s the general
protectress of the Continent. "This bulletin," said he, "announces
the fact, that a French squadron has actually sailed up the Scheldt
to attack Antwerp. Yet it was not ten years since France protested
against the same act by Austria, as a violation of the rights of
Holland. The new aggression is, therefore, not simply a solitary
violence, but a vast fraud; not merely the breach of an individual
treaty, but a declaration that no treaty is henceforth to be held as
binding; it is more than an act of rapine; it is an universal
dissolution of the principles by which society is held together. In
what times are we about to live?"

My reply was--"That it depended on the spirit of England herself,
whether the conflict was to be followed by honour or by shame; that
she had a glorious career before her, if she had magnanimity
sufficient to take the part marked out for her by circumstances; and
that, with the championship of the world in her hands, even defeat
would be a triumph."

He now turned the conversation to myself; spoke with more than
official civility of my services, and peculiarly of the immediate
one; and asked in what branch of diplomacy I desired advancement?

My answer was prompt. "In none. I desired promotion but in one
way--the army." I then briefly stated the accidental loss of my
original appointment, and received, before I left the chamber, a note
for the secretary at war, recommending me, in the strongest terms,
for a commission in the Guards.--The world was now before me, and the
world in the most vivid, various, and dazzling shape; in the boldest
development of grandeur, terror, and wild vicissitude, which it
exhibited for a thousand years--ENGLAND WAS AT WAR!

There is no sight on earth more singular, or more awful, than a great
nation going to war. I saw the scene in its highest point of view, by
seeing it in England. Its perfect freedom, its infinite, and often
conflicting, variety of opinion--its passionate excitement, and its
stupendous power, gave the summons to hostilities a character of
interest, of grandeur, and of indefinite but vast purposes,
unexampled in any other time, or in any other country. When one of
the old monarchies commenced war, the operation, however large and
formidable, was simple. A monarch resolved, a council sat, less to
guide than to echo his resolution; an army marched, invaded the
enemy's territory, fought a battle--perhaps a dubious one--rested on
its arm