It is needless to say that England relies on the United States to prevent Mexico becoming a French province. Her statesmen have for the past two years professed the belief that the dismemberment of the United States is inevitable. In that event, they must know that the United States would prove no obstacle to the occupation of Mexico by France. No; the acquiescence of England in this gigantic acquisition of France can be ascribed to no such assurance of the power of the United States. It may be said that she has flattered herself that by letting alone Napoleon, he may possibly, by an alliance with the rebels, secure the permanent dissolution of the American Union;--that the United States, if successful in crushing the rebellion, would be to her a greater terror than Napoleon. We do not believe that she is influenced by such considerations. She knows that the United States, however powerful by the recent development of military strength, would hardly attempt the invasion of the British Islands. But she has no such faith in her crafty neighbor. She knows that France and the Bonapartes owe her a debt of vengeance which only the ravage and desolation of the British soil will ever liquidate. She remembers that the favorite scheme of Napoleon the First was the invasion of England; and she knows that this scheme is among the _Idees Napoleon_ of the nephew. She is aware, too, that Napoleon the Third has the means at his command which will enable him to place any number of troops on her shores. She is satisfied that upon the first provocation which she offers, he will gratify the treasured hatred of the French and of his family, by consummating the darling project of his uncle. The terror of invasion has induced her to change the nature of her foreign policy. She will cling to the French alliance until the French emperor has satiated his national craving for her degradation; and not until he strikes her a blow, which will resound throughout the world, will England be prepared to battle with the Gaul. No future accession of territory would make France more formidable for the invasion of England than she is now. Her army of five hundred thousand men, and her steam navy and ironclads are all-sufficient for that purpose, whenever the French emperor chooses so to employ them. But if Napoleon devotes this army and that navy to such a formidable conquest as that of a country seven times as large as France, three thousand miles from her shores, it is not probable that he will soon be able to spare them for the invasion of Great Britain. Spain vainly struggled for years to conquer her revolted provinces in America. England failed to conquer her rebellious colonies, with a population not exceeding three millions. France lost an army of thirty-five thousand men, veterans of Moreau's, in the vain effort to subdue the negroes of St. Domingo. England could desire no better scheme for the destruction of the