776 LIFE OF OOBDEN. (crs?

1860.
Xr. 56.

course knows that in the main Tam speaking of our imme"
diate neighbours across the Channel, and there is no use
disguising it. It is in no unfriendly spirit that I am spesk”
ing. No one has any right to take offence at considerations
and reflections which are purely founded upon the principle?
of self-defence.” He admitted that he hoped much fro®
the Treaty, but a treaty was a frail defence, It would be
folly to rely on its future effects, so long as our sea frontier
was vulnerable. There were, moreover, circumstances iP
the state of Europe leading us to think that we might 8007
have to defend ourselves from attack. France had an army
of 600,000; of these 400,000 were actually under arms, and
the remainder could be called into the ranks in a fortnight:
He did not mean to say that such a host was raised for the
deliberate purpose of aggression, but still the possession of
power to aggress frequently inspires the will to aggress. It
was not only the army that suggested these apprehensions:
The navy, too, had been greatly strengthened, so that our
neighbours would have the means of transporting within #
very few hours a large and formidable body of troops to our
shores,
Cobden’s plea in reply to all this had been given by antitipation,
 in a postscript to the letter from which I have
already quoted. “I am of course writing,” he had said,
“ with the conviction that France has done nothing in the
way of warlike preparations to justify our demonstrations i
England. I have had good opportunities of satisfying my~
self that the most monstrous exaggerations have been
current in England respecting the naval strength of this
country.” And this was quite true. Cobden had taken 88
much trouble as the responsible head of a department, OF
much more perhaps, to find out from visits to Nantes and
elsewhere, as well as from constant conversations with the
French authorities and the English naval attaché, whether