n which we
have declared to Prussia, Russia, and the Emperor that _we alone_,
if it were necessary, would make war on all, namely, that there
shall be no Stadholder in Holland, and that we will keep Belgium
and the left bank of the Rhine. A stadholder in Holland would be as
bad as a Bourbon in the St. Antoine suburb."[171]

The passage is remarkable, not only for its frank statement of the
terms on which England and the Continent might have peace, but also
because it discloses the rank undergrowth of pride and ambition that
is beginning to overtop his reasoning faculties. Even before he has
heard the news of Moreau's great victory of Hohenlinden, he equates
the military strength of France with that of the rest of Europe: nay,
he claims without a shadow of doubt the mastery of the world: he will
wage, if necessary, a double war, against England for a colonial
empire, and against Europe for domination in Holland and the
Rhineland. It is naught to him that that double effort has exhausted
France in the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. Holland, Switzerland,
Italy, shall be French provinces, Egypt and the Indies shall be her
satrapies, and _la grande nation_ may then rest on her glories.

Had these aims been known at Westminster, Ministers would have counted
peace far more harmful than war. But, while ambition reigned at Paris,
dull common sense dictated the policy of Britain. In truth, our people
needed rest: we were in the first stages of an industrial revolution:
our cotton and woollen industries were passing from the cottage to the
factory; and a large part of our folk were beginning to cluster in
grimy, ill-organized townships. Population and wealth advanced by
leaps and bounds; but with them came the nineteenth-century problems
of widening class distinctions and uncertainty of employment. The
food-supply was often inadequate, and in 1801 the price of wheat in
the London market ranged from L6 to L8 the quarter; the quartern loaf
selling at times for as much as 1s. 10-1/2d.[172]

The state of the sister island was even worse. The discontent of
Ireland had been crushed by the severe repression which followed the
rising of 1798; and the bonds connecting the two countries were
forcibly tightened by the Act of Union of 1800. But rest and reform
were urgently needed if this political welding was to acquire solid
strength, and rest and reform were alike denied. The position of the
Ministry at We