Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
of the communication were inexpressibly insolent, and were no doubt
meant as a studied affront and challenge. On Saturday, all the French in
London were sent to the opera, plays, clubs, coffee-houses, and
ale-houses, to publish the intelligence, which they did with their
natural impertinence. On Tuesday, the two Houses received a message from
the king, informing them of the communication from the French
ambassador--that he had recalled his ambassador from Versailles; and
assuring them that he would exert every means in his power to protect
the honour and interest of his kingdom. In answer to which, the two
Houses voted an address, promising to support him with our lives and
fortunes. Opposition, like _good patriots_, in answer to this message,
proposed to address the king to remove his ministers; and C. Fox assured
us, 'he thought an invasion a _much better thing_ than the continuance
of the present administration.' When this proposal was negatived, they
therefore refused their assent to our address. There is no declaration
of war yet; but as it is quite certain, and as France will undoubtedly
act immediately, I do not see what we gain by delaying it. I hope at
least we shall begin taking their ships immediately. The militia is to
be called out; credit is dreadfully low--stock was a few days ago at 60.
The French are poorer than we--that's something."
Exaggeration is a propensity which seems common to ambassadors. We
certainly have never seen an ambassadorial correspondence, in which the
most groundless views did not make a large part of its communications.
The British diplomatist in Russia was unquestionably a shrewd man, and
yet his letters abound in predictions of Russian ruin. His descriptions
run in this style:--"Great expenses, and nothing to show for them. The
army in a state of decay; the navy incomplete and ill-equipped; the
political system languid, and such as, if pursued, must ultimately
reduce this immense mass of power to that state of Asiatic
insignificancy from which it so lately emerged."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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