lephants sent from Calcutta to
convey stores to the army under Godwin. Baffled and beaten, the Birmese
troops fell back upon the capital early in the year 1853.

The British opened negotiations with the new sovereign, which were
tediously protracted until May. An embassy was sent to the Birmese
court, and the emperor had the folly and arrogance, after all the
disaster and defeat experienced by the arms of Ava, to demand homage
from the English envoys. The firmness of these gentlemen, and the fear
of renewed hostilities, caused the sovereign to waive his claims to
forms and ceremonies of abject submission, and the issue was peaceful.
Cordial relations with the Birmese dominions were not however
established, either at that juncture or subsequently: but the salutary
fear of British power, caused by the war of 1851-2-3, prevented any
violent interruption of good neighbourhood on the part of the Birmese.

FRANCE.

The most important of all the foreign relations of Great Britain are
those connected with France--the most powerful of all the allies or
enemies of England. During 1852, peace and professions of friendship
prevailed between the two nations, but there existed considerable
apprehension in Great Britain that the designs of the French president
were hostile to England, and that the country was inadequately defended.
The Duke of Wellington, without giving any opinion as to the intentions
of the president, made more powerful than ever by the _coup d'etat_,
declared that there was danger from the defenceless state of the
country, and recommended the government to fortify and aim. His grace
inspected the coasts, and by the opinions he pronounced increased the
public apprehension of peril, while he also stimulated the confidence of
the country in its great capacity for defence. Sir Howard Douglas,
the distinguished engineer officer, accompanied the duke in his coast
inspections, and in a work* published by him on the subject, he thus
describes the duke's impressions;--

* "Observations on Modern Systems of Fortification." By
General Sir Howard Douglas, Bart.

"When the late Duke of Wellington visited the coast defences--on the
alarm of an invasion, soon after the accession of Louis Napoleon, the
present Emperor of France, to the presidency--his grace, being at
Seabrook, between Sandgate and Hythe, conversing with his staff and
the other officers, the principles of permanent camps and other fixed
de