Yes, the whole world, and particularly the French and the Yankees, see very clearly the _course_ of this fit of modesty and of liberality into which we have so recently fallen. They know well that a _war_ would play the very devil with our national faith. They know, in short, that no Ministers in their senses will think of supporting the paper-system through another war. They know well that no Ministers that now exist, or are likely to exist, will venture to endanger the paper-system; and therefore they know that (for England) they may now do just what they please. When the French were about to invade Spain, Mr. Canning said that his last despatch on the subject was to be understood as a _protest_ on the part of England against permanent occupation of any part of Spain by France. There the French are, however; and at the end of two years and a half he says that he knows nothing about any intention that they have to quit Spain, or any part of it. Why, Saint Domingo _was_ independent. We had traded with it as an independent state. Is it not clear that if we had said the word (and had been known to be able to _arm_), France would not have attempted to treat that fine and rich country as a colony? Mark how wise this measure of France! How _just_, too; to obtain by means of a tribute from the St. Domingoians compensation for the _loyalists_ of that country! Was this done with regard to the loyalists of _America_ in the reign of the good jubilee George III.? Oh, no! Those loyalists had to be paid, and many of them have even yet, at the end of more than half a century, to be paid out of taxes raised on _us_, for the losses occasioned by their disinterested loyalty! This was a masterstroke on the part of France; she gets about seven millions sterling in the way of tribute; she makes that rich island yield to her great commercial advantages; and she, at the same time, paves the way for effecting one of two objects; namely, getting the island back again, or throwing our islands into confusion whenever it shall be her interest to do it.