It is impossible not to pursue the train of reflections which Buonaparte continued to pour forth to the companion of his exile, on the rock of Saint Helena. When England was conquered, and identified with France in maxims and principles, according to one form of expression, or rendered an appendage and dependency, according to another phrase, the reader may suppose that Buonaparte would have considered his mission as accomplished. Alas! it was not much more than commenced. "I would have departed from thence [from subjugated Britain] to carry the work of European regeneration [that is, the extension of his own arbitrary authority] from south to north, under the Republican colours, for I was then chief consul, in the same manner which I was more lately on the point of achieving it under the monarchical forms."[43] When we find such ideas retaining hold of Napoleon's imagination, and arising to his tongue after his irretrievable fall, it is impossible to avoid exclaiming, Did ambition ever conceive so wild a dream, and had so wild a vision ever a termination so disastrous and humiliating! [Sidenote: DEFENSIVE MEASURES OF ENGLAND.] It may be expected that something should be here said, upon the chances which Britain would have had of defending herself successfully against the army of invaders. We are willing to acknowledge that the risk must have been dreadful; and that Buonaparte, with his genius and his army, must have inflicted severe calamities upon a country which had so long enjoyed the blessings of peace. But the people were unanimous in their purpose of defence, and their forces composed of materials to which Buonaparte did more justice when he came to be better acquainted with them. Of the three British nations, the English have since shown themselves possessed of the same steady valour which won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt, Blenheim and Minden--the Irish have not lost the fiery enthusiasm which has distinguished them in all the countries of Europe--nor have the Scots degenerated from the stubborn courage with which their ancestors, for two thousand years, maintained their independence against a superior enemy. Even if London had been lost, we would not, under so great a calamity, have despaired of the freedom of the country; for the war would, in all probability, have assumed that popular and national character which, sooner or later, wears out an invading army. Neither does the confidence with which Buonaparte affirms the conviction of his winning the first battle, appear so certainly well-founded. This, at least, we know, that the resolution of the country was fully bent up to the hazard; and those who remember the period will bear us witness, that the desire that the French would make the attempt, was a general feeling through all classes, because they had every reason to hope that the issue might be such as for ever to silence the threat of invasion.[44] FOOTNOTES: [36] See _ante_, p. 13.