Stranger still, we believe that we are secure against any sudden blow, and base this agreeable conviction on the good faith of a man who is what he now is solely because he has been able to dissemble and to deceive, to swear and to forswear. Strangest of all, we believe that if a French army should effect a landing, there is some unknown force in the population of this country which would overwhelm and absorb them; and that, while every other people in Europe has proved utterly unable to contend against military discipline, ours, the least warlike of any, will easily succeed where they have failed. The historic parallel seems tolerably close as regards the antecedents; let us hope, for the sake of this island and the cause of civilisation and liberty all over the world, that similar causes may not, in our time, result in a similar catastrophe. "If disasters are destined for this country in its military and naval operations, they will, at least, not arrive without warning. The visitations of the last year have been absolutely ominous. As if to show us the futility of the resources on which we are relying, our ships have broken down, our stores have been condemned, our firearms have proved useless, and our soldiers are found incapacitated by their equipments from encountering half their number of naked savages. It would be hard to overlook such tokens of evil. If, with all our vaunted wealth and skill, we cannot send reinforcements to the Cape without miscarriages, or victual our vessels without peril of pestilence, what is to become of us in the face of such hostilities as men now living can well remember, and may see again?"--_Times_, Jan. 8 and 10, 1852. It is a curious coincidence that the views here so ably and energetically put forth by the great organ of the moneyed and commercial interests, are precisely those which we have been constantly enforcing in this miscellany for many years past, and in an especial manner unfolded on _this day year_, February 1, 1851.[61] No one need be told with what ridicule these views were received by the whole Manchester school of politicians, and especially by the able journal which has now so powerfully advocated them. [61] See the "Dangers of the Country," _Blackwood's Magazine_, February 1, 1851.