In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch
Is offering too little and asking too much.

(George Canning (1770-1827), British poet. A Political Despatch (l. 1-2). . . Faber Book of Comic Verse, The. Michael Roberts and Janet Adam Smith, eds. (Rev. ed., 1974; paperback 1978) Faber and Faber.)

In matter of commerce the fault of the Dutch
Is offering too little and asking too much.
The French are with equal advantage content,
So we clap on Dutch bottoms just twenty per cent.

(George Canning (1770-1827), British statesman, prime minister. coded letter, Jan. 31, 1826, to the English ambassador at the Hague, Holland. Canning's Rhyming "Dispatch" to Sir Charles Bagot, Sir Harry Poland (1905).)

Give me th' avowed, th' erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet?perhaps may turn his blow;
But of all plagues, good Heav'n, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh! save me from the Candid Friend.

(George Canning (1770-1827), British statesman, prime minister. The New Morality, l. 207-10 (1798).)

Away with the cant of "Measures, not men!"Mthe idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.

(George Canning (1770-1827), British statesman, prime minister. Speech, December 9, 1802, House of Commons.)

Intimately concerned as we are with the system of Europe, it does not follow that we are therefore called upon to mix ourselves on every occasion, with a restless and meddling activity, in the concerns of the nations which surround us.

(George Canning (1770-1827), British statesman, prime minister. Speech, October 28, 1823.)

A steady patriot of the world alone,
The friend of every country but his own.

(George Canning (1770-1827), British statesman, prime minister. The New Morality, l. 113-4 (1798). Referring to the Jacobin. See Disraeli's comment on "liberals.")