'I found my opinion not so much on the enormous maritime preparations, as
on the long-continued systematic attempts to raise against England our
old national enmity. All the provincial papers are in the hands of the
Government. The constantly recurring topic of every one of them is, the
perfidy and the malignity of England. She is described as opposing all
our diplomacy, as resisting all our aggrandisement, as snarling and
growling at our acquisition of Savoy, as threatening us if we accept
Sardinia, as trying to drive the Pope from Rome because we protect him,
as trying to separate the Danubian provinces because we wish to unite
them, as preventing the Suez Canal because we proposed it--in short, on
every occasion and in every part of the world as putting herself in our
way. To these complaints, which are not without foundation, are added
others of which our ignorant people do not see the absurdity. They are
told that the enormous conscription, and the great naval expenditure, are
rendered necessary by the aggressive armaments of England. That you are
preparing to lay waste all our coasts, to burn our arsenals, to subsidise
against us a new Coalition, and perhaps lead its armies again to Paris.
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