The French Revolution did not at first rouse England, since England felt for any nation which was gaining its own freedom; but Napoleon's attempt to upset, once and for all, any sem-blanco of the balance of power on the Continent stirred England in no un-Certain way. Yet ....what other nation, in the height of such a conflict, would have found time or heart to strike the greatest blow hitherto dealt to the slave trade?
... Public opinion in England was less excited about the spoils of war, that in its Cetermination to get the evil of slavery put down as quickly as possible, Nor must it be forgotten how, at he Treaty of Vienna, Britain, thanks o the statesmanship of Wellington and Castlereagh, "was ready to keep Trance from being either plundered r humiliated. Had not one of the ?russian representatives, von Hum. sold, informed the French plenipoentiary, Talleyrand, "Might is right ye do not recognize the law of nations?" Too, it was England who wrecked the attempt to replace one Zeesar by a board of Cæsars." The repressive Holy Alliance was flatly deposed to British ideas of freedom ideas which so prevailed that it required no revolutions to pass the Reform Acts, that Disraeli's "imserialism" and Kiplings stirring verses were fully counterbalanced by Gladstone's insistence on "freedom, acknowledgement of the equal rights of all nations, and peace."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.