I propose to you the health of the Prince of Wales and the rest of the Royal Family. May they prosper under the favour of the Almighty!
The toast which I now propose to you—the “Army and Navy”—is one in which I am sure no Englishman can join at this moment without the feelings of the deepest emotion. In their keeping stand the honour and the best interests of this country—I may say the interests of the civilization of Europe. And nobly have they done their duty! whether in the daring impetuosity of attack, in the cool intrepidity of defence, or the noble and truly Christian patience with which they have endured nameless sufferings and privations! They have set us all an example well worthy of imitation, and making us proud of the generation to which we belong. May God grant that their exertions may be crowned with the success they have striven to deserve, and that they may, by the side of our noble and gallant allies, conquer to the world a peace which may secure its tranquillity and prosperity from any further interruption!
I drink “The health of Viscount Hardinge, Sir Charles Wood, and the Army and Navy. Success to their exertions!”
I now propose to you the health of “Her Majesty’s Ministers.”
If there ever was a time when the Queen’s Government, by whomsoever conducted, required the support—ay, not the support alone, but the confidence, goodwill, and sympathy of their fellow-countrymen, it is the present. It is not the way to success in war to support it, however ardently and energetically, and to run down and weaken those who have to conduct it. We are engaged with a mighty adversary, who uses against us all those wonderful powers which have sprung up under the generating influence of our liberty and our civilization, and employs them with all the force which unity of purpose and action, impenetrable secresy, and uncontrolled despotic power give him; whilst we have to meet him under a state of things intended for peace and the promotion of that very civilization—a civilization the offspring of public discussion, the friction of parties, and popular control over the government of the State. The Queen has no power to levy troops, and none at her command, except such as voluntarily offer their services. Her Government can entertain no measures for the prosecution of the war without having to explain them publicly in Parliament; her armies and fleets can make no movement, nor even prepare for any, without its being proclaimed by the press; and no mistake, however trifling, can occur, no weakness exist, which it may be of the utmost importance to conceal from the world, without its being publicly denounced, and even frequently exaggerated, with a morbid satisfaction. The Queen’s ambassadors can carry on no negociation which has not to be publicly defended by entering into all the arguments which a negotiator, to have success, must be able to shut up in the innermost recesses of his heart—nay, at the most critical moment, when the complication of military measures and diplomatic negociations may be at their height, an adverse vote in Parliament may of a sudden deprive her of all her confidential servants.
Gentlemen! Constitutional Government is under a heavy trial, and can only pass triumphantly through it, if the country will grant its confidence—a patriotic, indulgent, and self-denying confidence—to Her Majesty’s Government. Without this, all their labours must be in vain.
I hope you will drink with me “The Health of Viscount Palmerston and Her Majesty’s Ministers.”
I am much obliged to you for your kindness in proposing my health, and to the company for the reception which they have given to the toast.
It always affords me great satisfaction to be able to preside at your annual Dinner, particularly when I can congratulate you on the completion of another year of usefulness and of successful labour. This I am enabled to do on the present occasion, and have only to point to the satisfactory working of your extended jurisdiction over the Cinque Port pilots—to the progress of your lighthouses—to the success in your efforts to ameliorate the condition of the ballast-heavers—and to the fact that you have, through the Board of Trade, entered into a communication with Her Majesty’s Colonies, for the purpose of laying down a complete system of lighting, based on your knowledge and experience, in those important but remotely-removed parts of the world.
It is to the indefatigable zeal of the Deputy Master that much of this success is due; you will, therefore, I doubt not, gladly join with me in drinking to his good health, in connection with the toast of the evening—“Prosperity to the Corporation of the Trinity House.”