"I have no doubt the middle line would be the most popular, and that, in extorting the permanent cession of one or two fortresses of great name, our labours would carry with them an éclat which is not likely to attend them, according to the course we recommend. But it is not our business to collect trophies, but to try if we can bring back the world to peaceful habits. I do not believe this to be compatible with any attempt now materially and permanently to affect the territorial character of France, as settled by the Peace of Paris; neither do I think it a clear case (if we can, by imposing a strait waistcoat upon that Power for a number of years, restore her to ordinary habits, and weighing the extraordinary growth of other States in latter times, and especially of Russia) that France, even with her existing dimensions, may not be found a useful rather than a dangerous member of the European system."
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SuicidesMembers of the Parliament of the United KingdomMembers of the Parliament of Great BritainPresbyteriansGovernment ministers of the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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Letter to Lord Liverpool (17 August 1815), quoted in Correspondence, Despatches, and Other Papers, of Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry. Vol. X., ed. Charles William Vane, Marquess of Londonderry (1853), pp. 490-491
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Stewart%2C_Viscount_Castlereagh
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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 coalitio
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