and
there would no longer be an American navy susceptible of gigantic
increase. She would be truly the sea's sovereign; and whoso rules the
sea has power to dictate to the land. 'Whosoever commands the sea,' says
Sir Walter Raleigh, 'commands the trade of the world; whosoever commands
the trade of the world, commands the riches of the world, and
consequently the world itself.' England never would have gone to war
with the _United States_ to prevent their growth; but, now that they
have instituted civil war, it is certain that she will do all that lies
in her power to prevent the reconstruction of the Union. The war of
words has been begun, and it is but preliminary to the war of swords.
The savage music of the British press is the overture to the opera. The
morality of England may be neither higher nor lower than that of all
other countries,--may be no worse than our own,--but there is so much
that is offensive in her modes of exhibiting her destitution of
principle, that she is more hated than all other powerful countries that
ever have existed. She not only sins as badly as other nations, but
manages to make herself as odious for her manner of sinning as for the
sins themselves. There is no crime that she is not capable of, if its
perpetration be necessary to promote her own power. When Sir William
Reid was governor of Malta, he said to Mr. Lushington, 'I would let them
(_i.e._ the heathen) set up Juggernaut in St. George's Square (in
Edinburgh), if it were conducive to England's holding Malta.' And as
this time-blue Presbyterian was ready to allow the solemnization of the
bloodiest rites of paganism in the most public place of the Christian
city of Edinburgh, if that kind of tolerance would be conducive to
England's retention of Malta,--of which she holds possession, by the
way, in consequence of one of the grossest breaches of faith mentioned
even in her history,--so do we find the Christian people, peers, and
priests of England ready to become the allies of slave-holders and the
supporters of slavery, if thereby the American Republic can be
destroyed, as they believe that its existence may become the source of
danger to the ascendency of their country.
The last intelligence from England allows us to believe that that
country has adopted a more liberal policy, and that her government will
do nothing to aid the rebels. Some of the language of Ministers is
friendly, and altogether the change is one of a character tha
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