It is well to proclaim these facts loudly and clearly; and to save the useless effusion of precious blood, by warning, while it is yet time, the would-be disturbers of the world's peace, of the resistance they will encounter, and the chastisement they will have to expect. Prestige, no less than chivalry, is " a cheap defence of nations;" but, unfortunately, throughout this war the efforts of the English press, with some honourable exceptions, seem to have been directed to rob us of this uncostly but invaluable safeguard, and to present us to the world as a nation in the last stage of dotage and helplessness; destitute of admirals, generals, or statesmen; barren in commanding intellect, incapable of organisation, crushed by a nefarious nepotism, and rotting away under the " cold shade " of a worthless aristocracy. The army, the navy, and the whole system of our administration, have been visited with unsparing censure; almost every one whose position elevated him above the mass has been stigmatised either as a knave or a fool; and, worst of all, the most odious and unfounded comparisons have been instituted between the English and the French systems, and invariably turned to the discredit of the former. Every reverse of ours has been magnified, and every disaster gloated over: the contradiction of these one-sided statements comes, if it ever come at all, too late; and the hideous caricature is accepted from one end of Europe to the other as a faithful and striking likeness of the English people drawn by themselves. Contrast with this the prudent reserve, the judicious silence, of the French. They also had their reverses in the field, and their disasters in the camp; the pestilence which ravaged us did not spare them; at times it may be they had to complain of short
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rations and defects of management at home and abroad: but over these wounds of national pride they threw a seemly cloak; and the shadows which obscured for a while the course of the struggle were left to vanish for ever in the splendour of the triumph. Their estimate of us was at once just and generous. They looked on our soldiers as true brothers-inarms, as another portion of one vast army, animated by the same hopes, and burning with an equal courage, with common sympathies, in the hour of difficulty, and an undivided glory in the day of victory.
For the sake of national decorum and self-respect — in the interest of constitutional government, rational liberty, and an unfettered press — in justice to those who freely shed their blood in defence of their country's honour, it is to be hoped that in any future war in which it may be England's stern duty to be engaged some self-imposed restraint will check the unbounded license of newspaper criticism, some decent reserve be exhibited in betraying our real and imaginary weaknesses to those only too interested in augmenting their magnitude and exaggerating their consequences.
The disasters which really marked our share in this campaign originated in the miserable and false economy which in time of peace starved our establishments, and made it necessary to commence their organisation at the very moment when they were required for use: and it is absurd and injurious to attempt, as has been lately done, to fix blame on individuals for the results of a mistaken policy, imposed on a too-credulous and confiding people by pseudo-political economists, peace-patriots, and popularity-hunters.
Every true Englishman will pray that this experience may not have been in vain, and that in future years England may maintain an attitude so imposing, that no nation, however powerful, may count on her. temporary weakness as the occasion of carrying out the projects of ambition. Then peace will be indeed secure, and she will be at liberty to pursue those civilising arts and that rational process of internal improvement which, under God, have led her to the proud eminence on which she stands.