shortsighted observers, might perhaps be regarded as one which we had
ourselves provoked. We have accordingly opened negotiations through our
Ambassador with M. Delcasse, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs,
and with the President of the Republic himself. I have the supreme
satisfaction of being in a position to lay before you the result of
these negotiations in the form of a despatch just received from our
Ambassador in Paris. It runs, in the main, as follows: 'I hasten to
inform Your Excellency that, in the name of the French Republic, M.
Delcasse has given me the solemn assurance that France will declare war
upon England at the moment His Majesty the Tsar has directed his armies
to march upon India. The considerations which have prompted the French
Government to take this step have been further explained to me by
M. Delcasse in our conference of this day, when he expressed himself
somewhat as follows: 'Napoleon, a hundred years ago, perceived with rare
discernment that England was the real enemy of all continental nations,
and that the European continent could not pursue any other policy but to
combine in resisting that great pirate. The magnificent plan of Napoleon
was the alliance of France with Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, and
Russia, in order to combat the rapacity of England. And he would, in
all probability, have carried his scheme through had it not been that
considerations of domestic policy determined the Tsar Alexander I., in
spite of his admiration for Napoleon's ability, to run counter to the
latter's intentions. The consequences of Napoleon's defeat have shown
themselves sufficiently clearly during the past hundred years in
the enormous growth of the English power. The present political
constellation, which in many respects is very similar to that of the
year 1804, should be utilised to revive Napoleon's plan once more.
Russia has, of course, the first and most vital interest in the downfall
of England, for, so long as Great Britain controls all the seas and all
the important coastlines, it is like a giant whose hands and feet are