visional Government were also ascertained, and found to be favourable, in fact, Russia and France would now become allies by the force of circumstances. The upshot was that Tripoli was annexed, in the face of impotent scolding on the part of the time-serving section of the London press. Impotent, at least, it was against France; but it incited and assisted the crowning of that structure of political folly which the Bungling Coalition had been unremittingly building. They managed to obtain the consent of their obsequious—though, in this instance, narrow—majority in Parliament to the sending out of an expedition of fifteen thousand men to Alexandria, an act which at once strained their treaty rights, was a direct slap in the face to France, and weakened the home force, which could not very safely be spared at all, and which, if it were spared, should have been sent to Asia Minor, where it was sorely needed, Redhill and Burnfingal having their work cut out for them to maintain their feeble grasps upon the alarming and daily-increasing number of Tartars they had caught. The French Government, in a most conciliatory message, requested some explanation of the step; although exasperated, the French were fully alive to the serious and lamentable character of a rupture with their old friend and ally, and they were resolved to put up with a good deal rather than allow it to happen. But a reply was returned, carefully worded for the purpose by Fitzgorin of the Foreign Office, and carelessly signed by the Chief Secretary, which amounted to an open defiance and challenge. It was hopeless to go any further in conciliation of an opponent who seemed to quarrel for quarrelling’s sake, and to demand more the more was conceded. The sensible and just minority of the English people took alarm and protested loudly; but motions of censure and sparely-attended indignation meetings were of no avail; the Opposition in Parliament had
