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The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson by Stephen Coleridge
page 66 of 149 (44%)
spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench
them."

We, who have just emerged, shattered indeed and reeling, from
another and yet more awful combat for freedom, can the better extend
our sympathy to those forefathers of ours situated in like case, and can
imagine with what beating hearts they must have listened to so
magnificent a call to arms as this; commingling prayer, exhortation,
and benediction.

Napoleon, after all, waged his wars with us according to the laws of
nations, the rules of civilised peoples, and the dictates of decent
humanity. But never since Christianity has been established has one
man committed so dread and awful an accumulation of public iniquities
as stand for ever against the base and cowardly name of William
Hohenzollern, Emperor in Germany. He spat upon the ancient chivalries
of battle; he prostituted the decent amenities of diplomacy; he polluted
with infamy and murder the splendid comradeship of the sea.

When the captain of one of his submarines placed upon his deck the
captured crew of an unarmed merchant vessel which he had sunk,
destroyed their boats, took from them their life-belts, carried them
miles away from any floating wreckage, and then projected them into
the sea to drown, this unspeakable monarch approved the awful deed
and decorated the ruffian for his infamous cruelty.

When gallant Fryatt, fulfilling every duty a captain owes to his unarmed
crew and helpless passengers, turned the bows of his peaceful
packet-boat upon the submarine which was being used to murder them
all in cold blood, he fell into this Kaiser's hands, and the coward
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