‘—It is asked,—“Do we propose to humble France? Do we propose to destroy her? If so, we breathe _eternal_ war; if so, we convert the aggressor into the sufferer, and transfer all the dignity and authority of justice to the enemy against whom we arm!”’ Yes, against whom we arm for the avowed purpose of his destruction. From the moment that we make the destruction of an enemy (be he who he may) the indispensable condition of our safety, our destruction from that moment _becomes_ necessary to his, and an act of self-defence. Not much liking this dilemma from which our author has more than once ‘struggled to get free,’ he in the next passage makes a wide career indeed, in order, no doubt, to return to the charge with better effect hereafter. ‘The question of peace or eternal war is not a _naked question_ of right and wrong. It is a question, whose morality is determined by its reference to our preservation as a people. To such interrogatories I answer without reserve, that we ought to exact _precisely_ that measure of humiliation from France, and that we do recommend _that critical advance towards her destruction_, that may combine the utmost _attainable_ satisfaction for our past grievances with a solid protection to our future interest and welfare. From France, since the _fatal_ battle of Hastings, what has _this nation of Saxon warriors_’—(We hardly know ourselves in the learned livery of Vetus’s style. He himself is doubtless descended from some very old family settled here before the Conquest)—‘What has this nation of Saxon warriors ever yet endured from France but injury and affliction?’ Yet we have made a shift to exist as a nation under all this load of calamity. We still breathe and live notwithstanding some intervals of repose, some short resting places afforded us, before this morbid inspector of health, like another Doctor Pedro Positive, injoined his preposterous regimen of incessant war as necessary to lasting peace, and to our preservation as a people!