The Mysteries of London, Vol. IV — page 156: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a ee ee Tr meta TNE BYSTERIES OF LONDON, tr ee ar a On—on she went;—and now the white cliffs of Alpron diminish and grow dim in the distance,—while, strll far ahead, the coast of France, like along brown streak in the horizon, appears in view! And, oh! may that green sea never waft a hostile navy from one shore to the other;—may the peace which new subsists between the two greatest nations in the universe, remain undisturbed! Let France and England continue rivals—not in the art of war,— but in the means of developing every element of civilisation and progress. Such a striving—~such a race between the two> will be glorious indeed; and the whole world will experience the benefiz. Shame, then, to those alarmists who are now en- deavouring to spread terror and dismay throughout the British Islands, by their calculations of the facility with which the French may invade us, and by their predictions of tho consequences of such an invasion. Well aware are we that wero France to entertain the project, its realization would be easy ;—for with our navy dispersed over the world, our coast-defences so few and far-betsveen, and our totally insufficient army, we have no means of resisting an invading force of eighty or a hundred thousand men so admirably dis- ciplined as the soldiers of France, But neither Louis-Philippe nor his Government en- tertains the remotest idea of disturbing the peace of the world ;—and it is madness—-it is wickedness on the part of the public journals and of pampliletecrs to write for the very purpose of creating an impression that an invasion by the French is imminent. 4. terrible panic has been raised throughout the length and breadth of the land ;~and with sorrow do we record the fact that the Dukn or WenuctTon has placed himself at the head of the alarmists ! To consummate the folly, all that is now required is —what? Lo give Prince Albert the command of the Army! Or rather, O Englishmen! does not the appre- hension of danger from an invasion by a foreign power jay bare, in all its nakedness, the monstrous folly—the astounding absurdity of suddenly elevating that young and inexperienced man to the rank of a Field-Mar- shal? A. Field- Marshal, who has never smelt powder save in the heartless, inhuman cruelty of a battue of game, —and who has never in his life seen a shot fired in anger ! England docs not require such a Drawing-Room Tield-Marshal: she wants a Captain-General who, if need be, can compete with such a man as Bugeaud. But where will Royal Folly stop?—and when will any statesman have the courage to resist the childish caprices of the Queen? In the same newspapers which are constantly telling us that the French meditate an invasion—that if the Cuirassiers enter London on the east, the best thing the Horse-Guards can do, will bo to march out on the west—that the conquerors will be sure to levy contri- butions upon us, demand the settlement of old scores, strip us ofour colonies, and humiliate us in every way, ~—in the very same journals which tell us all this, we read that the Queen ts anxious for Prince Albert to become Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Wellington retiring to make room for him ! ‘ Merciful heavens! is such a monstrous absurdity to be consummated? Is that grey-headed veteran, who won the field of Waterloo, to be superseded by a mere hoy? Much as we have disliked the Duke of Welling- tan as a politician, yet we have felt prond of him as our . 149 a a ee national hero;—and no words can convey an idea of the disgust with which we perused the paragraph Intimating that this mighty warrior was to be put upon the shelf, to make way for a Prince who knows no ‘more of military matters than he does of the hiero- glyphics on the Pyramids of Egypt. If the Duke be desirous of Withdrawing inta private life, let him be succeeded by some great Captain who knows what hard blows in the field are 3—~Iet his place be supplied by one of his own companions-in-arms, YJave we none of the heroes of the Peninsular battles still alive?—have we no names rendered glorious by Victories achieved on the banks of the Sutlej? ff would be an insult the most glaring—the most flagrant, to all the illustrious chieftains alluded to, were a young man who never saw an angry shot fired, to be placed in authority over their heads! Already have the great warriors of England been sufficiently humiliated by the elevation of that young man to the tank of Field-Marshal:—but really if the English Court be allowed to “ play at soldiers” in this disgrace- ful manner, it is no wonder that such men as the Duke of Wellington should look with apprehension at the consequences of a French invasion, Prince Albert may be very resolute and very deter- mined in worrying a poor otter with his dogs,—or he may be desperately brave in firing vollies of small shot upon harmless birds: but ag for his capacity or his courage to lead an army——the idea is ridiculous! the English people have not gone stark, staring mad—even if some few of their rulers have: and most sincerely do we hope that, if the attempt to raise Prince Albert to the post of Commander-in-Chief be persisted in, the country will oppose it by all moral and legal means,—by memorial, petition, and remon- strance,—by public mectings and the omnipotent voice of the public press—in fine, by an universal agitation such as that which knocked down the Corn- Laws! for the consummation of so astounding an absur- dity will prove the ruin of the British Army ! Surely it is not in civilised England, and in tho middle of the nincteenth century, that Royalty 13 to play its fantastic tricks, and use all our grandest insti- tutions as playthings? If go, we shall have the Princé of Wales created an Admiral very shortly, and Dr, Ilowley may resign the Archbishopric of Canterbury to little Prince Ernest Alfred, And why not? Such appointments would be quite as rational as that of Prince Albert to the post of Commander-in-Chief, Let not our readers suppuse that we seck to bring Princes into ridicule: they have a right to be Princes, if the people are foolish enough to let them; but when they make themselves ridiculous by grasping at offices for which they are totally unfitted, it is time for us to speak out. We are inspired by no awe and entertain no solemn terror in dealing with Royalty: for, after all, royal persons are only human creatures, as well as we—and they seldom possess the good feelings and sterling qualities which are to be found in honest, hard-work- ing, enlightened mechanics, After a most agreeable voyage of two hotrs ard a half, the I'rench steam-packet entered Calais har- bour. Charles and Perdita proceeded to Dessin’s Hotel ; and there they determined to wait at least a sew nours until the arrival of an English steamer. which was (C(O) (C DOO) <S LL (SO)