influence on the side of Prussia and her continental allies, and, in
conjunction with the Holy Alliance, pledged themselves never to lay
down arms until France was mutilated and the master-mind which ruled
her beaten and dethroned. Their task was long, costly, and gruesome.
What a ghastly legacy those aggressively righteous champions of
international rights have bequeathed to the world! But for their folly
and frenzy we should not be engaged in a European war to-day. Poor
Napoleon! He foreshadowed and used his gigantic genius to prevent it;
now the recoil has come. There are always more flies caught by treacle
than by vinegar, a policy quite as efficacious in preventing
international quarrels as it is in the smaller affairs of our
existence, provided the law which governs the fitness of things is
well defined.

Had we approached Napoleon in a friendly spirit and on equal terms,
without haughty condescension, he would have reciprocated our
cordiality and put proper value on our friendship. By wisdom and tact
the duration of Napoleon's wars would have been vastly shortened, and
both nations would have been saved from the errors that were
committed. We did not do this, and we are now reaping the consequence.
It is hardly to be expected that if hostility be shown towards an
individual or a nation either will mildly submit to it. Who can
estimate the passionate resentment of an emotional people at Nelson's
constant declamatory outbursts against the French national character,
and the effect it had throughout France?

An affront to a nation, even though it is made by a person in a
subordinate position, may bring about far-reaching trouble. Reverse
the position of the traducer of a prominent man or his nation, and it
will be easy to arrive at a correct conclusion as to the temper that