JET. 38.] THE INCOME-TAX. 307 



word ' Retrenchment' for the sake of the property as 

 well as the liberty of the country. Yours ever, 



"H. BROUGHAM. 



" Miss Mercer is at Middleton, and with B. Craven ; 

 but the idea there is that she is only drawing him on, 

 and will not do that greatest of follies. They seem 

 to think Flahault has a better chance, which would be 

 excellent." 



TO EARL GEEY. 



" Thursday night. 



" MY DEAR LORD GREY, As the propriety of seiz- 

 ing Alexandria, for the sake of preventing the French 

 from getting Egypt, will probably be connected with 

 the argument respecting the probability of their mak- 

 ing any attempts on that country, it may be useful to 

 consider that Talleyrand, in his Memoir upon New 

 Colonies (written, I believe, in 1796, and printed in 

 the ' Memoirs of the Institute' for 1802 or 1803), 

 points out by various arguments the propriety of the 

 Eepublic exerting itself in the colonial speculations, 

 and of withdrawing from the West Indies, to push 

 them elsewhere. He particularly insists upon Egypt 

 in this point of view. 



" It is clear, indeed, that Egypt as a colony would 

 be quite inestimable to France. I have collected all 

 the particulars relating to this in the second volume of 

 my work on Colonies, page 333 and seq. But when 

 that was written I had not seen Talleyrand's tract. 

 Great additional weight is derived from thence to the 

 opinion that France viewed Egypt as valuable, not 

 from its subserviency to schemes of conquest against 



