Napoleon, indeed, pretended to look to still more triumphant results from such a victory, and to expect nothing less than the dissolution of the European Alliance as the reward of a decided defeat of the English in Belgium. So long as it was not mentioned by what means this was to be accomplished, those who had no less confidence in Napoleon's intrigues than his military talents, must have supposed that he had already in preparation among the foreign powers some deep scheme, tending to sap the foundation of their alliance, and ready to be carried into action when he should attain a certain point of success. But when it is explained that these extensive expectations rested on Napoleon's belief that a single defeat of the Duke of Wellington would occasion a total change of government in England; that the statesmen of the Opposition would enter into office as a thing of course, and instantly conclude a peace with him;[142] and that the coalition, thus deprived of subsidies, must therefore instantly withdraw the armies which were touching the French frontier on its whole northern and eastern line--Napoleon's extravagant speculations can only serve to show how very little he must have known of the English nation, with which he had been fighting so long. The war with France had been prosecuted more than twenty years, and though many of these were years of bad success and defeat, the nation had persevered in a resistance which terminated at last in complete triumph. The national opinion of the great general who led the British troops, was too strongly rooted to give way upon a single misfortune; and the event of the campaign of 1814, in which Napoleon, repeatedly victorious, was at length totally defeated and dethroned, would have encouraged a more fickle people than the English to continue the war notwithstanding a single defeat, if such an event had unhappily occurred. The Duke had the almost impregnable fortress and seaport of Antwerp in his rear, and might have waited there the reinforcements from America. Blucher had often shown how little he was disheartened by defeat; at worst, he would have fallen back on a Russian army of 200,000 men, who were advancing on the Rhine. The hopes, therefore, that the battle of Waterloo, if gained by the French, would have finished the war, must be abandoned as visionary, whether we regard the firm and manly character of the great personage at the head of the British monarchy, the state of parties in the House of Commons, where many distinguished members of the Opposition had joined the Ministry on the question of the war, or the general feeling of the country, who saw with resentment the new irruption of Napoleon. It cannot, however, be denied, that any success gained by Napoleon in this first campaign, would have greatly added to his influence both in France and other countries, and might have endangered the possession of Flanders. The Duke of Wellington