only enlarge our empire, but strengthen our security throughout the whole; especially as you are islanders, and feeble islanders too, while we are lords of the sea.”—“But surely that very circumstance is in other ways a protection to you, as evincing your moderation: for if you attack us, you will at once alarm all neutrals, and convert them into enemies.”—“We are in little fear of continental cities, who are out of our reach and not likely to take part against us, but only of islanders; either yet unincorporated in our empire, like you, or already in our empire and discontented with the constraint which it imposes. It is such islanders who by their ill-judged obstinacy are likely, with their eyes open, to bring both us and themselves into peril.”—“We know well (said the Melians, after some other observations had been interchanged) how terrible it is to contend against your superior power, and your good fortune; nevertheless, we trust that in point of fortune we shall receive fair treatment from the gods, since we stand upon grounds of right against injustice; and as to our inferior power, we trust that the deficiency will be made up by our ally Sparta, whose kindred race will compel her from very shame to aid us.”—“We too (replied the Athenians) think that we shall not be worse off than others in regard to the divine favor. For we neither advance any claim, nor do any act, overpassing that which men believe in regard to the gods, and wish in regard to themselves. What we believe about the gods is the same as that which we see to be the practice of men: the impulse of nature inclines them of necessity to rule over what is inferior in force to themselves. This is the principle on which we now proceed,—not having been the first either to lay it down or to follow it, but finding it established and likely to continue for ever,—and knowing well too that you or others in our position would do as much. As for your expectations from the Lacedæmonians, founded on the disgrace of their remaining deaf to your call, we congratulate you indeed on your innocent simplicity, but we at the same time deprecate such foolishness. For the Lacedæmonians are indeed most studious of excellence in regard to themselves and their own national customs. But looking at their behavior towards others, we affirm roundly, and can prove by many examples of their history, that they are of all men the most conspicuous in construing what is pleasing as if it were honorable, and what is expedient as if it were just. Now that is not the state of mind which you require, to square with your desperate calculations of safety.” [161] In reference to this argumentation of the Athenian envoy, I call attention to the attack and bombardment of Copenhagen by the English government in 1807, together with the language used by the English envoy to the Danish Prince Regent on the subject. We read as follows in M. Thiers’s Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire:—