: but two
violent factions arose about the means. The first wished France,
diverted from the politics of the continent, to attend solely to her
marine, to feed it by an increase of commerce, and thereby to
overpower England on her own element. They contended, that if England
were disabled, the powers on the continent would fall into their
proper subordination; that it was England which deranged the whole
continental system of Europe. The others, who were by far the more
numerous, though not the most outwardly prevalent at court, considered
this plan for France as contrary to her genius, her situation, and her
natural means. They agree as to the ultimate object, the reduction of
the British power, and, if possible, its naval power; but they
considered an ascendency on the continent as a necessary preliminary
to that undertaking. They argued, that the proceedings of England
herself had proved the soundness of this policy. That her greatest and
ablest statesmen had not considered the support of a continental
balance against France as a deviation from the principle of her naval
power, but as one of the most effectual modes of carrying it into
effect. That such had been her policy ever since the Revolution,
during which period the naval strength of Great Britain had gone on
increasing in the direct ratio of her interference in the politics of
the continent. With much stronger reason ought the politics of France
to take the same direction; as well for pursuing objects which her
situation would dictate to her, though England had no existence, as
for counteracting the politics of that nation; to France continental
politics are primary; they looked on them only of secondary
consideration to England, and, however necessary, but as means
necessary to an end.

What is truly astonishing, the partisans of those two opposite systems
were at once prevalent, and at once employed, and in the very same
transactions--the one ostensibly, the other secretly, during the
latter part of the reign of Louis XV. Nor was there one court in which
an ambassador resided on the part of the ministers, in which another,
as a spy on him, did not also reside on the part of the king. They who
pursued the scheme for keeping peace on the continent, and
particularly with Austria, acting officially and publicly, the other
faction counteracting and opposing them. These private agents were
continually going from their function to the Bastile, and from the
Basti