Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/265

Rh to the rich and aristocratic classes; it was not, therefore, surprising that those whose interest it might have been, on both sides of the Channel, to create a bad feeling between England and France, found little difficulty in doing so. An Englishman was taught to hate the French as well as to observe the Ten Commandments; and a Frenchman, on the other hand, was educated with the idea that his only enemy on the face of the earth was an Englishman.

I regard this stimulated hostile feeling between two nations which must ever influence the welfare of the human race more than any others, as one of the greatest calamities that could curse humanity. We have only to read history from the days of Agincourt up to our later struggles with Napoleon I., to come to the conclusion that the two bravest and the most intelligent nations on the face of the earth have, from ambition, and a want of the people knowing each other, been ever engaged in inflicting mutual disasters, which have impeded for centuries the progress, civilization, and prosperity of both; whilst the want of a proper understanding between the two countries has