“There are questions which require to be boldly met in order to be well resolved, as there are wounds which must be opened in order to be healed. The frankness with which you received my first remarks upon a subject, the gravity of which I do not affect to disguise, encourages me to submit to your consideration a point of view from which it appears to me advisable to contemplate the question of the Isthmus of Suez. The great influence which your character and your long experience naturally give you the right to exercise in the decisions of your Government on all Eastern questions, makes me especially anxious to neglect no opportunity of enabling Your Excellency to form an opinion from a perfect acquaintance with the case. The results already obtained from the intimate alliance of France and England, testify sufficiently to the advantages that the European balance and civilization in general derive from that union of the two peoples. The future and the welfare of all the nations of the universe are therefore concerned in maintaining intact, in preserving from any attack, a state of things, which, to the everlasting honour of the Governments that have brought it about, can alone, with time, ensure the blessings of progress and of peace to the human race. Thence the necessity of getting rid, beforehand, of all causes of rupture, or even of coolness, between the two peoples; thence, consequently, the paramount duty of anticipating amongst future contingencies, those circumstances calculated to awake ancient feelings of antagonism, and to raise, in the bosom of either nation, those emotions against the violence of which, the wisdom of Governments is powerless to struggle. The motives for hostile rivalry are tending successively to give place to that generous emulation which gives birth to great things.