political existence is scarcely credible: it is the action of a mad
young fool standing upon one foot, and peeping down the crater of
Mount AEtna, not the conduct of a wise and sober people deciding
upon their best and dearest interests: and in the name, the much-
injured name, of heaven, what is it all for that we expose ourselves
to these dangers? Is it that we may sell more muslin? Is it that
we may acquire more territory? Is it that we may strengthen what we
have already acquired? No; nothing of all this; but that one set of
Irishmen may torture another set of Irishmen--that Sir Phelim
O'Callaghan may continue to whip Sir Toby M'Tackle, his next door
neighbour, and continue to ravish his Catholic daughters; and these
are the measures which the honest and consistent Secretary supports;
and this is the Secretary whose genius in the estimation of Brother
Abraham is to extinguish the genius of Bonaparte. Pompey was killed
by a slave, Goliath smitten by a stripling, Pyrrhus died by the hand
of a woman; tremble, thou great Gaul, from whose head an armed
Minerva leaps forth in the hour of danger; tremble, thou scourge of
God, a pleasant man is come out against thee, and thou shalt be laid
low by a joker of jokes, and he shall talk his pleasant talk against
thee, and thou shalt be no more!

You tell me, in spite of all this parade of sea-coast, Bonaparte has
neither ships nor sailors: but this is a mistake. He has not ships
and sailors to contest the empire of the seas with Great Britain,
but there remains quite sufficient of the navies of France, Spain,
Holland, and Denmark, for these short excursions and invasions. Do
you think, too, that Bonaparte does not add to his navy every year?
Do you suppose, with all Europe at his feet, that he can find any
difficulty in obtaining timber, and that money will not procure for
him any quantity of naval stores he may want? The mere machine, the