I hope you will be able to make M. de Blacas and those about the king understand, that John Bull fights best, when he is not tied, and that, altho' a… - Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh

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I hope you will be able to make M. de Blacas and those about the king understand, that John Bull fights best, when he is not tied, and that, altho' as a line of policy we can with good management connect the support of the Bourbons with the avowed object of the war, we never could sustain as a principle, that we were committed irrevocably to His Majesty to make this a sine qua non under every possible circumstance. Such an engagement would defeat its own purpose by rendering that questionable, which if done voluntarily, would command a general concurrence.

English
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About Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh

Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (18 June 1769 – 12 August 1822), usually known as Lord Castlereagh, derived from the courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh, by which he was styled from 1796 to 1821, was an Anglo-Irish politician and statesman. As secretary to the Viceroy of Ireland, he worked to suppress the Rebellion of 1798 and to secure passage in 1800 of the Irish Act of Union. As the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1812, he was central to the management of the coalition that defeated Napoleon, and was British plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna. In the post-war government of Lord Liverpool, Castlereagh was seen to support harsh measures against agitation for reform. He killed himself while in office in 1822.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Lord Castlereagh

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Additional quotes by Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh

Great Britain has perhaps equal Power with any other State to oppose Herself to a practical and intelligible Danger, capable of being brought home to the National Feeling:—When the Territorial Balance of Europe is disturbed, she can interfere with effect, but She is the last Govt. in Europe, which can be expected, or can venture to commit Herself on any Question of an abstract character.

These arguments about natural defences and strategic boundaries are pushed too far. Real defence and security comes from the guarantee which is given by the fact that they cannot touch you without declaring war on all those interested in maintaining things as they are.

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It will naturally occur to every virtuous and generous mind, and to none more probably than to the Emperor of Russia's own,—indeed it is the first impression which presents itself to every reflecting observer when he contemplates the internal state of European Turkey—viz. : Is it fit that such a state of things should continue to exist? Ought the Turkish yoke to be for ever rivetted upon the necks of their suffering and Christian subjects; and shall the descendants of those, in admiration of whom we have been educated, be doomed in this fine country to drag out, for all time to come, the miserable existence to which circumstances have reduced them?

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