5330 
rectly indeed, that he shall attempt to inyade 
US; but he says also, that he knows the 
chances are one hundred, to one against his 
success ; that if is one hundred to one that he 
and the greatest part of the expeditien would 
go to the bottom of the sea. He talked 
much, and with great earnestness, on this 
subject, but never once affected to diminish 
the danger. Yet this declaration of the First 
Consul, of the almost utter hopelessness of 
any enterprize he might attempt against us, 
is quoted as a proof of his arrogance and pre- 
sumption! ¢ Whatever else there may be in 
it,’ said Mr. Fos, ¢ there certainly is in this 
conversation no tone of superiority; on the 
contrary, it is an acknowledgment of superi- 
ority on our side. To call it arrogant or pre- 
sumptuous, or to say that it is offensive in 
its tone, or in. its substance, appears to me a 
very whimsical iniputation. I reminds me 
of the most extravagant passage that is, I be- 
Jieve, to be found in a great, and, with me, 
most favourite poet, and who, notwithstand- 
ing the frequent instances ef the same sort 
which occur in his works, is one of the finest 
im our language, f mean Dryden, who, ‘in 
the most extravagant perhaps of his pieces, 
and into the mouth of Almanzor,puts a sen- 
timent which has always appeared to me to 
outsoar every flight allowable to the wildest 
fictions of the imagination. In the conquest 
of Grenada, his hero, who is burlesqued in 
the Rehearsal, under the character of Draw- 
cansir, says, in anger to his rival : 
* Thou shalt not wish her thine; thou shalt 
* not dare 
* Te be so impudent as to despair!’ 
_ * Now I confess, notwithstanding what 
T may have thought of the extravagance of 
my favourite poet, that I had over-rated it. 
T had thought that no case could happen to 
give common sence to those expressions, and 
make them applicable to real life. I diought 
them the daring efforts of a vivid genius, 
aiming at the summit of pectical hyperbole ; 
but now I find that Dryden gave only a tame 
prosaic account of a matter of faci, a few 
years before it happened! He says, « You 
shall not wish, you shall not dare, to be so 
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND STATISTICS. 
impudent as to despair!’ Bonaparte says, 
he despairs of success in his invasion of Eng- 
land, and for his pride and impudence in de- 
spairing, as well as for hispresuraption in 
telling them so, ministers think no punish- 
ment too great. Now I profess myself to be 
one of those who agree in this respect with 
the First Consul, and who think that in his 
despair there is infinitely more good sense 
than arrogance. { tink it is full one hun- 
dred to one that he and the greater part of his 
expedition would go to the bottom of the 
sea, if he should attempt a descent on our 
coast. I certainly think this, and I am very 
glad to find that Bonapa;te is of the same opi- 
nion.” 
It is not often, that a proposition of 
such extent and consequence as Mr. Fox 
on this occasion opened to the house, 
brought forward under circumstances so 
unpropitious to parliamentary union, has 
been distinguished by so univetsal a con- 
currence of public sentiment. ‘lo him- 
self personally the result of that day must 
be presumed to have been highly grati- 
fying. Added to the satisfaction of suc- 
cess, he could not be insensible to the 
general voice of parliament and of his 
country, nor to the favourable opinion 
of a great man, not very ready on other 
occasions to assist his exertions, or to do 
justice to his public conduct. 
That day also will form, should Enu- 
rope providentially escape from its pre- 
sent danger, a very interesting epoch in 
its annals. Ifa balance to the conti- 
nental power of France is ever to be‘re- — 
covered, it must be recovered through - 
the operation of the principles contained 
in Mr. Fox’s proposal, and through that 
only. If the smaller states of Europe 
are to enjoy any portion of independ- 
ence, they must look for it in the system 
sketched out by his speech, and in that 
system only. 
; E 4 : ) 
Arr. XXX. Substance of the Speech of the Right Honourable Henry Appincton, 
on Friday, Decemier 10, 1802. 
MR. Addington is the avowed copy 
of Mr. Pitt: the likeness is real, but it 
is not a flattering one; both are more 
adapted for the department of finance 
than of statesmanship; and haraneue bet- 
ter with the figures of the arithmetician, 
than of the rhetorician. 
During war, it is expedient for the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer to make 
~his statements of actual revenue at the 
highest, to infer his average produce of 
the year from those months which are 
Svo. pp. 35. 
most productive, and to wind up his ac- 
counts at the period when the tide of re- 
venye is at flood. This favours an opi- 
nion of the stability of funded property, - 
and of the national power to discharge 
the interest of further loans. It conse- . 
quently induces men to place money in 
the stocks; and, by keeping up their 
price, enables. the state to borrow so 
much the cheaper. : 
But, during peace, when the state is 
in a train of paying, not of borrowing, it 
