not only for her rank in the scale of civilization, but for her very existence.”[13] Perhaps these words offered as good an explanation as the Prime Minister could give of the war itself, for apart from the unconscious sarcasm they contained, they implied that England assumed to act as guardian to the United States, and had hitherto denied to the United States the right to act independently. Both Lord Holland and Lord Erskine gently glanced at this assumption; and Erskine went so far as to intimate that sooner or later England must give way. “It has been said that this war, if the Americans persist in their claims, must be eternal. If so, our prospects are disheartening. America is a growing country,--increasing every day in numbers, in strength, in resources of every kind. In a lengthened contest all the advantages are on her side, and against this country.” The warning lost none of its point from Lord Eldon, who, always ready to meet any logical necessity by an equally logical absurdity, granted that “unless America should think proper to alter her tone, he did not see how the national differences could be settled.” Such a debate was little likely to discourage America. Every country must begin war by asserting that it will never give way, and of all countries England, which had waged innumerable wars, knew best when perseverance cost more than concession. Even at that early moment Parliament was evidently perplexed, and would willingly have yielded had it seen means of escape from its naval fetich, impressment. Perhaps the perplexity was more evident in the Commons than in the Lords, for Castlereagh, while defending his own course with elaborate care, visibly stumbled over the right of impressment. Even while claiming that its abandonment would have been “vitally dangerous if not fatal” to England’s security, he added that he “would be the last man in the world to underrate the inconvenience which the Americans sustained in consequence of our assertion of the right of search.” The embarrassment became still plainer when he narrowed the question to one of statistics, and showed that the whole contest was waged over the forcible retention of some eight hundred seamen among one hundred and forty-five thousand employed in British service. Granting the number were twice as great, he continued, “could the House believe that there was any man so infatuated, or that the British empire was driven to such straits, that for such a paltry consideration as seventeen hundred sailors, his Majesty’s government would needlessly irritate the pride of a neutral nation or violate that justice which was due to one country from another?” If Liverpool’s argument explained the causes of war, Castlereagh’s explained its inevitable result, for since the war must cost England at least ten million pounds a year, could Parliament be so infatuated as to pay ten thousand pounds a year for each American sailor detained in service, when one tenth of the amount, if employed