Such was the extraordinary and apparently providential combination of circumstances which defeated this great plan of Napoleon for the invasion of this country--a plan which, he repeatedly said, was the best combined and most deeply laid of any he had ever formed in his life. Its failure was owing to accident, or some overruling cause which cannot be again relied on. Had the _Curieux_ not made the shortest passage ever then known, from Antigua--twenty-four days; had Villeneuve reached the Channel unexpectedly on the 20th or 21st July, as he would have done but for its arrival--had he even sailed for Brest on the 11th August, as ordered, _instead of to Cadiz_, the invasion would in all human probability have taken place. What its result would have been is a very different question. With a hundred and eighty thousand regular troops and militia in arms in the British Islands, besides three hundred thousand volunteers, the conflict must at least have been a very desperate one. But what would it be now, when the French and Russians have greater land forces to invade us; when their naval superiority, at least in the outset of the contest, would be much more decisive; and, with a much more divided and discontented population at home, we could only--at the very utmost--oppose them with fifty thousand effective men in both islands, in the field. It is often said by persons who know nothing of war, either by study or experience, that "if the French invaded us, we would all rise up and crush them." Setting aside what need not be said to any man who knows anything of the subject--the utter inadequacy of an unarmed, untrained, and undisciplined body of men, however individually brave, to repel the attack of a powerful regular army--we shall by one word settle this matter of the nation rising up. It would rise up, and we know what it would do. The _most influential part of it, at least in the towns, who now rule the state, would run away_. We do not mean run away from the field; for, truly, very few of those who now raise the cry for economy and disarming would be found there. We mean they would counsel, and, in fact, insist on submission. Many brave men would doubtless be found in the towns, and multitudes in the country, who would be eager at the posts of danger; but the great bulk of the wealthy and influential classes, at least in the great cities, would loudly call out for an accommodation on any terms. They would surrender the fleets, dismantle Portsmouth and Plymouth, cede Gibraltar and Malta--_anything to stop the crisis_. They would do so for the same reason that they now so earnestly counsel disbanding the troops and selling the ships of the line, and under the influence of a much more cogent necessity--in order to be able to continue without interruption the making of money. Peace, peace! would be the universal cry, at least among the rich in the towns, as it was in Paris in 1814. There would be no thought