CHAP. XV.
was acting in concert with her Allies assembled chap. at Vienna, and to declare, in another limb of the same sentence, that she was 'united' with one of them. Unhappily, the error was not an error of words. The Speech accurately described the strange policy which our Government had adopted; for it was strictly true that, in the midst of a perfect concord between the four great Powers, the English Cabinet had been drawn into a separate union with France, and into an union of such a kind as to require the distinguishing phrase which disclosed the new league to Europe.
This marks where the roads to peace and to war branched off.
This Speech from the Throne may be regarded
as marking the point where the roads of policy
branched off. By the one road, England, moving to war
in company with the rest of the four Powers, off.
might insure a peaceful repression of the outrage
which was disturbing Europe; by the other, she
might also enforce the right, but, joined with the
French Emperor, and parted from the rest of the
four Powers, she would reach it bypassing through
war. The Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen desired peace,
and not war; but seeing dimly, they took the
adventurous path. They so little knew whither
they were going that they made no preparation
for war.[1]
- ↑ See Lord Aberdeen's evidence before the Sevastopol Committee.
