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

In this Alliance, as in all other human Arrangements, nothing is more likely to impair, or even to destroy its real utility, than any attempt to push its duties and its obligations beyond the Sphere which its original conception and understood Principles will warrant.—It was an Union for the re-conquest and liberation of a great proportion of the Continent of Europe from the military domination of France; and having subdued the Conqueror, it took the State of Possession, as established by the Peace, under the protection of the Alliance.—It never was, however, intended as an Union for the Government of the World, or for the Superintendence of the Internal Affairs of other States.

The present Confederacy may be considered as the union of nearly the whole of Europe against the unbounded and faithless ambition of an individual <nowiki>[</nowiki>Napoleon<nowiki>]</nowiki>. It comprehends not only all the great monarchies, but a great proportion of the secondary Powers. It is not more distinguished from former Confederacies against France by the number and magnitude of the Powers engaged than by the national character which the war has assumed throughout the respective states. On former occasions it was a contest of sovereigns, in some instances perhaps, against the prevailing sentiment of their subjects; it is now a struggle dictated by the feelings of the people of all ranks as well as by the necessity of the case. The sovereigns of Europe have at last confederated together for their common safety, having in vain sought that safety in detached and insulated compromises with the enemy. They have successively found that no extent of submission could procure for them either safety or repose, and that they no sooner ceased to be objects of hostility themselves, than they were compelled to become instruments in the hands of France for effectuating the conquest of other unoffending states. The present Confederacy may therefore be pronounced to originate in higher motives and to rest upon more solid principles than any of those that have preceded it, and the several Powers to be bound together for the first time by one paramount consideration of an imminent and common danger.

You will fully appreciate the Parliamentary importance of not having imputed to us that Louis XVIII., by being made an Ally against Buonaparte, has been made master of the confederacy for his own restoration. His Majesty cannot wish us to feel more decisively the importance of his restoration than we do; and most assuredly every effort will be made so to conduct the war so as to lead to this result, but we cannot make it a sine qua non. Foreign Powers may justly covenant for the destruction of Buonaparte's authority as inconsistent with their own safety, but it is another question avowedly to stipulate as to his successor. This is a Parliamentary delicacy.