uggle soon began.

Sidney Herbert, then at the war office, after circulating a memorandum,
wrote privately to Mr. Gladstone (Nov. 23, 1859), that he was convinced
that a great calamity was impending in the shape of a war provoked by
France. Officers who had visited that country told him that all thinking
men in France were against war with England, all noisy men for it, the
army for it, and above all, the government for it. Inspired pamphlets were
scattered broadcast. Everything was determined except time and occasion.
The general expectation was for next summer. French tradesmen at St. Malo
were sending in their bills to the English, thinking war coming. "We have
to do with a godless people who look on war as a game open to all without
responsibility or sin; and there is a man at the head of them who combines
the qualities of a gambler and a fatalist."

Mr. Gladstone replied in two letters, one of them (Nov. 27) of the stamp
usual from a chancellor of the exchequer criticising a swollen estimate,
with controversial doubts, pungent interrogatories, caustic asides, hints
for saving here and paring there. On the following day he fired what he
called his second barrel, in the shape of a letter, which states with
admirable force and fulness the sceptic's case against the scare. This
time it was no ordinary exchequer wrestle. He combats the inference of an
English from an Italian war, by the historic reminder that a struggle
between France and Austria for supremacy or influence in Italy had been
going on for four whole centuries, so that its renewal was nothing
strange. If France, now unable to secure our co-operation, still thought
the Italian danger grave enough to warrant single-handed intervention, how
does that support the inference that she must certainly be ready to invade
England next? He ridicules the conclusion that the invasion was at our
doors, from such contested allegations as that the Chalons farmers refused
the loan of horses from the government, because they would soon be wanted
back again for the approaching war with England. What extraordinary
farmers to refuse the loan of horses for their ploughing and seed time,
because they might be reclaimed for purposes of war before winter! Then
why could we not see a single copy of the incendiary and anti-English
pamphlets, said to be disseminated broadcast among the troops? What was
the value of all this contested and unsifted statement? Why, if he were
bent on a r