Political Writings: Letter to Henry Ashworth. How wars are got up in India. The origin of the Burmese War. What next - and next? [Russian War] The three panics; an historical episode

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Page 223 - I say that, excepting immediately under the fire of Dover Castle, there 1s not a spot on the coast on which infantry might not be thrown on shore at any time of tide, with any wind, and in any weather...
Page 15 - If this scheme of universal independence is to be liable to sudden dislocation whenever two Governments choose to go to war, it converts a manufacturing industry such as ours into a lottery, in which the lives and fortunes of multitudes of men are at stake. I do not comprehend how any British statesman who consults the interests of his country and understands the revolution which Free Trade is effecting in the relations of the world, can advocate the maintenance of commercial blockades. If I shared...
Page 217 - The consequence of this must be that no increase of relative strength will accrue to any one Power : but there must be a universal consumption of the resources of every country in military preparations.
Page 227 - Commons was in session, a murmur of conversation suddenly arose at the door, and spread through the House, when was witnessed — what never occurred before or since, in the writer's experience— a suspension, for a few minutes, of all attention to the business of the House...
Page 269 - ... people have not been degraded, in their own eyes, by acting their awkward part in holiday parade. Where arms are the national occupation, the intervals of peace are times of idleness, during which a part, at least, of the people must fit themselves for the general business, by exercising the talents and qualities which it requires. But where the pursuits of peace require the highest activity, and the nature of the Government calls forth the highest spirit, the whole people must always possess...
Page 316 - If a feeling of hostility docs exist, as he says it does, not on the part of the Emperor Napoleon, but on the part of the French people, I doubt that his speech will tend to allay it. When he points out in the most marked way the defenceless character of our shores — when at the same time he boasts of our former victories, and when he makes something like insinuating and sneering allusions both to the government and people uf France — I am afraid that, coming from such lips as his, such language...
Page 234 - Colonel Sibthorp had prayed that hail or lightning might descend from heaven to defeat the ill-advised project. If others did not invoke doom on the structure itself, they were no less fervent in prophesying doom to property, to morals, nay, even to the State itself, as the inevitable result...
Page 219 - I should say this was a matter with which we had no concern. But that is not the case. In the first place, France has a fleet equal to ours. I do not speak of the number of vessels actually in existence, but of the fleet in commission and half-commission, in both which respects the fleet of France is equal to that of this country. But, again, the Channel is no longer a barrier. Steam navigation has rendered that which was before impassable by a military force, nothing more than a river passable by...
Page 92 - British officers who accompanied him were exposed to insult at the hand of your servants at Rangoon, on the 6th of January last. "2. In satisfaction of the claims of the two captains who suffered exactions from the late Governor of Rangoon ; in compensation for the loss of property which British merchants may have suffered in the burning of that city by the acts of the present Governor ; and in consideration of the expenses of preparation for war, your Majesty will agree to pay, and will pay at once,...
Page 5 - That the present state of international maritime law, as affecting the rights of belligerents and neutrals, is ill-defined and unsatisfactory, and calls for the attention of her Majesty's Government.

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