The Express.
London, England, 1847-12-27 00:00:00

end ef Load's, the wisest Movement the Guards could make
would be to mesh oat at the other. Fee the rest three
howiture would be sufficient, and the Lori Mayor would
li gt NW be with the details of billets, and WhmiSEra contri-
belles he accepted, as a commutating/se indiecrimi-
Mike
thus .
sum I Ass Isms It sold; disy will never re-
I los. Does .1..,;;
_bet le dig is. 14 thers
Mon as Ism so they est be biwesi le do so. I really do
wet seeelty they &koala partisehei7 wide it. In the yire-
eileilsaele of this country 50,001/Freeicemen would find Eng-
MA es nib and pleasant a domiedle as any in which the
'MMus of Napoleon ever luxuriated ; but if not, the country
Mfideh sent them here would consider the mere insult to
perfidious Albion cheaply purchased by their ultimate sacri-
fice. It is necessary to look at facts as they are, not
a. they *eight to be, or as we could wish to make them.
' Thirty years of peace, of dose and pacific, if not cor-
dial intercourse, ought, I admit, to have obliterated the
aneelimadon of former quarrels, and stanched the old
lINIPIOS of bitterness and ill-will. In England much
MMhi effect has been produced. There is neither contempt
nor hatred here for France or Frenchmen. In France I
know not which feeling predominates towards England.
Both are rife enough. In England, if she were to be in-
volved in a quarrel with France, which Lord Palmerston
could not justify on the strongest and most palpable grounds
of stringent necemity, a unanimous vote of the House of
Commons would deliver him over to be torn to pieces and
devoured by Mr. Urquhart. Let id. Cluiset tell the Cham-
ber of Deputies " I have insulted England in a manner
which no nation can be expected to put up with," and a war
supply would be voted by acclamation, and the conservative
minister would be carried home to his hotel on the shoulders
of the people. This is very unfortunate, but it is neither un-
accountable nor unnatural. In the first place, there
Is the old standing grievance of the long and bloody
game which was played between the two countries,
and which was won by England--fairly won, so we
think, by pluck and perseverance—won, as Frenchmem sew
cairn, by a combination of accidents which can never again
recur. The aspiration to balance this account will not be-
come extinct with the generation which has seen the Eng-
lish encampment in the Bois de Boulogne. These hinnies
memories of the past are bequeathed from father to son. It
is not confined te the partisans of any political creed, or to
any clam of the community. Rich and poor, Carlist and
Philippiste, alike entertain it—none more than those who
in their own persons, or those of their kindred, shared the pro-
tection and the hospitality of England during Use emigrates*,
and who, Waterloo apart, have, in some butanes, at least, a
kindly recollection of that circumstance. " Une bonne vie.
tars," said one of these, " et now sums la essilleursamis de
monde." Is the intercourse with travelling and migratory
England calculated to remove or mitig to these unfortueuths
feelings ? For reasons too many now to enumerate, and too
many of which it is not pleasant for an Englishman to ad-
mit, still leas to detail, I can only answer such a question in
the negative.
On these grounds and many others, sir, I am not of opinion
that the mar of the French nation (I do not speak, I have
not spoken, of its sovereign, its statesmen, or its philosopher,
—peace to and with all such) would be loth to take the first
opportunity to strike a blow, the deadlier the better, at the
vitals of England. That the present condition of sue de-
fences presents a direct and positive invitation to such an
attempt, real upon better evidence than I new think proper
to quote. As things stand, the adventure may be hazardous •
but it would not be deemed mad, scarcely rash, when thi
object to be attained is measured against the risk of failure.
It is in our power to render it both.
The dormant power of England is such as no country ever
yet possessed. Clive her time to collect the inert elements of
strength and resistance she possesses, and against the world,
L who now tremble for the future, would have no fear for
the result; but the French, as assailants, are not famous for
giving their enemies time to reflret. My fear is for surprise
and surpeise alone ; but for such an operation the Freed;
are as well fitted by natural aptitude as, I believe, they are
well provided with the means to effect it. We have erased
to be an island ; we have approximated in the opinion of all
observing and refiewing men to the condition of • conti-
nental state. We cannot afford, any more than any other
member of the European family, to invite that aggression
which our position forbids us to provoke. A wise economy
would deter us from incurring the risk of having to do in hot
haute, imperfectly, and at enormous expense, that which should
be done at leisure and with reflection. What is that something
which ought to be done ? I have no hesitvion held as it
may seem, in answering that question. First and foremost,
add a sufficient increase to that body of police which you
now call the regular army in these islands. The necessary
amount is a matter of detail for the government to propose
and the country to discuss. It should be sufficient to enable
you, by the asststance of railroads, to direct upon any points
of the coast menaced or invaded, disciplined forces of all arms
in such proportions t each other as military experience and
science pronounce to be best suited for co-operation. I any
emphotically, regular troops. I earnestly advocate that
increase of the regular army on every ground of efficieney,
of adaptation to its purpose, and even of economy. Cempara
that strange and anomalous production, the British so"dier,
with his counterpart in any other service. In a financial
point of view he will appear a high-priced commis.
elite. Look at the service he performs and the man-
ner in whish he performs it, and he will be found the
cheeped article of his class. It is supposed to be the intui-
tion of her Majesty's government to re-establish, under each
altered regulations as may appear desirable, that old militia
force which contributed so much to our military resources
during the late war. I wish it every success ; but I shall
look on this measure with grave apprehension if it is to he
adopted as any succedaneum for my own nostrum. Inter-
, mixed with, or behind regular troops, not only the militia,
but the still more irregular descriptions of force—yeomanry
and volunteers of all descriptions—may contribute effectually
to the common defence. Alone and unsupported by
that leaven of old soldiers whose qualities were so well
described by the Duke of Wellington in the Lords' de•
bate of last year' they could only encounter a disciplined
French army to their own inevitable destruction.
The annals of war present no instance is which
courage end patriotism, without thorough training,
and unweaned by those accidents of ground sr appliances of
fortification which do not exist in England, have premuted
any serious obstacle to regular troops. The case of the Tyrol
affords for obvious reasons no exception to this rule. I men-
tion it, however, because the true came of the failure of that
gallant resistance of s nation of riflemen is in one solitary re-
, sped germane to my subject. Those who take the trouble in
investigate closely the history of that transaction will Sal
that the immediate cause of the ultimate failure of that re-
sistance was the want of a few squadrons of regular cavalry,
and a few batteries of regular artillery. Let the Ordure,
look to this ' • let that department look to the recent affair in
Switzerland. In that country there were all the elements at
a long and murderous struggle. On the one hand, thaw
were indeed numbers, but on the other there were position.
strong by nature and improved by art, great exasperatioe,
political and religious fanaticism, sad familiarity with the
use of arms. The contest was decided, sad decided quickly,
by the superior force and weight of metal of the Federal
artillery.
We are neither Swiss nor Tyrolese. We are by our habits
the least warlike nation on the face of the earth. Increase,
then, I repeat, your regular army to that amount which will
make an enemy pause before he attempts to set foot on the
beach of England. Reorganise your militia on the best and
least onerous system you can devise. Encourage the yeo-
manry cavalry. Fortity your arsenate, and such harbours us
an enemy may most probably attempt by surprise to occupy.
But remember that parapets without men behind them, and
guns without hands te work them, are worse than useless.
You will find that all this may be done for an expense
scarcely equal to that which you have annually lavished, not
in the prevention, but in the aggravation, of the horrors of
the slave-trade. Do this, and you will have some security
for the continuance of peace, unpurchased by the sacrifice of
national honour or interests, but which, otherwise, even
such sacrifice may fail to secure. EGERTON' ELLESMERE.