Impartial History, without a dissenting voice, must award the responsibility of the rupture of the peace of Amiens to the government of Great Britain. Napoleon had nothing to hope for from war, and every thing to fear. The only way in which he could even approach his formidable enemy, was by crossing the sea, and invading England. He acknowledged, and the world knew, that such an enterprise was an act of perfect desperation, for England was the undisputed mistress of the seas, and no naval power could stand before her ships. The voice of poetry was the voice of truth-- "Britannia needs no bulwarks, to frown along the steep, Her march is on the mountain-wave; her home is on the deep." England, with her invincible navy, could assail France in every quarter. She could sweep the merchant ships of the infant Republic from the ocean, and appropriate to herself the commerce of all climes. Thus war proffered to England security and wealth. It promised the commercial ruin of a dreaded rival, whose rapid strides toward opulence and power had excited the most intense alarm. The temptation thus presented to the British cabinet to renew the war was powerful in the extreme. It required more virtue than ordinarily falls to the lot of cabinets, to resist. Unhappily for suffering humanity, England yielded to the temptation. She refused to fulfil the stipulations of a treaty solemnly ratified, retained possession of Malta, in violation of her plighted faith, and renewed the assault upon France. In a communication which Napoleon made to the legislative bodies just before the rupture, he said: "Two parties contend in England for the possession of power. One has concluded a peace. The other cherishes implacable hatred against France. Hence arises this fluctuation in councils and in measures, and this attitude, at one time pacific and again menacing. While this strife continues, there are measures which prudence demands of the government of the Republic. Five hundred thousand men ought to be, and will be, ready to defend our country, and to avenge insult. Strange necessity, which wicked passions impose upon two nations, who should be, by the same interests and the same desires, devoted to peace. But let us hope for the best; and believe that we shall yet hear from the cabinet of England the councils of wisdom and the voice of humanity." Says Alison, the most eloquent, able, and impartial of those English historians who, with patriotic zeal, have advocated the cause of their own country, "Upon coolly reviewing the circumstances under which the conflict was renewed, it is impossible to deny that the British government manifested a feverish anxiety to come to a rupture, and that, so far as the transactions between the two countries are concerned, they were the aggressors." [Illustration: SCENE IN THE LOUVRE.]