o reason why a _bona fide_ transaction
should not stand.

* * * * *

The question of war is decided. On the 17th of May, an Order in Council,
dated yesterday, has appeared in the _Gazette_, directing general
reprisals against the ships, goods, and subjects of the French Republic.
The peace, which rather deserves the name of a suspension of arms, or
still more, the name of a prodigious act of credulity on the part of
well-meaning John Bull, and an act of desperate knavery on the part of
the First Consul and his accomplices, has lasted exactly one year and
sixteen days,--England having occupied the time in disbanding her troops
and dismantling her fleets; and France being not less busy in seizing on
Italian provinces, strengthening her defences, and making universal
preparations for war. Yet the spirit of England, though averse to
hostilities in general, is probably more prepared at this moment for a
resolute and persevering struggle than ever. The nation is now convinced
of two things: first, that it is unassailable by France--a conviction
which it has acquired during ten years of war; and next, that peace with
France, under its present government, is impossible. The trickery of the
Republican government, its intolerable insolence, the exorbitancy of its
demands, and the more than military arrogance of its language, have
penetrated every bosom in England. The nation has never engaged so
heartily in a war before. All its old wars were government against
government; but the First Consul has insulted the English people, and by
the personal bitterness and malignant acrimony of his insults, has
united every heart and hand in England against him. England has never
waged such a war before; either party must perish. If England should
fail, which heaven avert, the world will be a dungeon. If France should
be defeated, the victory will be for Europe and all mankind.

* * * * *

Lord Nelson has sailed in the _Victory_ from Portsmouth to take the
command in the Mediterranean. A French frigate has been taken; and a
despatch declaring war has been received from France, ordering the
capture of all English vessels, offering commissions to privateers, and
by an act of treachery unprecedented among nations, annexed to this
order is a command that all the English, from eighteen to sixty,
residing in France, should be arrested; the pretext being to answer as
prisoners for the