can be without
goodness--was held in low account because not of high inches, and
laughed at as "little Boney."

However, there were, as there always are, thousands of sensible
Englishmen then; and rogues had not yet made a wreck of grand
Institutions to scramble for what should wash up. Abuses existed, as
they always must; but the greatest abuse of all (the destruction of
every good usage) was undreamed of yet. And the right man was even now
approaching to the rescue, the greatest Prime-Minister of any age or
country.

Unwitting perhaps of the fine time afforded by the feeble delays of
Mr. Addington, and absorbed in the tissue of plot and counterplot
now thickening fast in Paris--the arch-plotter in all of them being
himself--the First Consul had slackened awhile his hot haste to set foot
upon the shore of England. His bottomless ambition for the moment had
a top, and that top was the crown of France; and as soon as he had got
that on his head, the head would have no rest until the crown was that
of Europe.

But before any crown could be put on at all, the tender hearts of
Frenchmen must be touched by the appearance of great danger--the danger
which is of all the greatest, that to their nearest and dearest selves.
A bloody farce was in preparation, noble lives were to be perjured away,
and above all, the only great rival in the hearts of soldiers must be
turned out of France. This foul job worked--as foul Radical jobs do
now--for the good of England. If the French invasion had come to pass,
as it was fully meant to do, in the month of February, 1804, perhaps its
history must have been written in French, for us to understand it.

So, at any rate, thought Caryl Carne, who knew the resources of either
side, and the difference between a fine army and a mob. He felt quite
sure that his mother's country would conquer his father's without much
trouble, and he knew that his horn would be exalted in the land, when he
had guided the conqueror into it. Sure enough then he would recover his
ancestral property with interest and be able to punish his enemies well,
and reward his friends if they deserved it. Thinking of these things,
and believing that his own preparations would soon be finished, he
left Widow Shanks to proclaim his merits, while under the bold and able
conduct of Captain Renaud Charron he ran the gauntlet of the English
fleet, and was put ashore southward of Cape Grisnez. Here is a long
reach of dreary exposure