the Holy Alliance, nor the
Turks against the Russians, nor the Poles against the Czar, nor the
Hungarians against the Austrians, nor the Italians against the Kaiser,
nor the Greeks against the Turks. She settled all her disputes with the
United States by negotiation, and showed no disposition to fight with
France, except when she had all the rest of Europe on her side. But this
praise has not been deserved. England did not quarrel with powerful
countries, because she could not afford to enter upon costly warfare.
She had gone to the extent of her means when her debt had reached to
four thousand million dollars, and she could not increase that debt
largely until she should also have increased her wealth. Time was
required to add to her means, and to lessen her debt; and to such a
state had her finances been reduced, that it is now twenty years since
she began to derive a portion of her revenue from an income tax, which,
imposed in the time of peace, was increased when war became inevitable.
The bonds she had given to keep the peace were too great to admit of her
breaking it. She did not fight, because she doubted her ability to fight
successfully. She had no wish to behold another suspension of cash
payments by her national bank; and a general war would be sure to bring
suspension. But she was as ready as she had ever been to contend with
the weak. The Chinese and the Afghans did not find her very forbearing,
though with neither of those peoples had she any just cause for war.

With the disunited States she has been as prompt to quarrel as she was
slow to contend with the United States; and now she is one of the high
contracting parties to the crusade against Mexico. We say nothing of the
Sepoy war, for that was a contest for 'empire,' as Earl Russell would
say. She could not, in the days of Clyde, give up what she had acquired
in the days of Clive; and no one ought to blame her for what she did in
India, though it can not be denied that the mutiny was the consequence
of her own bad conduct in the East. With Russia, Austria, and Prussia to
back her, in 1840, she went to the verge of a war with France; but, in
so doing, the government did that which the English nation by no means
warmly approved; and the fall of the whig ministry, in 1841, was in no
small part due to Lord Palmerston's policy in the preceding year. The
Russian war was brought about by the action of the English people, who
were angry with the Czar because h