Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/283

 exclamation not to The Spectator, but to the French Government of 1849, for publishing such opinions, for Vice-Admiral Dupetit-Thouars' utterance is opinion, not evidence. Sir William Molesworth did good service in the matter of the British Colonies, and Mr. Cobden did good service in the matter of the British Corn Laws; but the confidence which they express in the maintenance of peace, is the confidence rather of a dreamer than a statesman.

Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who appeared upon the scene two or three years after the Duke of Wellington's letter to Sir John Burgoyne, commenced his career by strangling a nation in the night-time.

Mr. Kinglake says: —

"'From 1836 until 1848, Prince Louis had never ceased to be obscure, except by bringing upon himself the laughter of the world; and his election to the chair of the Presidency had only served to bring upon him a more constant outpouring of the scorn and sarcasm which Paris knows how to bestow. Even the suddenness and perfect success of the blow struck in the night between the 1st and the 2nd of December, 1851, had failed to make Paris think of him with gravity. But it was otherwise after three o'clock on the 4th of December; and it happened that his most strenuous adversaries were those who best served his cause; for the more they strove to"