We add not a word of comment on these admirable passages. Further illustration were worse than useless, after such words coming from such quarters.
It is often said that all fears of invasion are ridiculous, after the failure of Napoleon, who had 130,000 of the finest troops in the world to effect it. The _Times_, with its usual ability, makes the most of this argument. We accept the challenge: and, if we are not much mistaken, that able journal will have no reason to congratulate itself on having referred to that period for support of its argument:--
1. The regular land forces of France at that period were 450,000 men: about the same as they are now. But now that Power has, in addition, 2,000,000 well-trained National Guards in arms, which, by rendering her territory wellnigh unassailable, leaves her whole regular force available for foreign expedition.
2. England had then 160,000 regular troops on foot, including 30,000 of the army of reserve, raised in the preceding years, of whom about 100,000 were in the British Islands. In 1808, the Duke of York reported to Government that, without detriment to any necessary home service, 60,000 regulars could be spared for the Peninsula; and in 1809 she had 80,000 in active warfare--viz., 40,000 at Walcheren, 30,000 in Spain, and 10,000 in Sicily.
3. In addition to this, she had 80,000 militia, quite equal to troops of the line, in Great Britain and Ireland, besides 300,000 volunteers in arms, tolerably drilled and full of spirit.
4. She had 83 ships of the line in commission, and 230 in all the royal dockyards, and 508 vessels of war bore the royal flag.
5. She had a system of impressment in active operation, which in effect gave the Admiralty the command, on an emergency, of the whole sailors in the mercantile navy of Great Britain, as they successively came into harbour: and the magnitude of the royal navy was such, and its attractions--especially the hopes of prize-money and glory--so powerful, that the sailors of the fleet were as much a _standing force_ as Napoleon's grenadiers.
6. Austria and Russia were then in close alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain, and 80,000 Muscovites, under Kutusoff, were hastening through Poland and Moravia to join 90,000 Austrians, who were on the Inn, threatening to invade Bavaria.