The terror of invasion has induced her to change the nature
of her foreign policy. She will cling to the French alliance until the
French emperor has satiated his national craving for her degradation;
and not until he strikes her a blow, which will resound throughout the
world, will England be prepared to battle with the Gaul. No future
accession of territory would make France more formidable for the
invasion of England than she is now. Her army of five hundred thousand
men, and her steam navy and ironclads are all-sufficient for that
purpose, whenever the French emperor chooses so to employ them. But if
Napoleon devotes this army and that navy to such a formidable conquest
as that of a country seven times as large as France, three thousand
miles from her shores, it is not probable that he will soon be able to
spare them for the invasion of Great Britain. Spain vainly struggled for
years to conquer her revolted provinces in America. England failed to
conquer her rebellious colonies, with a population not exceeding three
millions. France lost an army of thirty-five thousand men, veterans of
Moreau's, in the vain effort to subdue the negroes of St. Domingo.
England could desire no better scheme for the destruction of the
military strength of Napoleon than that of the attempted conquest of
Mexico. She will therefore rather stimulate than restrain the second
French emperor in his desire to devote his legions to the enlargement of
the area for the supremacy of the Latin race in America.
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