sition, in order to hurry through a measure suspending all exceptions from impressment. A camp was formed on Cox Heath, and a large force was assembled, but the gloomiest anticipations were prevalent, for the fleet was weak, and little reliance was placed on the land forces.
"If the enemy," Barré wrote to Shelburne, "should, even after a sort of drawn battle with our fleet, land anywhere in England in great force, I think the King will not risk a battle, marching as General at the head of his Army, and meaning in some shape or other to measure himself with M. De Vaux, or to save his Kingdom by a well-judged and obstinate defence. I am apprehensive that something like an underhand Armistice will steal upon us, the real business be taken out of military hands, and such men as Mr. Stanley and Lord Mountstuart be employed to remove the French Army out of the Island. Such a conduct appears to me natural to the Court, and I fear the Country would be glad to get rid of the horrors of War at any rate.
"If the French are wise, all their objects, after landing, may be attained in a short time, especially that greatest of all, the making a Peace, sword in hand and upon English ground. In the above supposed posture of public affairs, if Opposition should content itself with whiling away their time in the country till our wretched Parliament meets, not knowing what to wish for or what to do, and above all, leaving it to this Administration to get us out of that storm which in truth they have raised themselves; then we are in my opinion a completely ruined people.—The country will have nobody to look up to. Opposition will in fact be more contemptible and full as criminal as Administration; any peace will be accepted of, without ever considering that the day on which we submit to disgraceful terms we in fact sign our own annihilation. The nation, God knows, is base enough; yet surely there is a great deal of manly though scattered and divided spirit amongst us. Let it be called forth.
"Opposition should in my opinion assemble immediately in London, establish a correspondence by express
