h his father George III. had
become so popular. He declared that our struggle with America was 'une
guerre de vengeance,' as the frontier question could not possibly be of
any importance. According to Napoleon, the great superiority of England
to France lay in her aristocracy.

[Sidenote: NAPOLEON'S PREDICTION ABOUT INDIA]

Napoleon stated that he had intended to create a new aristocracy in
France by marrying his officers to the daughters of the old nobility,
and he added that he had reserved a fund from the contributions which he
levied when he made treaties with Austria, Prussia, &c., in order to
found these new families. Speaking of some of the naval engagements, 'he
found great fault with the French admiral who fought the battle of the
Nile, and pointed out what he ought to have done; but he found most
fault with the admiral who fought Sir R. Calder for not disabling his
fleet, and said that if he could have got the Channel clear then, or at
any other time, he would have invaded England.' Talleyrand, he declared,
had advised the war with Spain, and Napoleon also made out that he had
prevented him from saving the Duc d'Enghien. Spain ought to have been
conquered, and Napoleon declared that he would have gone there himself
if the war with Russia had not occurred. England would repent of
bringing the Russians so far, and he added in this connection the
remarkable words, 'They will deprive her of India.'

After lingering for a while in Vienna, Florence, Rome, Naples, and other
cities, Lord John returned home by way of Germany, and on June 5 he
spoke in Parliament against the renewal of hostilities. He was one of
the small minority in Parliament who refused to regard Napoleon's flight
from Elba as a sufficient _casus belli_. Counsels of peace, however,
were naturally just then not likely to prevail, and Wellington's victory
a fortnight later falsified Lord John's fears. He did not speak again
until February 1816, when, in seconding an amendment to the Address, he
protested against the continuance of the income-tax as a calamity to the
country. He pointed out that, although there had been repeated victories
abroad, prosperity at home had vanished; that farmers could not pay
their rents nor landlords their taxes; and that everybody who was not
paid out of the public purse felt that prosperity was gone. A few weeks
later he opposed the Army Estimates, contending that a standing army of
150,000 men 'must alarm every fr