ABSTRACT
This sense of security derived from a unique set of circumstances, some of which have had their American parallels-a highly favourable geographic position, supremacy on the oceans, a world empire, and an
enduring commercial and financial position which outlasted the relatively short period of industrial leadership. There was also Britain’s political stability. The moral authority claimed by foreign secretaries derived from the advantages of a constitutional monarchy and an ordered and free society. It was against this background in 1852, on one of those very rare occasions when a foreign secretary formulated in a single document the aims and principles of British foreign policy, that Lord Granville wrote of Britain’s special place in Europe. ‘It was the duty and interest of this country’, he insisted, ‘to encourage moral, intellectual and physical progress among all nations.’3 When invited, Britain was in a position to settle the disputes which might arise between other nations. The patronising tone of Granville’s memorandum, as Agatha Ramm has written, is only understandable from a state which felt itself safe in Europe or ascendant over it.4
