Page:Hazlitt, Political Essays (1819).djvu/83

 of health, like another Doctor Pedro Positive, injoined his preposterous regimen of incessant war as necessary to lasting peace, and to our preservation as a people!

"Modern France" continues Vetus, rising in his argument, "has no principle so deeply rooted as that of everlasting enmity to England. I confess for this reason that in my uncorrupted judgment the best security for Great Britain, and therefore, if practicable, her most imperious duty, would be the absolute conquest of France. But since that, unfortunately, is an event which at present we are not likely to accomplish, the second best security is" (one would think not to attempt it at all; no, but) "to reduce her, if we can, to a degree of weakness consistent with our immediate repose." After thus modestly postponing the absolute conquest of France to a more convenient opportunity, he adds the following incredible sentence. "If the enemy should be so far borne away by his hatred, as to command his emissaries in London to announce that he prefers waging eternal war to the acceptance of conditions, which his own persevering and atrocious outrages have rendered in the mind of every Englishman indispensable to the safety of these islands, the woeful alternative of perpetual war very plainly originates not with Great Britain but with Bonaparte!" That is to say, The Times not long ago laid it down as a fixed, unalterable maxim, without reference to terms of one sort or another, that we were never to make peace with Bonaparte; Vetus in this very letter enters into an elaborate apology, for that multitude of wise, honest, and virtuous persons who think his existence as a sovereign at all times threatens our existence as a nation, and it is because we entered our protest against this "frantic outcry raised by degenerate Englishmen," that Bonaparte is here made to charge his emissaries in London to announce that he prefers eternal war to the acceptance of conditions, the moderation of which conditions or of our second best security may be judged of when we are told that the best, and indeed only real security for Great Britain, and therefore her most imperious duty, would be the absolute conquest of France.