Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/298

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Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.

order that traders and manufacturers and railway speculators may have increased facilities for filling their pockets at other people's expense.

I believe I have already quoted the words of a certain French Vice-Admiral:—"The English have not the warrior-spirit; and if we have war with them, we should have but one thing to do, that is, a landing."[1] It may be inferred that this French Vice-Admiral was a very small boy when the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo were fought, or believed that the French won both those battles. Mr. Cobden, who seems to admire and cry up France and every thing French, as he depreciates England and every thing English on all occasions, might perhaps have approved of this Frenchman's opinion, published by his Government in the official records of a Government Inquiry.[2] Mr. Cobden says("1793 and 1853," p. 5):


  1. Enquête Parlementaire, quoted at page 326 of Our Naval Position and Policy, by a Naval Peer. (London: Longmans and Co., 1859.)
  2. The conclusion to be drawn from the whole scope of the French Report and Evidence, is that it was the purpose of France in 1849-50 to strike a decisive blow on the first opportunity England should afford her, which, if successful in affording them a landing, would, according to their own opinion, enable them to drive the English before them or