can." And with respect to Great Britain in particular, if from her peculiar situation she has the power to keep all she conquers without being amenable to any other tribunal than her own will, this very circumstance proves that the exercise of that power is not necessary to her safety and existence. Again, if England has an interest of her own, quite independent on and separate from that of the continent, what has she to do with continental Allies? If her interests may be and are interwoven with those of the rest of Europe, is it too much to expect from her a common sacrifice to the common cause? We quarrel with France on continental grounds; we strip her of her colonies to support the quarrel; and yet we refuse to restore any part of them, in order to secure peace. If so, we are only ostensible parties in the contest, and in reality robbers.
"The first policy of a wise people is to make rival nations afraid to disturb them, to impress their enemies with a terrific sense," (how magnificent is this epic mode of expression) "that to attack them is to suffer not only transient defeats, but deep, grievous, and irrecoverable losses; and to hold in abhorrence any peace which shall not be a living record of their own superiority, and a monument worthy of those warriors, through whose noble blood it was obtained."
If the losses sustained in war were to be irrecoverable, it is easy to foresee that the seat of empires would be very soon changed in almost all cases whatever. But Vetus here, as is customary with him when it tends to enforce the hyperbolical effect of his style, assumes as a broad ground of national wisdom, a physical impossibility. It is not in the nature of things that the losses of rival States should be irrecoverable. Vetus would do better to decree at once that the possessions of nations are unassailable as well as irrecoverable, which would prevent war altogether. But still more preposterous is the madness or malice of the assertion, that no peace can be made by a wise nation, which is not a living record of their own superiority. "This is the key-stone which makes up the arch" of Vetus's indestructible war-
