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Look at France, and see what we have to cope with, and consider what has made her what she is? A man. You will tell me that she was great, and powerf… - George Canning
" "Look at France, and see what we have to cope with, and consider what has made her what she is? A man. You will tell me that she was great, and powerful, and formidable, before the date of Buonaparte's government; that he found in her great physical and moral resources: that he had but to turn them to account. True, and he did so. Compare the situation in which he found France with that to which he has raised her. I am no panegyrist of Buonaparte; but I cannot shut my eyes to the superiority of his talents, to the amazing ascendant of his genius. Tell me not of his measures, and his policy. It is his genius, his character, that keeps the world in awe. Sir, to meet, to check, to curb, to stand up against him, we want arms of the same kind. I am far from objecting to the large military establishments which are proposed to you. I vote for them with all my heart. But for the purpose of coping with Buonaparte, one great commanding spirit is worth them all.
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About George Canning
George Canning (11 April 1770 – 8 August 1827) was a British Tory statesman. He held various senior cabinet positions under numerous prime ministers, including two important terms as Foreign Secretary, finally becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for the last 118 days of his life, from April to August 1827.
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Additional quotes by George Canning
I am as ready as any man to allow, that the French are enthusiastically animated, be it how it may, to a state of absolute insanity. I desire no better proof of their being mad, than to see them hugging themselves in a system of slavery so gross and grinding as their present, and calling at the same time aloud upon all Europe to admire and envy their freedom. But before their plea of madness can be admitted as conclusive against our right to be at war with them, gentlemen would do well to recollect that of madness there are several kinds. If theirs had been a harmless idiot lunacy, which had contented itself with playing its tricks, and practising its fooleries at home; with dressing up strumpets in oak leaves, and inventing nicknames for the calendar, I should have been far from desiring to interrupt their innocent amusements; we might have looked on with hearty contempt, indeed, but with a contempt not wholly unmixed with commiseration.
I said that it was my object to make his Majesty comfortable and happy, by placing him at the head of Europe, instead of being reckoned fifth in a great confederacy. That the circumstances which gave rise to that confederacy, and justified and held it together were gone by; and that the King of England could not have hung upon it longer without losing all importance, even in the eyes of the other members of it, and without incurring the odium of all other nations; nay, that his share of odium would be greater than that of the four continental Sovereigns; because they, being more or less arbitrary, might be considered as labouring in their vocation, but that the continuance of England as a subordinate part of such a league, would have been considered as depriving them of their natural protection, and would be resented accordingly.
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