Take it the other way, and let us suppose that France so broken in spirit as to be content to remain naked and defenceless by sea and by land.  Is such a country no prey?  Have other nations no views?  Is Poland the only country of which it is worth while to make a partition?  We cannot be so childish as to imagine that ambition is local, and that no others can be infected with it but those who rule within certain parallels of latitude and longitude.  In this way I hold war equally certain.  But I can conceive that both these principles may operate:  ambition on the part of Austria to cut more and more from France; and French impatience under her degraded and unsafe condition.  In such a contest will the other powers stand by?  Will not Prussia call for indemnity, as well as Austria and England?  Is she satisfied with her gains in Poland?  By no means.  Germany must pay; or we shall infallibly see Prussia leagued with France and Spain, and possibly with other powers, for the reduction of Austria; and such may be the situation of things, that it will not be so easy to decide what part England may take in such a contest.

I am well aware how invidious a task it is to oppose anything which tends to the apparent aggrandizement of our own country.  But I think no country can be aggrandized whilst France is Jacobinized.  This post removed, it will be a serious question how far her further reduction will contribute to the general safety, which I always consider as included.  Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take one precaution against our own.  I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded.  It is ridiculous to say we are not men, and that, as men, we shall never wish to aggrandize ourselves in some way or other.  Can we say that even at this very hour we are not invidiously aggrandized?  We are already in possession of almost all the commerce of the world.  Our empire in India is an awful thing.  If we should come to be in a condition not only to have all this ascendant in commerce, but to be absolutely able, without the least control, to hold the commerce of all other nations totally dependent upon our good pleasure, we may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard-of power.  But every other nation will think we shall abuse it.  It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin.

As to France, I must observe that for a long time she has been stationary.  She has, during this whole century, obtained far less by conquest or negotiation than any of the three great Continental powers.  Some part of Lorraine excepted, I recollect nothing she has gained,—­no, not a village.  In truth, this Lorraine acquisition does little more than secure her barrier.  In effect and substance it was her own before.