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_ PART THIRD. ACT FIFTH. SCENE V.
[The interior of the Chamber appears as in Scene III., Act I., Part I., except that the windows are not open and the trees without are not yet green.
Among the Members discovered in their places are, of ministers and their supporters, LORD CASTLEREAGH the Foreign Secretary, VANSITTART Chancellor of the Exchequer, BATHURST, PALMERSTON the War Secretary, ROSE, PONSONBY, ARBUTHNOT, LUSHINGTON, GARROW the Attorney General, SHEPHERD, LONG, PLUNKETT, BANKES; and among those of the Opposition SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, WHITBREAD, TIERNEY, ABERCROMBY, DUNDAS, BRAND, DUNCANNON, LAMBTON, HEATHCOTE, SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY, G. WALPOLE, RIDLEY, OSBORNE, and HORNER.
Much interest in the debate is apparent, and the galleries are full. LORD ASTLEREAGH rises.]
CASTLEREAGH
At never a moment in my stressed career,
Amid no memory-moving urgencies,
Have I, sir, felt so gravely set on me
The sudden, vast responsibility
That I feel now. Few things conceivable
Could more momentous to the future be
Than what may spring from counsel here to-night
On means to meet the plot unparalleled
In full fierce play elsewhere. Sir, this being so,
And seeing how the events of these last days
Menace the toil of twenty anxious years,
And peril all that period's patient aim,
No auguring mind can doubt that deeds which root
In steadiest purpose only, will effect
Deliverance from a world-calamity
As dark as any in the vaults of Time.
Now, what we notice front and foremost is
That this convulsion speaks not, pictures not
The heart of France. It comes of artifice--
From the unique and sinister influence
Of a smart army-gamester--upon men
Who have shared his own excitements, spoils, and crimes.--
This man, who calls himself most impiously
The Emperor of France by Grace of God,
Has, in the scale of human character,
Dropt down so low, that he has set at nought
All pledges, stipulations, guarantees,
And stepped upon the only pedestal
On which he cares to stand--his lawless will.
Indeed, it is a fact scarce credible
That so mysteriously in his own breast
Did this adventurer lock the scheme he planned,
That his companion Bertrand, chief in trust,
Was unapprised thereof until the hour
In which the order to embark was given!
I think the House will readily discern
That the wise, wary trackway to be trod
By our own country in the crisis reached,
Must lie 'twixt two alternatives,--of war
In concert with the Continental Powers,
Or of an armed and cautionary course
Sufficing for the present phase of things.
Whatever differences of view prevail
On the so serious and impending question--
Whether in point of prudent reckoning
'Twere better let the power set up exist,
Or promptly at the outset deal with it--
Still, to all eyes it is imperative
That some mode of safeguardance be devised;
And if I cannot range before the House,
At this stage, all the reachings of the case,
I will, if needful, on some future day
Poise these nice matters on their merits here.
Meanwhile I have to move:
That an address unto His Royal Highness
Be humbly offered for his gracious message,
And to assure him that his faithful Commons
Are fully roused to the dark hazardries
To which the life and equanimity
Of Europe are exposed by deeds in France,
In contravention of the plighted pacts
At Paris in the course of yester-year.
That, in a cause of such wide-waked concern,
It doth afford us real relief to know
That concert with His Majesty's Allies
Is being effected with no loss of time--
Such concert as will thoroughly provide
For Europe's full and long security. (Cheers.)
That we, with zeal, will speed such help to him
So to augment his force by sea and land
As shall empower him to set afoot
Swift measures meet for its accomplishing. (Cheers.)
BURDETT
It seems to me almost impossible,
Weighing the language of the noble lord,
To catch its counsel,--whether peace of war. (Hear, hear.)
If I translate his words to signify
The high expediency of watch and ward,
That we may not be taken unawares,
I own concurrence; but if he propose
Too plunge this realm into a sea of blood
To reinstate the Bourbon line in France,
I should but poorly do my duty here
Did I not lift my voice protestingly
Against so ruinous an enterprise!
Sir, I am old enough to call to mind
The first fierce frenzies for the selfsame end,
The fruit of which was to endow this man,
The object of your apprehension now,
With such a might as could not be withstood
By all of banded Europe, till he roamed
And wrecked it wantonly on Russian plains.
Shall, then, another score of scourging years
Distract this land to make a Bourbon king?
Wrongly has Bonaparte's late course been called
A rude incursion on the soil of France.--
Who ever knew a sole and single man
Invade a nation thirty million strong,
And gain in some few days full sovereignty
Against the nation's will!--The truth is this:
The nation longed for him, and has obtained him. . . .
I have beheld the agonies of war
Through many a weary season; seen enough
To make me hold that scarcely any goal
Is worth the reaching by so red a road.
No man can doubt that this Napoleon stands
As Emperor of France by Frenchmen's wills.
Let the French settle, then, their own affairs;
I say we shall have nought to apprehend!--
Much as I might advance in proof of this,
I'll dwell not thereon now. I am satisfied
To give the general reasons which, in brief,
Balk my concurrence in the Address proposed. (Cheers.)
PONSONBY
My words will be but few, for the Address
Constrains me to support it as it stands.
So far from being the primary step to war,
Its sense and substance is, in my regard,
To leave the House to guidance by events
On the grave question of hostilities.
The statements of the noble lord, I hold,
Have not been candidly interpreted
By grafting on to them a headstrong will,
As does the honourable baronet,
To rob the French of Buonaparte's rule,
And force them back to Bourbon monarchism.
That our free land, at this abnormal time,
Should put her in a pose of wariness,
No unwarped mind can doubt. Must war revive,
Let it be quickly waged; and quickly, too,
Reach its effective end: though 'tis my hope,
My ardent hope, that peace may be preserved.
WHITBREAD
Were it that I could think, as does my friend,
That ambiguity of sentiment
Informed the utterance of the noble lord
(As oft does ambiguity of word),
I might with satisfied and sure resolve
Vote straight for the Address. But eyeing well
The flimsy web there woven to entrap
The credence of my honourable friends,
I must with all my energy contest
The wisdom of a new and hot crusade
For fixing who shall fill the throne of France.
Already are the seeds of mischief sown:
The Declaration at Vienna, signed
Against Napoleon, is, in my regard,
Abhorrent, and our country's character
Defaced by our subscription to its terms!
If words have any meaning it incites
To sheer assassination; it proclaims
That any meeting Bonaparte may slay him;
And, whatso language the Allies now hold,
In that outburst, at least, was war declared.
The noble lord to-night would second it,
Would seem to urge that we full arm, then wait
For just as long, no longer, than would serve
The preparations of the other Powers,
And then--pounce down on France!
CASTLEREAGH
No, no! Not so.
WHITBREAD
Good God, then, what are we to understand?--
However, this denial is a gain,
And my misapprehension owes its birth
Entirely to that mystery of phrase
Which taints all rhetoric of the noble lord,
Well, what is urged for new aggression now,
To vamp up and replace the Bourbon line?
The wittiest man who ever sat here(21) said
That half our nation's debt had been incurred
In efforts to suppress the Bourbon power,
The other half in efforts to restore it, (laughter)
And I must deprecate a further plunge
For ends so futile! Why, since Ministers
Craved peace with Bonaparte at Chatillon,
Should they refuse him peace and quiet now?
This brief amendment therefore I submit
To limit Ministers' aggressiveness
And make self-safety all their chartering:
"We at the same time earnestly implore
That the Prince Regent graciously induce
Strenuous endeavours in the cause of peace,
So long as it be done consistently
With the due honour of the English crown." (Cheers.)
CASTLEREAGH
The arguments of Members opposite
Posit conditions which experience proves
But figments of a dream;--that honesty,
Truth, and good faith in this same Bonaparte
May be assumed and can be acted on:
This of one who is loud to violate
Bonds the most sacred, treaties the most grave! . . .
It follows not that since this realm was won
To treat with Bonaparte at Chatillon,
It can treat now. And as for assassination,
The sentiments outspoken here to-night
Are much more like to urge to desperate deeds
Against the persons of our good Allies,
Than are, against Napoleon, statements signed
By the Vienna plenipotentiaries!
We are, in fine, too fully warranted
On moral grounds to strike at Bonaparte,
If we at any crisis reckon it
Expedient so to do. The Government
Will act throughout in concert with the Allies,
And Ministers are well within their rights
To claim that their responsibility
Be not disturbed by hackneyed forms of speech ("Oh, oh")
Upon war's horrors, and the bliss of peace,--
Which none denies! (Cheers.)
PONSONBY
I ask the noble lord,
If that his meaning and pronouncement be
Immediate war?
CASTLEREAGH
I have not phrased it so.
OPPOSITION CRIES
The question is unanswered!
[There are excited calls, and the House divides. The result is announced as thirty-seven for WHITBREAD'S amendment, and against it two hundred and twenty. The clock strikes twelve as the House adjourns.]
Footnote:
(21)Sheridan. _
Read next: Part 3: Act 5: Scene 6. Wessex. Durnover Green, Casterbridge
Read previous: Part 3: Act 5: Scene 4. Schonbrunn
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