regard the present moment as peculiarly unfavorable for such an offer, and, indeed, to hold that it would be essential to the success of any proposal from abroad that it should be deferred until the control of the Executive Government should be in the hands of the Conservative party.”
So far Lord Lyons.
Foreign powers having at last found and seized upon a pretext for officially meddling with our difficulties, such as your invitation would give them—and, indeed, remembering Lord Lyons's significant despatch, this seems to be part of the Chicago programme—we shall see the working of a new agency in the affairs of this continent; an agency which, fortunately, was unknown to us as long as the country was one; and that agency is foreign influence.
The same reasons for which England and France desired the breaking up of this Union, the same reasons will also impel them to do all they can to make separation permanent, and the whole of their influence, powerful as it will be—for the Confederacy will necessarily lean upon her European friends—will be thrown against reunion. That influence will indeed be powerful, for it will not extend to the Government, but it will at once run through all the channels of trade. And now is there anybody credulous enough to believe, that against such fearful odds you can carry out the timid scheme with a view to which you mean to stop the war? Foreign influence, once admitted, as it will be by this policy, will have the casting vote in all that pends between us and the South. We shall not have two great powers on this continent, but four, and all but one bitterly against reunion. Divide and rule, is the old saying; but not those will rule that are divided. [Applause.] Whatever our ultimate decision may be after such developments, whether to resume the war at once, or to acquiesce in separation, and then, after a short breathing spell, launch into the confusion of a new conflict, there
