provocation, more furiously than at others. We were unarmed, and the
spectacle was distressing. We had done nothing except to speak our minds
according to the habit of the free, and such an explosion appeared as
irrational and excessive as that of a powder-magazine in reply to nothing
more than the light of a spark. It was known that a valorous General of
the Algerian wars proposed to make a clean march to the capital of the
British Empire at the head of ten thousand men; which seems a small
quantity to think much about, but they wore wide red breeches blown out
by Fame, big as her cheeks, and a ten thousand of that sort would never
think of retreating. Their spectral advance on quaking London through
Kentish hopgardens, Sussex corn-fields, or by the pleasant hills of
Surrey, after a gymnastic leap over the riband of salt water, haunted
many pillows. And now those horrid shouts of the legions of Caesar,
crying to the inheritor of an invading name to lead them against us, as
the origin of his title had led the army of Gaul of old gloriously,
scared sweet sleep. We saw them in imagination lining the opposite
shore; eagle and standard-bearers, and gallifers, brandishing their fowls
and their banners in a manner to frighten the decorum of the universe.
Where were our men?

The returns of the census of our population were oppressively
satisfactory, and so was the condition of our youth. We could row and
ride and fish and shoot, and breed largely: we were athletes with a fine
history and a full purse: we had first-rate sporting guns, unrivalled
park-hacks and hunters, promising babies to carry on the renown of
England to the next generation, and a wonderful Press, and a Constitution
the highest reach of practical human sagacity. But where were our armed
men? where our great artillery? where our proved captains, to resist a
sudden sharp trial of the national mettle? Where was the first line of
England's defence, her navy? These were questions, and Ministers were