with which we have cultivated all manly exercises. In rowing or riding, in running or walking, in boxing or wrestling, or in swimming, we are more than a match for any other nation. A Red Indian, called Brother of the Wind, or Flying Hawk, fancies that he can race all the world, and sounds a challenge, in which he is backed by all the Yankee betting men. He is a splendid-looking fellow-tall, muscular, evidently made to win. On the day of the challenge there appears on the ground, all enveloped in successive layers of great coats and huge cravats, a miserable little Englishman, who declares that he is about to contest the honour. Red Indian laughs him to scorn, and seems inclined not to run with such a mock antagonist. The race, however, comes off. The bets are all against the little Englishman; and especially when, as the race proceeds, he allows his competitor to advance ahead of him some five hundred yards. It is only a stratagem, however, to induce the Yankees to bet still deeper; and when the trick has succeeded, the little man dashes forward like Lightfoot in the nursery tale, to the astonishment of all-passing the winning-post first. Hundreds of such incidents could be recorded; and probably one of the most striking of these our readers will remember as having occurred last year at Paris, on the occasion of boat-races open to all the world. An English crew carried off all the honours of the two-oared, the fouroared, the six-oared, and the eight-oared races, although in each successive contest it had to contend with fresh crews. For indomitable perseverance and manly energy we may safely say that the English nation stands at this moment at the head of civilization, while at the same time it presents the singular spectacle of a great empire utterly averse from war.

We have been led into these reflections by the exposition of English foreign policy which lately appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes, from the pen of M. Forcade, who is the first among foreign critics to do us justice in the matter of our external policy. Ours is not a war policy. We are bent on peace-we have been bent on peace for many long years; and if ever we are dragged into war, it is against our will, and because we feel the necessity of defending our rights. But M. Forcade, on recognizing and applauding that line of conduct, has made an important historical mistake, which it is necessary to correct. It refers to the date when that policy was inaugurated. He declares that our present peace policy is directly opposed to the old invading policy of Chatham and of Pitt. We will put Chatham out of the question; but, with regard to Pitt, we emphatically declare that, in theory at least, his policy was identical with that which at present obtains. All through the great French war we were fighting for a policy of non-intervention. We disclaimed the desire of making any conquests; we admitted that it was no business of ours to fight against revolutionary principles, however much we might dislike them; and we took up arms but in self-defence. Napoleon was pursuing his conquests; he threatened India-he threatened our colonies-he had all Europe under his thumb; and we

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were to be the next victims. We cast in our lot with the other nations of Europe; it was plain that we must stand or fall together; and we continued to fight for our allies long after we, through the destruction of the French navy, had ceased to be in any immediate danger. But the war in which we thus engaged was in no sense a war of aggression, and M. Forcade is wrong when he describes us as actuated by an invading mania in the days of the younger Pitt. It is true that, just as revolutionary orators among us talked wildly of dethroning King George and establishing a republic, there were patriotic orators who, in their admiration of the British constitution, proposed to enforce it on all nations at the point of the sword, and who regarded our quarrel with the French as strictly a quarrel with their regicide theories and republican form of government. But these views were never entertained by our ministers. It was always maintained in despatches and other public documents, that it is no business of ours to interfere with the internal affairs of any nation; and that, however much we might desire it, we could not undertake to fight in the interest of legitimacy for the restoration of the Bourbons. At Amiens we made peace with Napoleon as the head of the French people; and again and again we offered to make peace with him, provided he would abandon his European conquests, and let France fall back upon her ancient limits. In public documents, for which Pitt, Lord Grenville, and Lord Hawkesbury were responsible-at a later date, Castlereagh; and, still later, Canning, Aberdeen, and Palmerston-these principles are advanced; and they are essentially the same in theory as those for which Mr. Cobden now pleads as a new doctrine, and which M. Forcade celebrates as the amended policy of this country. Napoleon himself recognized our position when he said that we were a nation of shopkeepers. He saw that we had no thirst for glory, and he could only comprehend our views in describing them as a form of avarice. Even among ourselves our foreign policy has been disparaged as savouring too much of the commercial spirit; and it is only in these latter days, when trade has assumed gigantic proportions-when it has formed an alliance with science-and when its effect on civilization has been of marvellous grandeur-that we begin to perceive the dignity of our position. It is in discovering this dignity that M. Forcade is able to say, with reference to the reduction which had taken place in our defensive establishments, that these "are rather the accidental instruments of the power of a nation, than the permanent cause of that power an exceedingly valuable admission in the mouth of a foreigner. It is an admission that the disinclination for war, and a love of the peaceful arts, are not necessarily as the political philosophers used to imagine-a proof of degeneracy. It is the acknowledgment of a motive, larger and nobler than a grovelling haste to be rich, in the mercantile enterprises of a mighty nation. It is a confession that, in abjuring the pride of conquest and the glory of war, we are the leaders of civilization, and present a spectacle unique in history; so that, whereas in the past no nation has ever been great, and pre

served its greatness, without delighting in war, we have for the first time contrived to solve the problem of combining national importance with a horror of the destructive agencies. It is at once seen that, if other nations were as we are; if they estimated at its proper value mere brute force, and saw the inevitable victory which in the end belongs to public opinion and mental effort; if they had the same regard for natural laws, and felt the worthlessness of artificial restrictions; if they were willing that thought should be free, and trade should be free, and man should be free; then the game of armies would soon be relinquished, and the millenial tranquillity, of which at present we are so incredulous, would be an actual fact. Is it unreasonable, too, that we should accept the attitude of England in the matter of war as in itself the promise of a brighter day—an earnest of universal peace-the first-fruits of all that poets have dreamed of, that prophets have prophesied, and that good men have prayed for since the world began ?

With all our aspirations, however, we are not of those who can look with frowning on the defensive measures which at this moment occupy so much of the public attention. We rejoice to say that England sets a good example to the world in a policy of non-interference, which, if universally followed, would soon turn all swords into pruning-hooks; and we have no doubt that in time the good example will be imitated; but in the meantime while we are alone in the prosecution of such a policy, we are in danger of suffering for our good intentions, of having our forbearance mistaken for weakness, and of being suddenly attacked. Where the attack is to come from we need not now stay to inquire. It must come from some naval power, evidently—it may be France alone, or France in league with Russia-but whatever be the direction from which the danger may proceed, it is necessary to be prepared for the contingency. We have never believed in the invasion of England, as popularly apprehended, and do not now believe that it will be seriously attempted. When people talk of a French army landing in Pevensey Bay and marching to London, setting the Thames on fire, and sacking the Bank of England, they do not fairly calculate the cost of such an experiment, and should first of all consider whether an enemy is likely to be so foolhardy as to embark on certain destruction. The sort of invasion with which we are threatened is not of this kind, spite of the awful warnings of Sir John Burgoyne, Sir Howard Douglas, and General Shaw Kennedy. A war with England, of which the principal object is the possession of London, the humiliation of government, and the obtaining a large ransom, may be set down as utterly impossible. But a war with England, in which the invasion of our island might be threatened, or might actually take place, as a diversion is quite possible. So long as we are open to such a danger, we cannot afford to send our troops abroad to defend our colonies, or other possessions. Most serious injury may be inflicted on us, even if a hostile force should never be able to find the road to London. By means of the new guns the existing arsenals might

easily be destroyed, for they could be shelled from a distance so great that while the converging fire of the attack would tell with certainty on so large a mark as our dockyards, the diverging fire of the defence would be directed against marks, which in the distance, would be comparatively small. Or supposing that our arsenals were safeconceive a landing effected in some outlying district, and the enormous injury that might be inflicted on almost any part of our coast. These are dangers which must not be permitted, and which, apart altogether from any question as to the possibility of conquering England, or of capturing the Lord Mayor, may not unnaturally kindle alarm. The destruction of our arsenals would be fatal to our power, and a descent upon any part of our coasts might create suffering, and destroy property to an extent, of which happily we can form but faint idea, since to use the illustrations of Sydney Smith, "it is now three centuries since an English pig has fallen in a fair battle on English ground, or a farm house been rifled, or a clergyman's wife been subjected to any other proposals of love than the connubial endearments of her sleek and orthodox mate."

In August last, a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the sufficiency of the fortifications existing for the defence of the kingdom, and to consider "the most effectual means of rendering the same complete, especially all such works of defence as are intended for the protection of the royal arsenals and dockyards." It is understood that the Commissioners have agreed as to their report, and that we may soon hear of a formal proposition to add some ten or twelve millions to the national debt for the purpose of strengthening the defences of our arsenals. It would be absurd in us to pronounce upon the scheme before we have heard what it is; but if there is a large sum of money to be expended, there are certain principles of which we must not lose sight. Our dockyards and arsenals are Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth, Devonport, Keyham, and Pembroke. Sir Howard Douglas says of Woolwich arsenal-in some respects the most important of the whole-that it has become a monstrous evil, which cannot be abated, but must be cured. The idea of fortifying it is too extravagant. Portsmouth, Keyham, and Devonport, again, all lie within the limits of from one mile to two and a half from low water; and in reality, none of our dockyards, except Pembroke, which is eight miles from the sea, can be rendered quite secure from the shot and shell of long-range guns. But even if it were possible to render them perfectly secure by means of elaborate fortifications, it is a question whether these fortifications would not demand a larger garrison than our limited military force could well spare. How is little David to fill Goliath's armour? It seems that if money must be expended it should be on the creation of arsenals beyond the reach of modern cannon from the sea, and also beyond the reach of sudden attack. If Woolwich were destroyed, we should be nearly helpless; and the real question is not how we are to fortify such exposed depots as Woolwich, but where we are to find substitutes

for them? Let our dockyards, such as they are, be put in condition to give a good account of themselves to the enemy-let the enemy feel that in attacking such places, however he might come off victorious, it would be at too considerable a cost; but surely, to turn them into Sebastopols is a useless extravagance, especially since in these days. every day makes some new discovery in the material of war, and in a year all our devices may become as exploded as the theory of verticalfire. The best plan is to remove our arsenals to a safe distance from a sudden, that is, naval attack.

The theory of modern warfare is based on the principle that everything depends on rapidity of movement. Solidity is a good thing, but rapidity is better, and modern enterprise has enabled us to add enormously to our powers of movement. It was by means of the railway that Louis Napoleon was able so rapidly to transfer the strength of his army from its right to its left wing, and to astonish the Austrians at Magenta by appearing there in full force, when appearances indicated that he was making his way rather to Piacenza. And Sir Howard Douglas suggests that if steam has bridged the channel, other modern appliances have given us the means of such rapid movement and intelligence, as may well countervail the advantages of that flying bridge. If steam power, he says, facilitate as it no doubt will the passage of a fleet of ships across the Channel, it must be remembered that the like agent on land, will give to the defenders of the country-if properly taken advantage of-prodigious power of concentrating their forces during the long time that a landing of the invaders is being effected, in open row boats, subject to the action of strong tides and other impediments on the coast. Besides this power of concentration at a point of debarkation, steam gives to England immense advantages in the interior of the country, where every railway station is a strategical point, and every railroad a strategical line, on which at the first notice of invasion, the electric wire will set in motion the whole disposable force of the country, in conformity to preconcerted arrangements, so that the bodies of troops may follow and support one another while all are directed to the threatened point. It is in this spirit that Sir Howard Douglas, than whom there cannot be a higher authority, condemns the construction of permanent batteries along the coasts forming fixed stations for troops, since these might be turned by the invaders, and thus the usefulness of the troops serving in them would be in a great measure paralyzed. He recommends as preferable the making roads or railways along the coast in its more accessible portions. In connection with these railways there would be provided moveable batteries of 18-pounders, which might be conveyed rapidly from point to point according as they are required to repel an attempt at landing, or to prevent it altogether. If there was a railway along the coasts of Kent and Sussex, the benefit, it is calculated, would be equivalent to an addition of 50,000 men to the army. "Look at those splendid heights all along the coast," said the Duke of Wellington; "give me communications which admit of rapid flank