Immediately upon the withdrawal of the British embassador from Paris, and even before the departure of the French minister from London, England, without any public declaration of hostilities, commenced her assaults upon France. The merchant ships of the Republic, unsuspicious of danger, freighted with treasure, were seized, even in the harbors of England, and wherever they could be found, by the vigilant and almost omnipresent navy of the Queen of the Seas. Two French ships of war were attacked and captured. These disastrous tidings were the first intimation that Napoleon received that the war was renewed. The indignation of the First Consul was thoroughly aroused. The retaliating blow he struck, though merited, yet terrible, was characteristic of the man. At midnight he summoned to his presence the minister of police, and ordered the immediate arrest of every Englishman in France, between the ages of eighteen and fifty. These were all to be detained as hostages for the prisoners England had captured upon the seas. The tidings of this decree rolled a billow of woe over the peaceful homes of England; for there were thousands of travelers upon the continent, unapprehensive of danger, supposing that war would be declared before hostilities would be resumed. These were the first-fruits of that terrific conflict into which the world again was plunged. No tongue can tell the anguish thus caused in thousands of homes. Most of the travelers were gentlemen of culture and refinement--husbands, fathers, sons, brothers--who were visiting the continent for pleasure. During twelve weary years these hapless men lingered in exile. Many died and moldered to the dust in France. Children grew to manhood strangers to their imprisoned fathers, knowing not even whether they were living or dead. Wives and daughters, in desolated homes, through lingering years of suspense and agony, sank in despair into the grave. The hulks of England were also filled with the husbands and fathers of France, and beggary and starvation reigned in a thousand cottages, clustered in the valleys and along the shores of the republic, where peace and contentment might have dwelt, but for this horrible and iniquitous strife. As in all such cases, the woes fell mainly upon the innocent, upon those homes where matrons and maidens wept away years of agony. The imagination is appalled in contemplating this melancholy addition to the ordinary miseries of war. William Pitt, whose genius inspired this strife, was a man of gigantic intellect, of gigantic energy. But he was an entire stranger to all those kindly sensibilities which add lustre to human nature. He was neither a father nor a husband, and no emotions of gentleness, of tenderness, of affection, ever ruffled the calm, cold, icy surface of his soul.