‘Modern France’ continues Vetus, rising in his argument, has no principle so deeply rooted as that of everlasting enmity to England. ‘I confess for this reason that in my uncorrupted judgment _the best security_ for Great Britain, and therefore, _if practicable, her most imperious duty_, would be _the absolute conquest of France_. But since that, _unfortunately_, is an event which _at present_ we are not likely to accomplish, _the second best security_ is’ (one would think not to attempt it at all; no, but) ‘to reduce her, _if we can_, to a degree of weakness consistent _with our immediate repose_.’ After thus modestly postponing the absolute conquest of France to a more convenient opportunity, he adds the following incredible sentence. ‘If the enemy should be so far borne away by _his hatred_, as to command _his emissaries_ in London to announce that he prefers waging eternal war to the acceptance of conditions, which _his own persevering and atrocious outrages_ have rendered in the mind of every Englishman indispensable to the safety of these islands, the woeful alternative of perpetual war very plainly originates not with Great Britain but with Bonaparte!’ That is to say, _The Times_ not long ago laid it down as a fixed, unalterable maxim, without reference to terms of one sort or another, that we were never to make peace with Bonaparte; Vetus in this very letter enters into an elaborate apology, for that multitude of wise, honest, and virtuous persons who think his existence as a sovereign _at all times_ threatens our existence as a nation, and it is because we entered our protest against this ‘frantic outcry raised by degenerate Englishmen,’ that Bonaparte is here made to charge his emissaries in London to announce that he prefers eternal war to the acceptance of conditions, the moderation of which conditions or of _our second best security_ may be judged of when we are told that the best, and indeed only real security for Great Britain, and therefore her most imperious duty, would be the absolute conquest of France. Vetus is, however, contented with such terms of peace as will imply only a _critical advance to her destruction_, and if Bonaparte is not contented with the same terms, the alternative of eternal war, it seems, originates with him and not with Vetus.[9]