen, that 
 it is your wish, and I feel it to be my duty, that I 
 should now proceed to communicate to you my 
 sentiments on the state of public affairs, with the 
 same frankness which has hitherto distinguished 
 all our intercourse with each other. Gentlemen, 
 that duty is one which it does not now require 
 any effort of courage to perform. To exhort to 
 sacrifices, to stimulate to exertion, to shame des- 
 pondency, to divert from untimely concession, is a 
 duty of a sterner sort, which you found me not 
 backward to discharge, at a period, when, from the 
 
shortness of our acquaintance, I was uncertain 
 whether my freedom might not offend you. My task 
 of to-day is one at which no man can take offence. 
 It is to mingle my congratulations with your rejoic- 
 ings on the events which have passed and are passing 
 in the world. 
 
 Gentlemen, if in contemplating events so widely 
 ( I had almost said so tremendously ) important, it 
 be pardonable to turn one's view for a moment to 
 local and partial considerations, I may be permitted 
 to observe that, while to Great Britain, while to all 
 Europe, while to the world and to posterity, the 
 events which have recently taken place are matter 
 of unbounded and universal joy, there is no col- 
 lection of individuals who are better entitled than 
 the company now assembled in this room ( in great 
 part I presume identically the same, and altogether 
 representing the same interests and feelings, as that 
 of which I took leave in this room about fourteen 
 months ago, ) to exult in the present state of things, 
 and to derive from it, in addition to their share of 
 the general joy, a distinct and special satisfaction. 
 
 We cannot forget, Gentlemen, the sinister omens 
 and awful predictions under which we met and parted 
 in October, 1812. The penalty denounced upon you 
 for your election of me was embarrassment to the 
 rich, and famine to the poor. I was warned that 
 when I should return to renew my acquaintance 
 with my constituents, I should find the grass 
 growing in your streets. In spite of that denun- 
 ciation you did me the honour to elect me ; in spite 
 of that warning I venture to meet you here again. 
 It must be fairly confessed that this is not the season 
 of the year to estimate correctly the amount of 
 superfluous and unprofitable vegetation with which 
 your streets may be teeming ; but without presuming 
 to limit the power of productive nature, it is at least 
 satisfactory to know that the fields have not been 
 starved to clothe your quays with verdure ; that it 
 is not by economizing in the scantiness of the harvest 
 
that nature has reserved her vigour for the pastures 
 of your Exchange. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, I am sure you feel with me 
 that these are topics which I treat with levity only 
 because they are not, nor were at the time when 
 they were seriously urged, susceptible of a serious 
 argument : they did not furnish grounds on which 
 any man would rest his appeal to your favour, or on 
 which your choice of any man could be justified. 
 If I have condescended to revert to them at all, it is 
 because I would leave none of those recollections 
 untouched which the comparison of our last meeting 
 with the present I know suggests to your minds as 
 well as to my own ; and because I would, so far as 
 in me lies, endeavour to banish from all future use, 
 by exposing their absurdity, topics which are cal- 
 culated only to mislead and to inflame. That the 
 seasons would have run their appointed course, that 
 the sun would have shone with as genial a warmth, 
 and the showers would have fallen with as fertilizing 
 a moisture, if you had not chosen me for your 
 representative, is an admission which I make without 
 much apprehension of the consequence. Nor do I 
 wish you to believe that your choice of any other 
 than me would have delayed the return of your 
 prosperity, or prevented the revival of your com- 
 merce. 
 
 I make these admissions, Gentlemen, without 
 fear, so far as concerns the choice between indivi- 
 duals. But I do not admit that it was equally indif- 
 ferent upon what principles that choice should be 
 determined. I do not admit that if the principles 
 which it was then recommended to you to coun- 
 tenance had unfortunately prevailed in parliament, 
 and through the authority of parliament had been 
 introduced into the counsels of the country, they 
 would not have interfered with fatal operation, not 
 indeed to arrest the bounty of Providence, to turn 
 back the course of the seasons, and to blast the 
 fertility of the earth, but to stop that current of 
 
political events, which " taken at the flood/' has 
 placed England at the head of the world. 
 
 Gentlemen, if I had met you here again on this 
 day in a state of public affairs as doubtful as that 
 in which we took leave of each other, if confederated 
 nations had been still arrayed against this Country, 
 and the balance of Europe still trembling in the 
 scale, I should not have hesitated now, as I did 
 not hesitate then, to declare my decided and un- 
 alterable opinion, that perseverance, under whatever 
 difficulties, under whatever privations, afforded 
 the only chance of prosperity to you, because the 
 only chance of safety to your country; and the only 
 chance of safety to the country, because the only 
 chance of deliverance to Europe. Gentlemen, I 
 should be ashamed to address you now in the tone of 
 triumph, if I had not addressed you then in that of 
 exhortation. I should be ashamed to appear before 
 you shouting in the train of success, if I had not 
 looked you in the face and encouraged you to 
 patience under difficulties. It is because my ac- 
 quaintance with you commenced in times of peril 
 and embarrassment, and because I then neither 
 flattered nor deceived you, that I now not only offer 
 to you my congratulations, but put in my claim to 
 yours, on the extinction of that peril, on the ter- 
 mination of that embarrassment, and on the glorious 
 issue to which exertion and endurance have brought 
 that great struggle in which our honour and our 
 happiness were involved. 
 
 Gentlemen, during the course of a political life, 
 nearly co-eval with the commencement of the war, 
 I have never given one vote, I have never uttered 
 one sentiment, which had not for its object the con- 
 summation now happily within our view. 
 
 I am not ashamed, and it is not unpleasing or 
 unprofitable to look back upon the dangers which 
 we have passed, and to compare them with the scene 
 which now lies before us. We behold a Country 
 inferior in population to most of her Continental 
 
neighbours, but multiplying her faculties and re- 
 sources by her own activity, and enterprize, bj the 
 vigour of her constitution, and by the good sense of 
 her people, we behold her, after standing up against 
 a formidable foe, throughout a contest in the course 
 of which every one of her allies, and at times all of 
 them together, have fainted and failed nay, have 
 been driven to combine with the enemy against her 
 we behold her at this moment rallying the nations 
 of Europe to one point, and leading them to decisive 
 victory. 
 
 If such a picture were merely the bright vision 
 of speculative philosophy, if it were presented to us 
 in the page of the history of ancient times, it would 
 stir and warm the heart. But, Gentlemen, this 
 Country is our own ; and what must be the feelings 
 which arise on such a review in the bosom of every 
 son of that Country ? What must be the feelings 
 of a Community such as I am now addressing, which 
 constitutes no insignificant part of the strength of 
 the nation so described ; which has suffered largely 
 in her privations, and may hope to participate pro- 
 portionably in her reward? what (I may be per- 
 mitted to add) must be the feelings of one who is 
 chosen to represent that community, and who finds 
 himself in that honourable station at the moment of 
 triumph, only because he discountenanced despair 
 in the moment of despondency ? 
 
 Gentlemen, from the contemplation of a spectacle 
 so mighty and magnificent as this, [ should disdain 
 to turn aside to the controversies of party. Of prin- 
 ciples, however, it is impossible not to say something, 
 because our triumph would be incomplete, and its 
 blessings might be transient, if we could be led 
 astray by any sophistry, if we could consent in a 
 sort of compromise of common joy to forget, or to 
 misstate the causes from which that triumph has 
 sprung. All of one mind, I trust and believe, we 
 are, in exulting at the success of our country ; all of 
 one mind, I trust, we now are throughout this land, 
 
in determining to persevere, if need be, in strenuous 
 exertion to prosecute, and I hope to perfect, the 
 great work so happily in progress. But ve know 
 that there are sunie of those who share most 
 heartily in the public exultation, who yet as- 
 cribe effects which happily cannot be disputed to 
 causes which may justly be denied. No tenderness for 
 disappointed prophecies, Gentlemen, ought to in- 
 duce us thus to disconnect effect and cause. It 
 leads to errors which might be dangerous, if unwa- 
 rily adopted, and generally received. 
 
 We have heard, for instance, tnat the war has 
 now been successful, because the principles on 
 which the war was undertaken have been renounced ; 
 that we are at length blessed with victory because 
 we have thrown away the banner under which we 
 entered into the contest ; that the contest was com- 
 menced with one set of principles, but that the 
 issue has been happily brought about by the adop- 
 tion of another. Gentlemen, I know of no such 
 change. If we have succeeded, it has not been by 
 the renunciation, but by the prosecution, of our 
 principles ; if we have succeeded, it has not been by 
 adopting new maxims of policy, but by upholding, 
 under all varieties of difficulty and discouragement, 
 old, established, inviolable principles of conduct. 
 
 We are told, that this war has of late become a war 
 of the people; and that by the operation of that change 
 alone the power of imperial France has been baffled 
 and overcome. Nations, it is said, have at length 
 made common cause with their sovereigns, in a con- 
 test which, heretofore, had been a contest of sove- 
 reigns only. Gentlemen, the fact of the change 
 might be admitted without therefore admitting the 
 argument. It does not follow, that the people were 
 not at all times equally interested in the war, ( as 
 those who think as I do have always contended 
 that they were, ) because it may be and must be 
 admitted, that the people, in many countries, were 
 for a time deluded. They who argue against us. 
 
10 
 
 say, that jarring interests have been reconciled. 
 We say, that gross delusions have been removed. 
 Both admit the fact,, that sovereigns and their peo- 
 ple are identified. But they who contend that this 
 has been effected by change of principles, let them 
 specify the change. What change of principles or 
 of government has taken place among the nations of 
 Europe ? We are the best judges of ourselves 
 what change has taken place here ? Is the consti- 
 tution other than it was when we were told, ( as we 
 often were told in the bad times,) that it was a 
 doubt if it were worth defending ? Is the constitution 
 other than it was, when we were warned that peace 
 on any terms must be made, as the only hope of 
 saving it from popular indignation and popular 
 reform ? 
 
 There is yet another question to be asked. By 
 what power,, in what part of the world, has that final 
 blow been struck, which has smitten the tyrant to 
 the ground ? I suppose, by some enlightened 
 Republic; by some recently regenerated Govern- 
 ment of pure philanthropy and uncorrupted vir- 
 tue ; I suppose, by some nation which, in the 
 excess of popular freedom, considers even a repre- 
 sentative system as defective, unless each individual 
 interferes directly in the national concerns; some 
 nation of enlightened patriots, every man of whom 
 is a politician in the coffee-house, as well as in the 
 senate ; I suppose it is from some such government 
 as this that the conqueror of autocrats, the sworn 
 destroyer of monarchical England, has met his doom. 
 I look through the European world, Gentlemen, in 
 vain ; I find there no such august Community. But 
 in another hemisphere I do find such a one., which 
 no doubt must be the political David by whom the 
 Goliah of Europe has been brought down. What 
 is the name of that glorious republic to w r hich the 
 gratitude of Europe is eternally due ; which, from 
 its innate hatred to tyranny, has so perseveringly 
 exerted itself to liberate the world, and at last has 
 
- 11 
 
 successfully closed the contest ? Alas ! Gentlemen, 
 such a Republic I do indeed find ; but I find it en- 
 listed, and ( God be thanked ! ) enlisted alone, under 
 the banner of the despot. But where was the blow 
 struck ? Where? Alas for theory ! In the wilds 
 of despotic Russia. It was followed up on the plains 
 of Leipzig by Russian, Prussian, and Austrian 
 arms. 
 
 But let me not be mistaken. Do I therefore 
 mean to contend do I therefore give to our anta- 
 gonists in the argument the advantage of ascribing 
 to us the base tenet that an absolute monarchy is 
 better than a free government ? God forbid ! 
 What I mean is this that in appreciating the com- 
 parative excellence of political institutions, in esti- 
 mating the force of national spirit, and the impulses 
 of national feeling, it is idle it is mere pedantry 
 to overlook the affections of nature. The order of 
 nature could not subsist among mankind, if there 
 were not an instinctive patriotism ; I do not say un~ 
 connected with, but prior and paramount to, the de- 
 sire of political amelioration. It may be very wrong 
 that it should be so. I cannot help it. Our busi- 
 ness is with fact. And, surely, it is not to be re- 
 gretted that tyrants and conquerors should have 
 learned, from the lessons of experience, that the first 
 consideration suggested to the inhabitant of any 
 country by a foreign invasion, is not whether the 
 political constitution of the state be faultlessly per- 
 fect or not ; but whether the altar at which he has 
 worshipped, whether the home in which he has dwelt 
 from his infancy, whether his wife and his children, 
 whether the tombs of his forefathers, whether the 
 palace of the sovereign under whom he was born, 
 and to whom he therefore owes, (or, if it must be 
 so stated, fancies that he therefore owes ) allegiance 
 shall be abandoned to violence and profanation ? 
 
 That, in the infancy of the French Revolution, 
 many nations in Europe were unfortunately led to 
 believe and to act upon a different persuasion, is un- 
 
12 - 
 
 doubtedly true ; that whole countries were over-run 
 by reforming conquerors, and flattered themselves 
 with being proselytes till they found themselves vic- 
 tims. Even in this country, as I have already said, 
 there have been t'ines when we have been called 
 upon to consider whether there were not something 
 at home which must be mended before we could 
 hope to repel a foreign invader with success. 
 
 Gentlemen it is fortunate for the world that 
 this question should have been tried, if I may so 
 say, to a disadvantage; that it should have been Tri- 
 ed in countries where no man in his senses will say 
 that the frame of political society is such as, accord- 
 ing to the most moderate principles of regulated 
 freedom, it ought to be ; where, I will venture to 
 say, without hazarding the imputation of being my- 
 self a visionary reformer, political society is not 
 such, as, after the successes of this war and from the 
 happy contagion of the example of Great Britain, it 
 is sure gradually to become. It is fortunate for the 
 world that this question should have been tried on its 
 own merits ; that after twenty years of controversy we 
 should be authorised by undoubted results to revert 
 to nature and to truth ; and to disentangle the ge- 
 nuine feelings of the heart from the obstructions 
 which a cold, presumptuous, generalizing philosophy 
 had wound around them. 
 
 One of the most delightful poets of this coun- 
 try., in describing the various proportions of natural 
 blessings and advantages dispensed by Providence 
 to the various nations of Europe, turns from the 
 luxuriant plains and cloudless skies of Italy to the 
 rugged mountains of Switzerland, and inquires 
 whether there also in those barren and stormy 
 regions the " patriot passion" is found equally im- 
 printed on the heart? He decides the question 
 truly in the affirmative; and he says of the inhabitant 
 of those bleak wilds 
 
13 
 
 " Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 
 And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms ; 
 And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 
 Clings close and closer to the mother's hreast, 
 So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar 
 But bind him to his native mountains more." 
 
 What Goldsmith thus beautifully applied to the 
 physical varieties of soil and climate, has been found 
 no less true with respect to political institutions. 
 A sober desire of improvement, a rational endeavour 
 to redress error, and to correct imperfection in the 
 political frame of human society., are not only natural, 
 but laudable in man. But it is well that it should 
 have been shown by irrefragable proof, that these 
 sentiments, even where most strongly and most justly 
 felt supersede not that devotion to native soil which 
 is the foundation of National Independence. And it 
 is right that it should be understood and remem- 
 bered, that the spirit of National Independence alone, 
 aroused where it had slumbered, enlightened 
 where it had been deluded and kindled into en- 
 thusiasm by the insults and outrages of an all-grasp 
 ing invader has been found sufficient,, without 
 internal changes, and compromises of sovereigns or 
 governments with their people, without relaxations 
 of allegiance and abjurations of authority, to ani- 
 mate, as with one pervading soul, the different 
 Nations of the Continent ; to combine, as into one 
 congenial mass, their various feelings, passions, pre- 
 judices ; to direct these concentrated energies, with 
 one impulse, against the common tyrant ; and to 
 shake ( and, may we not hope ? to overthrow ) the 
 Babel of his iniquitous power. 
 
 Gentlemen, there is another argument more pecu- 
 liarly relating to our own country which has at times 
 been interposed to discourage the prosecution of the 
 war. That this country is sufficient to its own 
 defence sufficient to its own happiness sufficient 
 to its own independence ; and that the complicated 
 
combinations of Continental policy are always hazard- 
 ous to our interests as well as burthensome to our 
 means ; has been at several periods of the war a 
 favourite doctrine not only with those w r ho for other 
 reasons wished to embarrass the measures of the 
 Government, but with men of the most enlightened 
 minds, of the most benevolent views, and the most 
 ardent zeal for the interests as well as the honour 
 of their country. May we not flatter ourselves that 
 upon this point also experience has decided in 
 favour of the course of policy which has been ac- 
 tually pursued ? 
 
 Can any man now look back upon the trial 
 which we have gone through and maintain that at 
 any period during the last twenty years the plan 
 of insulated policy could have been adopted, without 
 having in the event, at this day prostrated England 
 at the foot of a conqueror ? Great, indeed, has 
 been the call upon our exertions ; great, indeed, has 
 been the drain upon our resources ; long and weari- 
 some has the struggle been., and late is the moment 
 at which peace is brought w r ithin our reach : but 
 even though the difficulties of the contest may have 
 been enhanced, and its duration protracted by it, yet 
 is there any man who seriously doubts whether the 
 having associated our destinies with the destinies of 
 other nations be or be not that which, under the 
 blessing of Providence, has eventually secured the 
 safety of all ? 
 
 It is at the moment when such a trial has come 
 to its issue that it is fair to ask of those who 
 haye suffered under the pressure of protracted 
 exertion, ( and of whom rather than of those who are 
 assembled around me, for by whom have such pri- 
 vations been felt more sensibly ? ) it is now, I say, 
 the time to ask, whether at any former period of the 
 contest, such a peace could have been made, as 
 would at once have guarded the national inter- 
 ests, and corresponded with the national character ? 
 I address myself now to such persons only as think 
 
15 
 
 the character of a nation an essential part of its 
 strength, and consequently of its safety. But if 
 among persons of that description there be one who 
 with all his zeal for the glory of his country, has yet 
 at times been willing to abandon the contest in mere 
 weariness and despair of such a man I would ask, 
 whether he can indicate the period at which he now 
 wishes that such an abandonment had been consented 
 to by the Government and the Parliament of Great 
 Britain ? 
 
 Is it when the Continent was at peace ; when 
 looking upon the map of Europe you saw one 
 mighty and connected system, one great luminary 
 with his attendant satellites circulating around him 
 at that period could this country have made peace, 
 and have remained at peace for a twelvemonth ? 
 What is the answer? Why, that the experiment 
 was tried. The result was the renewal of the war. 
 
 Was it at a later period, when the continental 
 system had been established ? when two-thirds of 
 the ports of Europe were shut against you ; when 
 but a single link was wanting to bind the Continent 
 in a circling chain of iron, which should exclude 
 you from intercourse with other nations ? At that 
 moment peace was most earnestly recommended to 
 you. At that moment, Gentlemen, I first came 
 among you. At that moment I ventured to recom- 
 mend to you perseverance, patient perseverance ; and 
 to express a hope that by the mere strain of an 
 unnatural effort the massive bonds imposed upon 
 the Nations of the Continent might at no distant 
 period burst asunder. I was heard, by you with 
 indulgence ; I know not whether with conviction. 
 But is it now to be regretted that we did not at 
 that moment yield to the pressure of our wants, 
 or of our fears ? What has been the issue ? The 
 continental system was completed with the sole 
 exception of Russia, in the year IS 12. In that year 
 the pressure upon this country was undoubtedly 
 painful. Had we yielded, the system would have 
 
16 
 
 been immortal. We persevered, and before the con- 
 clusion of another year the system was at an end. 
 At an end as all schemes of violence naturally ter- 
 minate, not by a mild and gradual decay, such as 
 waits upon a regular and well-spent life, but by sud- 
 den dissolution. At an end like the breaking up 
 of a winter's frost. But yesterday the whole Con- 
 tinent, like a mighty plain covered with one mass of 
 ice, presented to the view a drear expanse of barren 
 uniformity : to-day the breath of Heaven unbinds 
 the earth ; the streams begin to flow again ; and 
 the intercourse of human kind revives. 
 
 Can we regret that we did not, like the fainting 
 traveller, lie down to rest, but indeed to perish- 
 under the severity of that inclement season ? did we 
 not more wisely to bear up, and to wait the 
 change ? 
 
 Gentlemen, I have said that I should be ashamed, 
 and in truth I should be so, to address you in the 
 language of exultation, if it were merely for the 
 indulgence, however legitimate, of an exuberant 
 and ungovernable joy. But they who have suffered 
 great privations have a claim not merely to consola- 
 tion, but to something more. They are justly to be 
 compensated for what they have undergone, or lost, 
 or hazarded, by the contemplation ot what they have 
 gained. 
 
 We have gained then a rank and authority in 
 Europe such as for the life of the longest liver of 
 those who now hear me, must place this Country 
 upon an eminence which no probable reverses can 
 shake. We have gamed, or rather we have reco- 
 vered, a splendour of military glory which places us 
 by the side of the greatest military nations in the 
 world. At the beginning of this war, while there 
 was not a British bosom that did not beat with 
 rapture at the exploits of our navy, there were few 
 who would not have been contented to compromise 
 for that reputation alone ; to claim the sea as exclu- 
 sively our province, and to leave to France and the 
 
17 
 
 other Continental Powers the struggle for superiority 
 by land. That fabled Deity (a figure of Neptune} 
 whom I see pourtrayed upon the wall, was consi- 
 dered as the exclusive patron of British prowess in 
 battle; but in seeming accordance with the beautiful 
 fiction of ancient mythology, our Neptune, in the 
 heat of contest, smote the earth with his trident, 
 and up sprang the fiery war-horse, the emblem of 
 military power. 
 
 Let Portugal, now led to the pursuit of her 
 flying conquerors, let liberated Spain, let France 
 invaded in her turn by those whom she had over-run 
 or menaced with invasion, attest the triumphs of 
 the army of Great Britain, and the equality of 
 her military with her naval fame ! And let those 
 who even after the triumphs of the Peninsula had 
 begun, while they admitted that we had indeed 
 wounded the giant in the heel, still deemed the rest 
 of his huge frame invulnerable ; let them now 
 behold him reeling under the blows of united 
 nations, and acknowledge at once the might of British 
 arms and the force of British example ! 
 
 Gentlemen, I do not say that these are con- 
 siderations with a view to which the war, if 
 otherwise terminable, ought to have been purposely 
 protracted : but I say, that upon the retrospect, we 
 have good reason to rejoice that the war was not 
 closed ingloriously, and insecurely ; when the latter 
 events of it have been such as have established our 
 Security by our glory. 
 
 I say we have reason to rejoice that, during the 
 period when the Continent was prostrate before 
 France, that, especially during the period when the 
 continental system was in force, we did not shrink 
 from the struggle; that we did not make peace 
 for present and momentary ease, unmindful of the 
 permanent safety and greatness of this Country ; 
 that we did not leave unsolved the momentous 
 questions whether this Country could maintain 
 itself against France, unaided and alone ;- or 
 
18 
 
 with the Continent divided ; or with the Con- 
 tinent combined against it ; whether when the 
 wrath of the tyrant of the European world was 
 kindled against us with seven-fold fury,, we could 
 or could not walk unharmed and unfettered through 
 the flames ? 
 
 I say we have reason to rejoice that throughout 
 this more than Punick war, in which it has so often 
 been the pride of our enemy to represent herself 
 as the Rome, and England as the Carthage of modern 
 times,^vith at least this colour for the comparison, 
 that the utter destruction of the modern Carthage 
 has uniformly been proclaimed to be indispensable 
 to the greatness of her rival) we have, I say, 
 reason to rejoice that, unlike our assigned prototype, 
 we have not been diverted by internal dissentioiis, 
 from the vigorous support of a vital struggle ; that 
 we have not suffered distress nor clamour to distract 
 our counsels, or to check the exertions of our aims. 
 
 Gentlemen, for twenty years that I have sat in 
 Parliament, 1 have been an advocate of the war. 
 You knew this, when you did me the honour to 
 choose me as your Representative. I then told >ou 
 that I was the advocate of the war, because f was a 
 lover of peace : but of a peace that should be the 
 fruit of honourable exertion a peace that should 
 have a character of dignity a peace that should be 
 worth preserving and should be likely to endure. 
 I confess I was not sanguine enough at that 
 time to hope that I should so soon have an oppor- 
 tunity of justifying my professions. But I know 
 not why six weeks hence such a peace should 
 not be made as England may not only be glad 
 but proud to ratify. Not such a peace, Gentlemen, 
 as that of Amiens, a short and feverish interval of 
 unrefreshing repose. During that peace, which of 
 you went, or sent a son, to Paris, who did not feel or 
 learn, that an Englishman appeared in France shorn 
 of the dignity of his country; with the mien of a 
 suppliant, and the conscious prostration of a man 
 
19 
 
 who had consented to purchase his gain or his ease 
 by submission ? But let a peace be made to-morrow^ 
 such as the Allies have now the power to dictate ; and 
 the meanest of the subjects of this kingdom shall 
 not walk the streets of Paris without being pointed 
 out as the compatriot of Wellington ; as one of 
 that Nation., whose firmness and perseverance have 
 humbled France and rescued Europe. 
 
 Is there any man, that has a heart in his bosom, 
 who does not find in the contemplation of this con- 
 trast alone a recompense for the struggles and the 
 sufferings of years ? 
 
 But, Gentlemen, the doing right is not only 
 the most honourable course of action ; it is also the 
 most profitable in its result. At any former period 
 of the war, the independence of almost all the 
 other countries, our Allies, would have been to 
 be purchased with sacrifices profusely poured out 
 from the lap of British victory. Not a throne 
 to be re-established not a province to be evacuated 
 not a garrison to be withdrawn but this Country 
 would have had to make compensation, out of her 
 conquests, for the concessions obtained from the 
 enemy. Now, happily, this work is already done, 
 either by our efforts, or to our hands. The Petiin- 
 sula free; the awful Commonwealth of European 
 States already in a great measure restored, Great 
 Britain may now appear in the Congress of the 
 world rich in conquests nobly and rightfully won, 
 with little claim upon her faith or her justice, 
 whatever may be the spontaneous impulse of her 
 generosity or her moderation. 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, is the situation and prospect 
 of affairs at the moment at which I have the honour 
 to address you. That you, Gentlemen, may have 
 your full share in the prosperity of your country is 
 my sincere and earnest wish. The courage with 
 which you bore up in adverse circumstances emi- 
 nently entitles you to this reward. 
 
 For myself, Gentlemen, while I rejoice in your 
 
20 
 
 returning prosperity, I rejoice also that our con- 
 nexion began under auspices somuch less favourable; 
 that we had an opportunity of knowing each others* 
 minds in times when the minds of men are brought to 
 the proof times of trial and difficulty. I had the 
 satisfaction of avowing to you, and you the candour 
 and magnanimity to approve, the principles and 
 opinions by which my public conduct has uniformly 
 been guided, at a period when the soundness of those 
 opinions and the application of those principles was 
 matter of doubt and controversy. I thought, and 
 I said, at the time of our first meeting, that the 
 cause of England and of civilized Europe must be 
 ultimately triumphant, if we but preserved our spirit 
 untainted and our constancy ushaken. Such an 
 assertion was at that time the object of ridicule 
 with many persons : a single year has elapsed, and 
 it is now the voice of the whole world. 
 
 Gentlemen, we may therefore confidently indulge 
 the hope that our opinions will continue in unison; 
 that our concurrence will be as cordial, as it has 
 hitherto been, if unhappily any new occasion of 
 difficulty or embarrassment should hereafter arise. 
 
 At the present moment I am sure we are equally 
 desirous to bury the recollection of all our differences 
 with others in that general feeling of exultation in 
 which all opinions happily combine. 
 
" The immortal Memory of the Right Hon. WILLIAM 
 PITT, whose System and Principles are leading the 
 Contest to so glorious an Issue/' having been drank 
 as a toast, Mr. CANNING rose, and said : 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IN the enjoyments of social or domestic life there 
 is no man who has not occasionally felt a sensation 
 of regret for the absence of some dear friend, 
 with whom he would have been delighted to have 
 shared them. This feeling, Gentlemen, which we 
 have all experienced in the circle of our families, 
 I am sure we all experience at the present moment, 
 in reference to the great name which has just been 
 brought before us. 
 
 Gentlemen, we know that up to the period at 
 which, by the blessing of Providence, the late 
 auspicious change has taken place in the affairs of 
 the world, in every moment of public distress the 
 name of that great man has been brought forward 
 by his political enemies, as the source of all the 
 sufferings and the origin of all the difficulties which 
 we have undergone. 
 
 " The evil that men do lives after them, 
 The good is oft interred with their bones :" 
 
 So let it not be with Mr. Pitt ! If enmity is still alive 
 and active against him, let those who admired him 
 when living acknowledge, in the events of this time, 
 the fruits of his long and anxious labours ; and 
 while reposing under the safety to which those 
 labours have ultimately led, let them mingle with 
 the enjoyment of that repose a grateful recollection 
 of him to whom they are indebted for it. 
 
 It seldom happens that great men reap during their 
 lives the full harvest of all their toils. Contentions, 
 
n 
 
 passions,, interpose : and the complete operation of a 
 system is not always seen, and is seldomer acknow- 
 ledged, while the author of it is an object of rivalry 
 or of envy. But, Gentlemen, when the history of 
 these times comes to be read ; when event* are 
 traced to their causes, posterity will acknowledge 
 with one voice, that to the stand made by Mr. 
 Pitt in the early period of the French Revolution, 
 and to the uniform firmness of his counsels, Great 
 Britain is indebted for her present elevation, and 
 Europe for the security which she is now about to 
 enjoy. 
 
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 j$t f|on George Canning* 
 
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 1816. 
 
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