e
the satisfaction of beholding our haughty enemy convulsed, and
wallowing like a stranded Leviathan on the shore! We pity the brave
Irish, but we shall not help them. To do so would be, in fact, to
exonerate Britain of her greatest and primary burden."

This is the language which the French journalists are using at the
present moment. Let no Englishman delude himself into the belief that
it does not express the true sentiments of the nation. We know
something of the men whose vocation it is to compound these patriotic
articles. They are fostered under the pernicious system which converts
the penny-a-liner into that anomalous hybrid, a Peer of France--which
make it almost a necessary qualification to become a statesman, that
the aspirant has been a successful scribbler in the public journals.
And this, forsooth, they call the genuine aristocracy of talent! Their
whole aim is to be popular, even at the expense of truth. They are
pandars to the weakness of a nation for their own individual
advancement. They have no stake in the country save the grey
goose-quill they dishonour; and yet they affect to lead the opinions
of the people, and--to the discredit of the French intellect be it
recorded--they do in a great measure lead them. In short, it is a
ruffian press, and we know well by what means France has been
ruffianized. The war party--as it calls itself--is strong, and has
been reared up by the unremitting exertions of these felons of
society, who, for the sake of a cheer to tickle their own despicable
vanity, would not hesitate for a moment, if they had the power, to
wrap Europe again in the flames of universal war. Such will,
doubtless, one day be the result of this unbridled license. The demon
is not yet exorcised from France, and the horrors of the Revolution
may be acted over again, with such additional refinements of brutality
as foregone experience shall suggest. Meantime, we say to our own
domestic shrinkers--Is this a season, when such a spirit is abroad, to
make ourselves dependent for subsistence--which is life--upon the
chance of a foreign supply?

Yes, gentlemen journalists of France--whether you be peers or not--you
have spoken out a little too early. The blindest of us now can see you
in your genuine character and colours. But rest satisfied; the day of
retribution, as you impiously dare to term it, has not yet arrived.
Britain does not want your corn, and not for it will she abandon an
iota of her syst