Any one of the separate manœuvres which we have mentioned, would, before this eventful war, have been considered as a sufficient object for a long campaign. But the whole united was regarded by Buonaparte only as side-blows, affecting Britain indirectly through the occupation of her monarch's family dominions, the embarrassment offered to her commerce, and the destruction of such independence as had been left to the continental powers. His great and decisive game remained to be played--that scheme of invasion to which he had so strongly pledged himself in his angry dialogue with Lord Whitworth. Here, perhaps, if ever in his life, Buonaparte, from considerations of prudence, suffered the period to elapse which would have afforded the best chance for execution of his venturous project. It must be in the memory of most who recollect the period, that the kingdom of Great Britain was seldom less provided against invasion than at the commencement of this second war; and that an embarkation from the ports of Holland, if undertaken instantly after the war had broken out, might have escaped our blockading squadrons, and have at least shown what a French army could have done on British ground, at a moment when the alarm was general, and the country in an unprepared state. But it is probable that Buonaparte himself was as much unprovided as England for the sudden breach of the treaty of Amiens--an event brought about more by the influence of passion than of policy; so that its consequences were as unexpected in his calculations as in those of Great Britain. Besides, he had not diminished to himself the dangers of the undertaking, by which he must have staked his military renown, his power, which he held chiefly as the consequence of his reputation, perhaps his life, upon a desperate game, which, though he had already twice contemplated it, he had not yet found hardihood enough seriously to enter upon.