er, Europe had been shattered. England had stood aloof and
escaped the shock; but to stand aloof then was her crime--her sympathy
might have saved the tottering system. Now, all was gone. When we looked
over the whole level of the Continent, we saw but two thrones--France and
Russia; all the rest were crushed. They stood, but their structure was
shattered, stripped of its adornments, and ready to crumble down at the
first blow. England was without an ally. We had begun the war with Europe
in our line of battle; we now stood alone. Yet, the spirit of the nation
was never bolder than in this hour, when a storm of hostility seemed to be
gathering round us from every quarter of the world. Still, there were
voices of ill omen among our leading men. It was said, that France and
Russia had resolved to divide the world between them--to monopolize the
East and the West; to extinguish all the minor sovereignties; to abolish
all the constitutions; to turn the world into two vast menageries, in
which the lesser monarchies should be shown, as caged lions, for the pomp
of the two lords-paramount of the globe. I heard this language from
philosophers, from orators, even from statesmen; but I turned to the
people, and I found the spirit of their forefathers unshaken in them
still--the bold defiance of the foreigner, the lofty national scorn of his
gasconading, the desire to grapple more closely with his utmost strength,
and the willingness, nay, the passionate desire, to rest the cause of
Europe on their championship alone. I never heard among the multitude a
sound of that despair which had become the habitual language of
Opposition. They had answered the call to arms with national ardour. The
land was filled with voluntary levies, and the constant cry of the people
was--conflict with the enemy, any where, at any time, or upon any terms.
More fully versed in their national history than any other European
people, they remembered, that in every war with France, for a thousand
years, England had finished with victory; that she had never suffered any
one decisive defeat in the war, that where the forces of the two nations
could come fairly into contact, their troops had always been successful;
and that from the moment when France ventured to contest the empire of the
seas, all the battles of England were triumphs, until the enemy was swept
from the ocean.

The new cabinet formed its plans on the national confidence, and executed
them with st