Who would have faced them?
A few good regiments, badly found, and perhaps worse led, and a mob of militia and raw volunteers, the reward of whose courage would be carnage.
But as a chip smells like the tree, and a hair like the dog it belongs to, so Springhaven was a very fair sample of the England whereof (in its own opinion) it formed a most important part.

Contempt for the body of a man leads rashly to an under-estimate of his mind; and one of the greatest men that ever grew on earth--if greatness can be without goodness--was held in low account because not of high inches, and laughed at as "little Boney." However, there were, as there always are, thousands of sensible Englishmen then; and rogues had not yet made a wreck of grand Institutions to scramble for what should wash up.

Abuses existed, as they always must; but the greatest abuse of all (the destruction of every good usage) was undreamed of yet.

And the right man was even now approaching to the rescue, the greatest Prime-Minister of any age or country.
Unwitting perhaps of the fine time afforded by the feeble delays of Mr.Addington, and absorbed in the tissue of plot and counterplot now thickening fast in Paris--the arch-plotter in all of them being himself--the First Consul had slackened awhile his hot haste to set foot upon the shore of England.

His bottomless ambition for the moment had a top, and that top was the crown of France; and as soon as he had got that on his head, the head would have no rest until the crown was that of Europe.
But before any crown could be put on at all, the tender hearts of Frenchmen must be touched by the appearance of great danger--the danger which is of all the greatest, that to their nearest and dearest selves.
A bloody farce was in preparation, noble lives were to be perjured away, and above all, the only great rival in the hearts of soldiers must be turned out of France.