o our wounds? Is he about to take the noblest revenge upon a
former adversary, by showing himself, in the moment of need, a
benefactor instead of a foe? Oh, my Lord Ashley! you and others, whose
spirit is more timid than becomes your blood, had better look, ere you
give up the mainstay of your country's prosperity--ere you surrender
the cause of the agriculturist--to the _animus_ that is now manifested
abroad. We have reason to bless Heaven that it has been thus early
shown, before, by mean and miserable concession to the clamours of a
selfish interest, we have placed Britain for the first time absolutely
at the mercy of a foreign power. Scarce a journal in France that does
not tell you--loudly--boldly--exultingly--what treatment we may expect
from their hands. "At last," they say, "we have got this perfidious
Albion in our power. Nature has done for us, in her cycle, what for
centuries the force of our arms and concentrated rancour could not
achieve. The English newspapers in every column teem with the tidings
of failure. The crop of corn is bad beyond any former experience. It
cannot suffice to feed one half of the population. The potato crop
also, which is the sole subsistence of Ireland, is thoroughly ruined.
Scarce a minute fraction of it can be used for the purposes of human
food. The British Cabinet are earnestly deliberating on the propriety
of opening the ports. The public, almost to a man, are demanding the
adoption of that measure--and doubtless erelong they will be opened.

"What, then, are we to do? Are we to be guilty of the egregious folly
of supplying our huge and overgrown rival, at the moment when we have
the opportunity to strike a blow at the very centre of her system, and
that without having recourse to the slightest belligerent measures?
Are we, at the commencement of her impending misery, to reciprocate
with England--that England which arrested us in the midst of our
career of conquest, swept our navies from the seas, baffled our
bravest armies, and led away our Emperor captive? The man who can
entertain such an idea--be he who he may--is a traitor to the honour
of his country. Let England open her ports if she will, and as she
must, but let us at the self-same moment be prepared to CLOSE our own.
Let not one grain of corn, if possible, be exported from France. We
have plenty, and to spare. Our hardy peasantry can pass the winter in
comfort; whilst, on the opposite side of the Channel, we shall hav