When our ambassadors were required to perform a prostration,
which in Europe would have been considered as degrading, we were
rather amused than irritated. It would have been unworthy of us
to have recourse to arms on account of an uncivil phrase, or of a
dispute about a ceremony. But this is not a question of phrases
and ceremonies. The liberties and lives of Englishmen are at
stake: and it is fit that all nations, civilised and
uncivilised, should know that, wherever the Englishman may
wander, he is followed by the eye and guarded by the power of
England.

I was much touched, and so, I dare say, were many other
gentlemen, by a passage in one of Captain Elliot's despatches. I
mean that passage in which he describes his arrival at the
factory in the moment of extreme danger. As soon as he landed he
was surrounded by his countrymen, all in an agony of distress and
despair. The first thing which he did was to order the British
flag to be brought from his boat and planted in the balcony. The
sight immediately revived the hearts of those who had a minute
before given themselves up for lost. It was natural that they
should look up with hope and confidence to that victorious flag.
For it reminded them that they belonged to a country unaccustomed
to defeat, to submission, or to shame; to a country which had
exacted such reparation for the wrongs of her children as had
made the ears of all who heard of it to tingle; to a country
which had made the Dey of Algiers humble himself to the dust
before her insulted Consul; to a country which had avenged the
victims of the Black Hole on the Field of Plassey; to a country
which had not degenerated since the Great Protector vowed that he
would make the name of Englishman as much respected as ever had