873. BONAPARTE (N.), Invasion of U. S. by.—
The fear that Bonaparte will
come over and conquer us also, is too chimerical
to be genuine. Supposing him to have
finished Spain and Portugal, he has yet England
and Russia to subdue. The maxim of
war was never sounder than in this case, not
to leave an enemy in the rear; and especially
where an insurrectionary flame is known to
be under the embers, merely smothered, and
ready to burst at every point. These two
subdued (and surely the Anglomen will not
think the conquest of England alone a short
work), ancient Greece and Macedonia, the
cradle of Alexander, his prototype, and Constantinople,
the seat of empire for the world,
would glitter more in his eye than our bleak
mountains and rugged forests. Egypt, too,
and the golden apples of Mauritania, have for
more than half a century fixed the longing
eyes of France; and with Syria, you know,
he has an old affront to wipe out. Then come
“Pontus and Galatia, Cappadocia, Aeolia and
Bithynia,” the fine countries on the Euphrates
and Tigris, the Oxus and Indus, and
all beyond the Hypasis, which bounded the
glories of his Macedonian rival; with the invitations
of his new British subjects on the
banks of the Ganges, whom, after receiving
under his protection the mother country, he
cannot refuse to visit. When all this is done
and settled, and nothing of the old world remains
unsubdued, he may turn to the new
one. But will he attack us first, from whom
he will get but hard knocks and no money?
Or will he first lay hold of the gold and silver
of Mexico and Peru, and the diamonds of
Brazil? A republican emperor, from his affection
to republics, independent of motives
of expediency, must grant to ourselves the
Cyclop's boon of being the last devoured.
While all this is doing, are we to suppose the
chapter of accidents read out, and that nothing
can happen to cut short or disturb his
enterprises?—
To John Langdon. Washington ed. v, 512.
(M.
March. 1810)
