The whole of this pompous episode is a mere diversion to the question. Vetus, some time ago, asked, in a tone which could not be mistaken, ‘Who are the French nation? A rank non-entity. Who are to be the sole judges of the rights and pretensions of what once was France? We, and our allies!’—and when we protest against this unheard-of basis of a negociation between rival states, he answers with a tedious prize-dissertation on the doctrine of universal benevolence, and the perfectibility of man. Vetus insists on a peace (the only peace fit for a wise nation) that shall remain a proud monument of its own superiority,—that is, a peace which can never be made between any two states, a peace that does not admit of the shadow of regard to the rights, interests, or honour of the enemy, a peace that implies a critical advance to the destruction of France. But it seems, that all this proud display of pedantic phraseology, by which he attempted to ‘confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed the very faculties of eyes and ears,’ now means nothing more than that we are to guard and protect our native country, and not surrender our own rights to the enemy. There needed no oracle to tell us that. But Vetus, having set out on the forlorn hope of political paradox, is himself ashamed to turn back to a trite truism, and contends that there is no safety for this country but in the destruction of the enemy, and no patriotism which is not inconsistent with the rights, liberties, and even existence of other countries. We deny it. We say there is a patriotism consistent with the claims of reason, justice, and humanity; and another _exclusive_ of them. The latter is Vetus’s patriotism; the former is ours. This we have stated before. We do not wonder that Vetus has not answered it; for it does not admit of an answer.