You maintain, that as the military power of France is in progress, ours must be so also, or we must perish.

In this I agree with you.

Yet you contend also, that this increase or progress can only be brought about by conquests permanently established upon the Continent; and, calling in the doctrines of the writers upon the Law of Nations to your aid, you are for beginning with the conquest of Sicily, and so on, through Italy, Switzerland, &c.

&c.
Now it does not appear to me, though I should rejoice heartily to see a British army march from Calabria, triumphantly, to the heart of the Alps, and from Holland to the centre of Germany,--yet it does not appear to me that the conquest and permanent possession of these countries is necessary either to produce those resources of men or money which the security and prosperity of our country requires.

All that is absolutely needful, for either the one or the other, is a large, experienced, and seasoned _army_, which we cannot possess without a field to fight in, and that field must be somewhere upon the Continent.