[314] "Que l'on joigne à ces considérations _des troupes toujours prêtes d'agir_, mon épargne bien remplie, et la vivacité de mon caractère: c'étaient les raisons que j'avais de faire la guerre à Marie-Thérèse, reine de Bohême et d'Hongrie." These are the very words of Frederick, deliberately written in his own account of the war. Voltaire, on revising the work, dishonestly struck out this important confession, but preserved a copy, which afterwards appeared in his own Memoirs. Lord Brougham, in his sketch of Voltaire, says that "the passage thus erased and thus preserved is extremely curious, and for honesty or impudence has no parallel in the history of warriors."--Brougham, Lives of Men of Letters, _Voltaire_, p. 59. But I deny that these preparations are needed for just self-defence. It is difficult, if not impossible, to suppose any such occasion in the Fraternity of Christian Nations, _if War ceases to be an established Arbitrament_, or if any state is so truly great as to decline its umpirage. There is no such occasion among the towns, counties, or states of our extended country; nor is there any such occasion among the counties of Great Britain, or among the provinces of France; but the same good-will, the same fellowship, and the same ties of commerce, which unite towns, counties, states, and provinces, are fast drawing the whole Commonwealth of Nations into similar communion. France and England, so long regarded as natural enemies, are now better known to each other than only a short time ago were different provinces of the former kingdom. And there is now a closer intimacy in business and social intercourse between Great Britain and our own country than there was at the beginning of the century between Massachusetts and Virginia. * * * * *