RARELY had a great nation approached nearer than England to ruin without showing consciousness of danger. Napoleon’s boast to his Chamber of Commerce, that within ten years he would subject his rival, was not ill-founded. The conquest of Russia, which Napoleon meant to make certain, combined with a war between the United States and Great Britain, coming immediately upon the destruction of private credit and enterprise in 1810, could hardly fail to shake the British empire to its foundation; and perhaps the worst sign of danger was the absence of popular alarm. The intelligence of all England with feelings equally strong, whether mute or vociferous, was united in contempt for the stolid incom…
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