We are in a war of a _peculiar_ nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about,--not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system which by its essence is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an _armed doctrine_ that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion and of interest and of enthusiasm in every country. To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our Channel. It has one foot on a foreign shore, the other upon the British soil. Thus advantaged, if it can at all exist, it must finally prevail. Nothing can so completely ruin any of the old governments, ours in particular, as the acknowledgment, directly or by implication, of any kind of superiority in this new power. This acknowledgment we make, if, in a bad or doubtful situation of our affairs, we solicit peace, or if we yield to the modes of new humiliation in which alone she is content to give us an hearing. By that means the terms cannot be of our choosing,--no, not in any part. It is laid in the unalterable constitution of things,--None can aspire to act greatly but those who are of force greatly to suffer. They who make their arrangements in the first run of misadventure, and in a temper of mind the common fruit of disappointment and dismay, put a seal on their calamities. To their power they take a security against any favors which they might hope from the usual inconstancy of fortune. I am therefore, my dear friend, invariably of your opinion, (though full of respect for those who think differently,) that neither the time chosen for it, nor the manner of soliciting a negotiation, were properly considered,--even though I had allowed (I hardly shall allow) that with the horde of Regicides we could by any selection of time or use of means obtain anything at all deserving the name of peace. In one point we are lucky. The Regicide has received our advances with scorn. We have an enemy to whose virtues we can owe nothing, but on this occasion we are infinitely obliged to one of his vices. We owe more to his insolence than to our own precaution. The haughtiness by which the proud repel us has this of good in it,--that, in making us keep our distance, they must keep their distance too. In the present case, the pride of the Regicide may be our safety. He has given time for our reason to operate, and for British dignity to recover from its surprise. From first to last he has rejected all our advances. Far as we have gone, he has still left a way open to our retreat.