Imagine Strong Wind in the House of Commons! It is not an easy
matter to get through a debate now; but I say, imagine Strong Wind,
speaking for the benefit of his constituents, upon the floor of the
House of Commons! or imagine (which is pregnant with more awful
consequences still) the ministry having an interpreter in the House
of Commons, to tell the country, in English, what it really means!

Why, sir, that in itself would be blowing the constitution out of
the mortar in St. James's Park, and leaving nothing of it to be seen
but smoke.

But this, I repeat it, is the state of things to which we are fast
tending, Mr. Hood; and I enclose my card for your private eye, that
you may be quite certain of it. What the condition of this country
will be, when its standing army is composed of dwarfs, with here and
there a wild man to throw its ranks into confusion, like the
elephants employed in war in former times, I leave you to imagine,
sir. It may be objected by some hopeful jackanapeses, that the
number of impressments in the navy, consequent upon the seizure of
the Boy-Joneses, or remaining portion of the population ambitious of
Court Favour, will be in itself sufficient to defend our Island from
foreign invasion. But I tell those jackanapeses, sir, that while I
admit the wisdom of the Boy Jones precedent, of kidnapping such
youths after the expiration of their several terms of imprisonment
as vagabonds; hurrying them on board ship; and packing them off to
sea again whenever they venture to take the air on shore; I deny the
justice of the inference; inasmuch as it appears to me, that the
inquiring minds of those young outlaws must naturally lead to their
being hanged by the enemy as spies, early in their career; and
before they shall have been rated on the books of our fleet as able