the world, or leave that sweet satisfaction to
your children; for certainly there never was a more fortunate
opportunity nor a moment more favourable than the present, to
silence all the passions and listen only to the sentiments of
humanity and reason. This moment once lost, what bounds can be
ascribed to a war which all my efforts will not be able to
terminate. Your Majesty has gained more in ten years, both in
territory and riches, than the whole extent of Europe. Your
nation is at the highest point of prosperity, what can it hope
from war? To form a coalition with some Powers on the Continent?
The Continent will remain tranquil; a coalition can only
increase the preponderance and continental greatness of France.
To renew intestine troubles? The times are no longer the same.
To destroy our finances? Finances founded on a flourishing
agriculture can never be destroyed. To wrest from France her
colonies? The colonies are to France only a secondary object;
and does not your Majesty already possess more than you know how
to preserve? If your Majesty would but reflect, you must
perceive that the war is without an object; or any presumable
result to yourself. Alas! What a melancholy prospect; to fight
merely for the sake of fighting. The world is sufficiently wide
for our two nations to live in, and reason sufficiently powerful
to discover the means of reconciling everything, when a wish for
reconciliation exists on both sides. I have, however, fulfilled
a sacred duty, and one which is precious to my heart.

I trust your Majesty will believe the sincerity of my
sentiments, and my wish to give you every proof of the same,
etc.

(_Signed_) NAPOLEON.

This letter indicates the mind and heart of a great statesman. The
thinking people, and therefore the most reliable patriots, would
receive a similar appeal to-day from the Kaiser in a different spirit
than did the King and the Government of George III.

We believe that the war with Germany was forced upon us, and that Mr.
Asquith's Government, and especially Sir Edward Grey (his Foreign
Secretary) used every honourable means to avoid it, but the cause and
origin of it sprang out of the defects of managing and settling the
wars that raged at the beginning of the last century, and Pitt, aided
by those colleagues of his who were swayed by his magnetic influence,
ar