ORDEAL OF AUDIT England saw the growing danger, and prepared, with an even mind and well-girt body, to confront it.

As yet stood up no other country to help or even comfort her, so cowed was all the Continent by the lash, and spur of an upstart.

Alone, encumbered with the pack of Ireland, pinched with hunger and dearth of victuals, and cramped with the colic of Whiggery, she set her strong shoulder to the wheel of fortune, and so kept it till the hill was behind her.

Some nations (which owe their existence to her) have forgotten these things conveniently; an Englishman hates to speak of them, through his unjust abhorrence of self-praise; and so does a Frenchman, by virtue of motives equally respectable.
But now the especial danger lay in the special strength of England.
Scarcely any man along the coast, who had ever come across a Frenchman, could be led (by quotations from history or even from newspapers) to believe that there was any sense in this menace of his to come and conquer us.

Even if he landed, which was not likely--for none of them could box the compass--the only thing he took would be a jolly good thrashing, and a few pills of lead for his garlic.