I see those pretended politicians who place all their subtlety, and who think they serve their country best, in circumventing those with whom they tr… - Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
" "I see those pretended politicians who place all their subtlety, and who think they serve their country best, in circumventing those with whom they treat, interpreting the conditions of a treaty in such a manner, that all the advantage results to their own country. Far from blushing at conduct so contrary to equity, to right, and to national honesty, they boast of their dexterity, and pretend that they deserve the name of great negociators. How long shall public men boast of conduct which would disgrace a private individual? ...Shall powerful states abandon openly that which is honest, for that which may appear useful? It often happens for the happiness of the human race, that this pretended utility is fatal to the powers who follow it, and that, even among sovereigns, candour and right are found to be the safest policy.
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About Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (20 October 1784 - 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century. Popularly nicknamed "Pam", he was in government office almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865, beginning his parliamentary career as a Tory, switching to the Whigs in 1830, and concluding it as the first Prime Minister of the newly-formed Liberal Party from 1859.
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Henry John Temple, 3. Viscount Palmerston
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Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston
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Additional quotes by Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
If those who voted against us had risen to power, what ought they have to have done as the logical and inevitable consequences of their vote? They asserted that our proceedings were unjustifiable. They were bound, therefore, in the event of their success, to have apologised to the Chinese barbarians for the wrongs we had done...they must have paid the rewards which had been given for the heads of our merchants, and the cost of the arsenic which had been used in poisoning our fellow-subjects at Hongkong. Gentlemen, I cannot envy the feelings of those men who could witness with calmness the heads of respectable British merchants on the walls of Canton, or the murders and assassinations and poisonings perpetrated on our fellow-countrymen abroad, and who, instead of feeling their blood boil with indignation at such proceedings, would have had us make an abject submission to the barbarians by whom these atrocities were committed.
To punish the guilty adequately exceeds the power of any civilised man; for the atrocities which have been committed are such as to be imagined and perpetrated only by demons sallying forth from the lowest depths of hell. But punishment must be inflicted, not only in a spirit of vengeance, but in a spirit of security, in order that the example of punished crime may deter from a repetition of the offence, and in order to insure the safety of our countrymen and countrywomen in India for the future. He will have to spare the innocent, and it is most gratifying that while the guilty may be counted by thousands the innocent must be reckoned by millions.
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