Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/281

 necessary to keep watch and ward against the French bears date, January 17, 1848. By the end of 1849, the French Government would seem to be acting in a manner not quite calculated to justify the effusion of brotherly love exhibited towards them by Mr. Cobden and Sir William Molesworth. At least this inference appears to result from the following "evidence of Vice-Admiral Dupetit-Thouars," given in the French Enquête Parlementaire nominated in November, 1849:—

"'While speaking of war, I have something to say, which I think important and well-founded, and which I am the more convinced of, because the English themselves, good judges of the dangers they are exposed to, admit it. The brochure of Prince de Joinville produced a great effect in the maritime world, especially in England, and was the cause of very energetic measures being taken for the defence of her coasts. In my opinion, though England may have erected fortifications, a disembarkation is always possible there, and for it we should not require line-of-battle ships. We should only require seventy corvettes, and some avisos of auxiliary steam-power. With these means, without the English having power to resist, we could throw seventy thousand men on the coast of England. All invasions of England have been crowned with success. She is not prepared for a land war as we could make it. 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.'"