t
know any nation in Europe so likely to be struck with panic as the
English; and this from their total unacquaintance with the science of
war. Old wheat and beans blazing for twenty miles round--cart-mares
shot--sows of Lord Somerville's[49] breed running wild over the
country--the minister of the parish wounded sorely in his hinder
parts--Mrs. Plymley in fits--all these scenes of war an Austrian or a
Russian has seen three or four times over. But it is now three
centuries since an English pig has fallen in fair battle upon English
ground, or a farm-house been rifled.... But whatever was our
conduct--if every ploughman was as great a hero as he who was called
from his oxen to save Rome from her enemies--I should still say that,
at such a crisis, you want the affections of all your subjects in both
islands. There is no spirit which you must alienate, no heart you must
avert. Every man must feel he has a country, and that there is an
urgent and pressing cause why he should expose himself to death."

Although Peter is so seriously concerned about the military disasters which
will fall on England unless she behaves more wisely to her Roman Catholic
population, he is not the least afraid of any dangers arising from the
Roman Catholic religion. England has done with it, once for all--

"Tell me that the world will return again under the influence of the
smallpox; that Lord Castlereagh will hereafter oppose the power of the
court; that Lord Howick and Mr. Grattan will each of them do a mean
and dishonourable action; that anybody who has heard Lord Redesdale
speak will knowingly and willingly hear him again; that Lord Eldon has
assented to the fact of two and two making four, without shedding
tears, or expressing the smallest doubt or scruple; tell me any other
thing absurd or incredible, but, for the love of common sense, let me
hear no more of the danger to be apprehended from the general
diffusion of Popery. It is too absurd to be reasoned upon; every man
feels it is nonsense when he hears it stated, and so does every man
while he is stating it."

No, the only real danger which Peter sees--and this he sees with startling
clearness--is that Ireland will be absorbed by France, and will welcome her
deliverance from England; that the civil existence of England will be most
seriously imperilled; and that the Irish themse