people of a dismemberment of the empire, and allow the laws, whatever they may be, to be obeyed. If the laws are bad, or fancied to be bad, and if they do not please all men, without regard to difference of religion, and in other respects, upon an equality, let the Government, whose business it is, endeavour to have them altered; but as long as they stand the laws of the realm, it is the duty of officers and soldiers to uphold them, and the civil authorities in the execution of them, and they have nothing more to say to the matter. Had the French acted thus, and upon such principles--for I cannot suppose that their officers had lost all influence and command over their men--and as I am convinced, British officers, if necessary, would act, we should not now have before our eyes the awful example, of an established government overturned, as was the case in 1830, and which, with what has occurred in that country for many years past, ought to be held up for ever as a lesson to the United Kingdom. I hope, however, that Great Britain will never become so humbled, as to require salvation from naval and military patriotism; but I boldly assert, and without fear of contradiction, that no where on earth, amongst men, is this virtue to be found so pure as in the hearts of the officers of our navy and army. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: N.B. Many of the absentees did not, as was supposed, fall into the hands of the enemy, but had gone off in search of liquor or plunder.] CHAP. VIII. There is no country with which Great Britain is likely so soon to come into hostile contact as the United States of America, and for such a war we must certainly want an army such as I have in view. It has long been the fashion, and I believe it is the object of many interested and designing men, to endeavour to have the United States of America considered as much more powerful and dangerous to Great Britain then they really are. No nation, nor body of men, be they who they may, composed of such heterogeneous materials, scattered over so vast an extent of territory, in which the laws, enacted by an often unruly legislature, are so powerless, and in many places so weakly administered, as not to be able to prevent aggressions upon an unoffending neighbour, or to afford sufficient protection to the peaceably inclined against the hand of violence, can possibly be considered powerful. I am aware that parts of the United States ought, to a certain extent, to be looked upon as exceptions, but, generally speaking, this is by no means an over-drawn picture of what is the state of society in that part of the world.