The truth is, they had very good reason to be annoyed; and if the guiding practical maxim amongst nations be, that ‘might makes right,’ as I conceive it always has been, and ever will be, so long as powder and shot exist, with money to back them, and energy to wield them,—then we really cannot pretend to find fault with the Americans, because they took advantage, or tried to take advantage, of that moment when, our ‘right’ being the same, our ‘might’ appeared to be waning. I allude to their declaring war against us in 1812, when we, fighting single-handed, in the cause of European independence, were so hard pressed by Napoleon and others. For the Americans to have taken an earlier share in the struggle against us, when we were lords of the ascendant, would have been the extremity of Quixotism. But when John Bull was pressed on all hands by numbers, and his strength exhausted by long contests, albeit in the cause of liberty, which his brother Jonathan professes to adore, he, Jonathan, would have been a fool, a character which he certainly never was accused of enacting, if he had not taken advantage of the moment to try his strength. The provocation we gave was certainly considerable, and the retort, it must be owned, very dexterously managed. The result, I trust, is, that things are on a better footing than before; both parties have learned civility and caution, and they will not agree the worse on that account. To forgive and forget, is the old English maxim, as our friends well know. Let them imitate us in this respect, and they will be all the happier, and not a whit less powerful. In putting a parallel case to ours off New York, and supposing Liverpool to be blockaded by the Americans on the ground of their watching some French ships, I omitted to throw in one item, which is necessary to complete the parallel, and make it fit the one from which it is drawn. Suppose the blockading American ships off Liverpool, in firing a shot ahead of a vessel they wished to examine, had accidentally hit, not that vessel, but a small coaster, so far beyond her, that she was not even noticed by the blockading ships. And suppose, further, this unlucky chance-shot to have killed one of the crew on board the said coaster: the vessel would, of course, proceed immediately to Liverpool with the body of their slaughtered countryman; and, in fairness, it may be asked, what would have been the effect of such a spectacle on the population of England—more particularly if such an event had occurred at the moment of a general election, when party politics, raging on this very question of foreign interference, was at its height?