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The part of your pamphlet, which remains to be examined, is, as you state, intended to show, that a peace with France, to be made as soon as possible, upon the terms before proposed by her, is absolutely necessary to the safety of England, and that "nothing but a political suicide, a "total incapacity to meet the bounties of "Providence and to improve its blessings, "can induce us to hesitate for a moment, as "to the course we ought to pursue.' If you had, by any regular chain of reasoning, founded upon admitted, or notorious, facts, endeavoured to make the truth of these assertions apparent, it would have required but a short space, wherein to answer you; but, you have mingled, or, rather, mashed up, so much of history and of other matter along with the argument which you employ, that, after much pains taken to pick out the latter from the former, I find myself obliged, to follow you through thick and thin.

Amongst the fatal consequences of the Danish expedition, you mention our loss of all continental allies. In every contest,' say you, "that may henceforth take place "between France and England, British courage alone must be employed, and Bri"tish blood must flow. We are now effectually deprived of those powerful allies, "who hitherto engaged the attention of our enemies, and rendered the continent "the theatre of war." Sentiments of the same turn are expressed by you elsewhere, and, it must not be forgotten, that you set a high value upon Hanover (a thing which France has to offer us), and tell us, that, if we had but accepted of Napoleon's terms of peace, we might have had our share of influence upon the continent. This is your language, and these are your sentiments, when you are endeavouring to impress your readers with an idea of the evils of the Danish expedition, and to induce them to believe, that the terms of peace, which were offered by France, were such as we ought to

[354 have accepted of. But, by-and-by you have to say something about continental connections, as considered with regard to the peace that may now be made; and then, it being your object to induce us to insist upon nothing that Buonaparté is likely to wish not to grant, your sentiments are quite altered; and you tell us, that you hope, that "fo

reign subsidies will never again be advert"ed to, but to be execrated." In another place, that, if, instead of blindly aiming "at continental influence and connections,

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we duly estimate our own interests, ima

portance, and security, we may regard all "the efforts of France to rival us, as a ma"ritime power, without dismay. The ba"lance of power, that chimerical source of

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war and blood-shed, now exists not even "in name. Let us attend more to ourselves "and less to our neighbours." All this would have been very well, if it had stood by itself; if it had not appeared in the same pamphlet with your affected lamentation at the fatal consequences of the Danish expedition, amongst which you number the loss of our powerful allies upon the continent," which loss has left us, for our defence, "British courage and British blood alone." But, you had two purposes to answer, and but one matter to work upon. You wanted to persuade us that the Danish expedition had produced a fatal consequence to us; and you also wanted to persuade us, that leaving the whole of the continent with all its ports and arsenals, in the hands of Napoleon, would not be at all dangerous to us. To effect the former purpose, it was necessary to set a high value upon the aid we derived from continental connections; to effect the latter purpose, it was necessary to decry those connections, and to represent England as self-dependent for her safety. You wanted to blow both hot and cold, and, if you had (poor gentleman!) but one mouth, it was nature's fault, and not yours.

But, we are now coming to a passage, at the penning of which you must certainly have invoked the genius of the great Talleyrand, and at the conclusion of which you must have bridled up your head, with a self

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foggers, match that if you can." been thought, and said, by many persons, that the French aim at the destruction of our Constitution, liberties, and religion; and, as the destruction of them would naturally be iluded in the conquest of England, the Fench do, in my opinion, aim at that destruction. By way of combatting this opinion, you ask: "At what period, since the "revolution in France, has the French go"vernment proposed to us, that we should

relinquish, or divest ourselves of, our con"stitution. liberties and religion?" To whom did you address this, Sir? Certainly you must have supposed, to the most base or the most stupid of mankind. You are a fit person, indeed, to complain of insults to the common sense and common feeling of the nation; you, who have the impudence cooily to desire us to believe, that the French do not wish to destroy us as an independent nation, because they never have made to us a formal proposition to give our consent to such destruction. Verily, if your verbal dis course be like your written, the rabble of Liverpool treated you with unaccountable forbearance. You proceed to tell us, that "neither in the negociations of 1901, 1803, " or 1806, do we find traces of any proposi“tion on the part of France, which could "infringe, in the slightest degree, upon the

independence, the interest, or the prosperity, of this country." You may know, though I do not, how to distinguish between national interest" and "prosperity," or you may, from your intimacy with John Doe and Richard Roe, think, that tautology is a beauty in composition; but, as to the substance of what you say, it is this, that, from the beginning to the end, France has not, in any of the three negociations, proposed any one thing, to which we had any solid ground of objection; an assertion, which, from my soul, I believe, Arthur O'Connor himself would not, for his character's sake, venture to make in the face of the world. You appear to be aware of an exception that even your political friends (if you have any) might wish you to have made with respect to the propositions, made through Andreossy, clative to the press, and the speeches in parliament; but, say you, "even the com

plaints made by the French ruler against the licentiousness of the British press were "abandoned, and eventually formed no part of the discussions;" though you had, before, taken infinite pains to inculcate a beJef, that the present war arose wholly from the publications in England against Buonaparte; that it was instigated by a few in

ment arose from publications in this "country." But, here again, niggardly nature has refused you the two mouths. When you wanted to cause it to be believed, that England began the war without any reasonable cause, and that there existed, in reality, no grounds of hostility, and no grounds of alarm as to the designs of Buonaparté, then it was necessary for you to find out the real cause of the war, and that cause was, the offence which Buonaparté took at the publications in England; but now, when your object is to persuade us, that your great friend (I must call him so, however it may shock your modesty), has not the least desire to do any thing that can, “in the slightest degree, infringe upon the inde"pendence of England," you find it necessary to speak very lightly of the complaint about our licentious press," and to tell us, that, before the war broke out, those complaints were abandoned, and, at last,

formed no part of the discussions:" in other words, that the publications from the press were not the cause of the war, and that what you have before asserted, upon that subject, was a wilful falshood.

Barefaced and disgusting as these contradictions are, however, they are quite equalled by some which are yet to be noticed. You tell us, that the cause of war now alledged is, that if peace were once esta"blished, it would enable France to create a "marine, by which she might overpower "the British navy and subjugate the coun"try." These words you insert as a quolation, but without reference, for a reason best known to yourself. No, Sif; this also is false. It is not thus, that the objectors to peace express themselves; for this would be to declare for " perpetuet war," a declaration, which, with your usual attention to truth, you have ascribed to us. We say, or, I do, at least, that, if we were now to make peace with Napoleon, leaving him in possession of all the ports and naval arsenals upon the continent, and without making any stipulation to prevent the creation of a marine, that he would, in a very few years of peace, create a navy sufficient to overpower us; and, that, therefore, we ought to keep on the war, till we can obtain the separating of some of the maritime states from him, or a stipulation such as I have mentioned; because, in the case of a peace, now made, without such stipulation, we could not dismantle a ship or disband a regiment; that the expences of peace would be equal to the expences of war, and the danget infi

nitely greater; that he would obtain repose, and that we should receive an augmentation of inquietude; that he, never having any apprehensions of us, would have leisure to mature his maritime projects, while our navy must from the very nature of its constitution become, day after day, in a state less formidable than it now is. This is what I have, over and over again, stated; and, if you had taken this statement, you would have had something to answer. But, now, let us hear what you say in order to convince us of the absurdity of the alarm arising from the notion, that peace, now made, upon the terms proposed by France, will enable Napoleon to create a marine. You tell us, that France is, by nature, not a naval power; that, in the most prosperous days of her navy, she was unable to cope with the fleets of Holland; that those persons are almost insane, who seem to imagine, that, because Buonaparté has been so successful by land he must, if he turn his attention that way, be equally successful by sea; and that, therefore, we may safely make peace, leaving dreams of alarm to the unmanly creatures who entertain them. But, lest your powers of soothing should fail, you, a little further on, try the effect of threats, and tell us, that, if we will not make peace, then Buonaparte may, and, in all likelihood, will, beat us by sea. You say, that, in the commencement of the French revolution, France was not military, that the attacks made upon her made her military; that, if she had been left quiet, she would not have become formidable to her neighbours; that she was compelled, in her defence, to take a government purely military; that, "in like manner," France is not now a naval power (though she has been attacked" by a navy for many years), and, if left in a state of tranquillity would not be at all likely to attempt it; but, "if compelled to assume "it, if threatened with perpetual war, if "harrassed from year to year by protracted "hostilities; if compelled to become naval "for her own safety; then it is impossible to say that the same spirit which has been "manifested by land may not be excited by

sea, an event greatly to be dreaded, and "the more to be apprehended, as she is "now associated, in the same cause, with "almost every maritime state in Europe, Poor, injured, harrassed" France, "compelled" to become naval for her own safely! Never was there any thing uttered so devoid of principle as this. I defy the Old Bailey to produce such an advocate, And so, sir, you wish to tame us as they do elephants; stroke us with one haud and

cudgel us with the other? When it is your purpose to sooth us into peace, we are told that it is a mark of insanity to suppose that France can ever rival the naval power of England, but, when you take up the cudgel, we are warned to take care how we provoke her to become a naval power. While the former scheme is in your mind, you tell us, that France, even in the best days of her navy, was unable to cope with Holland, quite forgetting to tell us that Holland now makes part of France; but, when you come again to your cudgelling operations, you do Hot forget this circumstance, but remind v ́, that almost every maritime state in Europe is now under the absolute controul of France, or, as you, with your accustomed candour, choose to express it, "associated with her "in the same cause." But, sir, as to your argument, there is a little deficiency in point of analogy, to which, in your next edition, it may not be amiss for you to attend. Give me leave to place it before you in as clear a light as I can. France (you say), at the beginning of her revolution, was not military (false in fact); the attack upon her made her not only military but a military corqueror, and that because the nations of the continent became hert instructors in military tactics." France (you say) is not now naval; but a perseverance in a naval war, on our part, will, or at least may, as in the other case, make her not only naval, birt a naval conqueror. No, sir; and if you have deceived yourself by this sort of logic, your brain is of that kind which Swift describes as not capable of bearing many skummings. You quite overlook the want of similarity in the circumstances. It was (taking your fact for granted), at the beginning of her war that she was not military; but it is at the end of fifteen years of war that she is not naval, though the war has, all along, been naval as well as military, as the total destruction of her fleet, old as well as new, is, to her, at least, a convincing proof. For your argument to have been worth any thing, as applied to the purpose which you had in view, there should have been no naval w op all this time; or, you should have been able to say, that France was destitute of a navy in 1792, and that now, in consequence of our “attack" upon her, she had drilled herself into a formidable waval power. "The nations of Europe," you tell us, "have been. her instructors in military affairs," and you express your fear, that, unless we make peace, we shall, in like manner, "Lecome her instructors in naval affairs. Become! Now, really, sir, I must charge you, in your capacity of pleader for France, as being very

ungrateful; for, have we not been endeavouring to instruct her these fifteen long years, in all sorts of naval affairs, in battles of all sizes, and in all parts of the world, not forgetting to give, as it were purely for her sake, here and there a lesson to her allies, even unto those nations, who "

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now associated with her in the same "cause (say good cause in your next edi tion, to make the thing complete); and, if they have, not one of them, profited from our instructions, in all that time, what reason is there to suppose, that they will begin how to profit from them? This is your main argument; upon this argument you ring all the changes; and in this argument, which is one of experience, you are completely beaten, fifteen years of experience having proved, that, in war, France, though having for her principal object, the destruction of England constantly in view, and though having at her command almost all the naval force of the continent of Europe, has been daily sinking as a maritime state; and, yet you would fain make us believe, that the only way to prevent her from becoming formidable at sea is to make peace with her, and that, too, upon terms, which shall leave her in quiet possession of all the means which the continent affords for the creation of a navy. Your proposition, stripped of all its useless words, and connected with undeniable fact, is this: the only danger which we have to apprehend from the hostility of France, is, that she may create a naval force; she has now, and has had for some years, almost the whole of the nával means of the continent at her disposal; we have been at war with her for fifteen years, and she has been daily sinking in naval power; therefore, in order to prevent her from rising in naval power, let us make peace with her as soon as possible, and insist upor no stipulation that shall prevent her from making use of the absence of our naval force for the creating of a naval force of her own. This is, disguise it how you will, the advice which you give to your country; advice which no man would give, who was not the enemy of his country, or, at least, who, from want of real patriotism, had not suffered his spite against his party opponents to get the better of every higher

consideration.

You admit, sir, for argument's sake, that France would, in case of peace, increase her navy so as to threaten the independence of England; and, under this admission, you ask: "What is our remedy against it? "The answer," you continue, is ready "from the whole tribe of alarmists: PER

PETUAL WAR. This is the avowed object "of all their exertions, the sole preservative "against their terrors. Continually haunt"ed in imagination by the spectre, Buona.

parté, they cannot sleep in peace, unless "the blood of their fellow subjects be daily "and hourly flowing in their defence, in

every part of the world." For malignant aspersions there is nothing like a philanthropist by trade; but, sir, while you were drawing such a hateful picture of the cowardice of others, you certainly forgot those symptoms of unfeigned fear, which you exhibited at Liverpool, where you retreated at the very sound of the voice of your opponents, crying, if we are to believe the published reports, like a stout Italian, when a little blackguard of a dozen years old has given a hoist to his board of brittle images; you must have forgotten this, or you would have shown some compassion for the cowardice of us, who are, at least, your countrymen. But, sir, where is it that you have to refer to what you have here given as the answer of those whom you (brave man!) term the alarmists? Who has ever said, that

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perpetual war is the object of his exer"tions, and the sole preservative" against the dangers which he apprehends? I believe, that no one has ever said it, in print or out of print. But, I will tell you what we say we say, that a war to last until our grand children are fathers of families; that a war for a hundred years to come, would be preferable to the subjugation of our country by France; and, preferable, too, to a peace, which, in our opinion, would speedily lead to such subjugation. Whether the sort of peace which you recommend would have this effect, is a question which has before been discussed by me, and which I shall not discuss again here; but, that you feel conscious of the badness of your cause is pretty evident from your having recourse to such flagrant misrepresentations as that which I have just noticed. Perhaps, however, it is in the way of induction that you have made this statement of our sentiments. We insist, that perpetual war is preferable to subjugation by France; we insist that perpetual war is preferable to such a peace as would speedily lead to subjugation; we say what sort of peace we should think preferable to war; you are, I suppose, of opinion, that we shall get no such peace as

*See Register, present volume, page 65, and subsequent articles upon the subject of Peace, where I have used arguments, which, as far as my knowledge reaches, no one has yet attempted to answer..