The first plea that was made use of to give a colouring of interest to the renewal of hostilities, before the discovery of that profound train of policy, the explosion of which has left Europe a heap of ruins, was, that after the incautious surrender of Malta, it had been found to be of much greater importance to Great Britain than had been imagined at the time; and that it could not be suffered to fall into the hands of the French, or even become subject to their influence, without endangering one of the chief sources of the wealth and prosperity of this country. It seems Malta was the enchanted island, into which Buonaparte was to convey himself by stealth, and thence passing easily into Egypt was, at another vast stride, to come down _souse_ upon our possessions in India. With these resting-places, and the help of the thousand-league boots which our imagination had lent him, the political magician was to take but a hop, step and a jump, from one hemisphere into the other. Or, in the language of the day, Malta was the key to Egypt, and Egypt was the key to our Eastern conquests. Both the points assumed in this statement were directly denied, and their fallacy exposed at the time by one to whose authority or reasonings on the subject I can add nothing; but I may be permitted to make one general remark with respect to this part of the subject, that if the mere possibility of the loss of an object of national aggrandisement is to be considered as a sufficient ground of war, there never could be such a thing as peace among mankind. If one party is to be kept in a state of perpetual alarm from a distant apprehension of losing the superiority they possess in wealth, or luxury, or power, and the other to be perpetually goaded on by the hope of speculative plunder; if one party is determined to forgo nothing, and the other to grasp at everything; if future causes of contention are to be anticipated, and we are to fight now to defend an object that may never come into dispute hereafter; if we are not to wait till we see and feel our danger, but to create it out of every fantastic occasion; if our selfishness must be of that refined calculating comprehensive kind as to overlook no possibility of danger or advantage however remote or uncertain, and at the same time so inflexibly disinterested as to think no sacrifices too great in pursuit of its favourite object—it is easy to see that the world would soon be dispeopled. It is well for mankind that our passions naturally circumscribe themselves, and contain their own antidote within them. The only excuse for our narrow, selfish passions is their short-sightedness: were it not for this, the jealousies of individuals and of nations would never leave them a moment’s interval of rest or quiet. It is well that the headlong passions which make us rush on our own destruction and that of others are only excited by gross, palpable objects; and are therefore transient and limited in their operation.