an of ships! English Rodney has
clutched it, and led it home, with the rest; so successful was his new
'manoeuvre of breaking the enemy's line.' (9th and 12th April, 1782.) It
seems as if, according to Louis XV., 'France were never to have a Navy.'
Brave Suffren must return from Hyder Ally and the Indian Waters; with
small result; yet with great glory for 'six non-defeats;--which indeed,
with such seconding as he had, one may reckon heroic. Let the old
sea-hero rest now, honoured of France, in his native Cevennes mountains;
send smoke, not of gunpowder, but mere culinary smoke, through the old
chimneys of the Castle of Jales,--which one day, in other hands,
shall have other fame. Brave Laperouse shall by and by lift anchor, on
philanthropic Voyage of Discovery; for the King knows Geography. (August
1st, 1785.) But, alas, this also will not prosper: the brave Navigator
goes, and returns not; the Seekers search far seas for him in vain.
He has vanished trackless into blue Immensity; and only some mournful
mysterious shadow of him hovers long in all heads and hearts.

Neither, while the War yet lasts, will Gibraltar surrender. Not though
Crillon, Nassau-Siegen, with the ablest projectors extant, are there;
and Prince Conde and Prince d'Artois have hastened to help. Wondrous
leather-roofed Floating-batteries, set afloat by French-Spanish Pacte de
Famille, give gallant summons: to which, nevertheless, Gibraltar answers
Plutonically, with mere torrents of redhot iron,--as if stone Calpe had
become a throat of the Pit; and utters such a Doom's-blast of a No,
as all men must credit. (Annual Register (Dodsley's), xxv. 258-267.
September, October, 1782.)

And so, with this loud explosion, the noise of War has ceased; an Age
of Benevolence may hope, for ever. Our noble volunteers of Freedom have
returned, to be her missionaries. Lafayette, as the matchless of his
time, glitters in the Versailles Oeil-de-Beouf; has his Bust set up in
the Paris Hotel-de-Ville. Democracy stands inexpugnable, immeasurable,
in her New World; has even a foot lifted towards the Old;--and our
French Finances, little strengthened by such work, are in no healthy
way.

What to do with the Finance? This indeed is the great question: a small
but most black weather-symptom, which no radiance of universal hope
can cover. We saw Turgot cast forth from the Controllership, with
shrieks,--for want of a Fortunatus' Purse. As little could M. de Clugny
manage the du