If such a belief on the part of our neighbours should appear too preposterous to be worth attention, let us remember that no national belief is entirely without foundation. Vanity may, and no doubt often does greatly exaggerate a people's belief in their own prowess, but, considered abstractedly, it is at least as probable that a country which for ages has been successful against every rival should be over-confident, as that another without any such dazzling recollections should, without a cause, suddenly hope, against all history, and against, apparently, very fearful odds. It is often the strongest fortress which is taken by surprise and that, usually, on its strongest side. The impregnable Gibraltar, even, was lately discovered to have one point so weak as to require instant attention,

vol. v. pp. 467-8.) There is no part of M. Thiers' work more interesting to an Englishman than his full and in many cases perfectly new details of Bonaparte's project of invasion. The sincerity of that project is put beyond a doubt by the tone of several private letters, where the expressions of hatred to England are too natural not to be real. Thus when Bonaparte tells Ganteaume "partez et venez ici. Nous aurons vengé six siècles d'insultes et de honte," we trace the anti-English feeling of the adopted Frenchman, combined with an avowal of past defeat which no born Frenchman would have made. Upon the whole no combination of Bonaparte's seems to have been more admirable than his naval ones of 1804–5,

and some thousands of pounds have just been expended on it. May there not be a hole somewhere in our wooden walls? a weak point; a flaw, imperceptible, indeed, to our peaceful and confiding good-nature, but yet discoverable by the keen eye of enmity, sharpened by envy, by the memory of past humiliations, and by the desire of that banquet of the Gods, revenge? Would it be a new thing in the history of the world if some chronicler of the 22d century should write:"The long immunity from defeat which England had enjoyed, and the incontestible supremacy which her fleets had achieved over those of all Europe, when banded together under Napoleon, seems to have lulled the vigilance of a people more inclined to the arts of peace than the alarms of war. The government, so far, indeed, as the popular institutions, feelings, and traditions of the country allowed, seems to have discharged their duty zealously; but, while they preserved and augmented the matériel of the navy, they either deferred the consideration of how the fleet was to be manned, or, perhaps, trusted to the ancient method of impressment." Would such reasoning seem insufficient, and might it not continue thus ?"The seamen raised by this method were, of course, at first as unfit for the military duties of

a sailor, and as little available for directing the powerful ordnance committed to their charge, as a peasant taken from the plough-tail would have been for the manœuvres of the artillery."

"Neither is it wonderful, when we consider the comparative civilisation of the 19th century, and the progress which civil and personal liberty had then made, that men so seized upon and dragged away from their families should, when hurried into desperate conflict with the" &c.

"As to the much-debated point how far was justified in this sudden onset, which proved so" &c.

"It must in the next place be remembered that precedents of the kind were not wanting in the history of England. It seems, indeed, to have been the practice with that once haughty power, previous to any declaration of war.”

"But the most singular feature in the whole case is the unaccountable reliance of the British people in the pacific intentions of France when the ill-will of the latter people was so palpably evident. Not only do the contemporary papers which were at that time published at

and are now in the museum of Philadelphia, establish," &c.

"This pamphlet, published by one of the sons of the then reigning monarch of France, is an

elaborate essay on the means of ruining England by destroying her commerce and seaport towns. It appears not only to have been published in French, but translated into English. It was followed by many similar pamphlets, and, two years afterwards, by an extraordinary vote of 4,500,000l. for carrying its suggestions into effect. Surely, therefore, with these symptoms of the national feeling in France, towards a country which had so signally defeated her in war, England should have," &c.

Such we can conceive to be the ex post facto reasoning of an historian who should look with the impartial eye of posterity upon that period which is to us the impenetrable future. We must draw our conclusions as we best can, and, since there is no doubt that our national self-love will sufficiently portray our strength and power, let us take counsel of our enemies as to our weakness, and their hopes of success; for it is certain they have more attentively considered the means of repairing defeat than we have the means of retaining our superiority.

Though the following is extracted from the French Journals, whose boasts and calumnies are alike disregarded in England, yet, as it embodies what has been written on the question by better authorities, it may be taken as a fair

exposition of French views. The reader must be reminded that the Prince de Joinville, in his publication here alluded to, though assuming the destruction of the British Mediterranean fleet in 1840, (an event which all Frenchmen consider must have resulted from a conflict,) argued that such a success would have been but temporary, from the want of any reserved force. The Prince argues for a war, chiefly directed against our commerce, and for razzias upon our coast. This view is not universally popular in France, where the young generation look for a somewhat higher rôle for their navy, and hence many pamphlets, and some sharp controversy in their professional works. The opinion of the great-war party, as opposed to the advocates of a war more lucrative than chivalrous, may be gathered from the following extract from Le National:-"We admit that we could not send forty sail of the line into the Channel, but we could send twenty-four, which would be better than the forty of former times, and that before two months, and before England could assemble an equal number, because the security inspired by her numerous resources has caused her to forget to organise those resources, and because, by her own admission, the mode of impressment is an odious means of raising seamen. We have seen,