Again, Mr. Blaine says: “Fearing that in the threatening conflict (1803) England, by her superior Naval force, would deprive him of his newly acquired colonial empire, and greatly enhance her own prestige by securing all the American possessions, which France had owned prior to 1763, Bonaparte, by a dash in diplomacy, as quick and as brilliant as his tactics on the field of battle, placed Louisiana beyond the reach of the British power. In a tone of vehemence and passion he said: ‘I know the full value of Louisiana. A few lines of a treaty have restored it to me, and now I must expect to lose it. The English expect to take possession of it, and it is thus they will begin the war. They have already twenty ships of the line in the Gulf of Mexico. The conquest of Louisiana will be easy. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of their reach. The English have successively taken from France the Canadas, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest portion of Asia. But they shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet.’” Again quoting from Blaine: “England’s acquisition of Louisiana would have proved in the highest degree embarrassing, if not disastrous to the Union. No colonial acquisition ever made by her on any continent has been so profitable to her commerce, and so strengthening to her military position, as that of Louisiana would have proved. The fact was clearly seen by Bonaparte when he hastily made the treaty ceding it to the United States.” Again Blaine: “The conflict of arms (War of 1812) did not occur until nine years after; and it is a curious and not unimportant fact, that the most notable defeat of the British troops in the second war of independence, as the struggle of 1812 has been well named, occurred on the soil of the territory for whose protection the original precaution had been taken by Jefferson.” The reader will find all of the chapter referred to very interesting as indeed will be any chapter devoted to our sudden acquisition of the immense domain called Louisiana. The striking sentences quoted above serve to emphasize the fact that it would not have been unnatural for England to have felt resentment at this second maneuvering of a vast territory from her grasp. Some historians have expressed surprise that England did not at once undertake to take Louisiana, the United States notwithstanding. That would have meant armed conflict with America at a time of the war in Europe. Besides, and this is a deduction of the present writer, such a course would have placed upon England the onus before the world of a war of conquest in the western continent. So England waited.