The  proposition  of  Mr.  Dargan,  or  some  slight  modification  of
it  (we  ourselves  should  not  be  disipclined  to  see  it  literally
adopted),  appears,  in  our  view  of  the  tempers  and  prospects  of
the  two  nations,  the  only  one  that  can  avert  a  War,  which,  to
use  a  phrase  of  a  distinguished  American  senator,  would  be,
'on  the  part  of  those  who  shall  provoke  it,  almost  impious.'
'  War,'  as  Lord  Aberdeen  in  a  recent  debate  on  this  subject  said,
in  a  spirit  becoming  a  Christian  statesman,  'War  is  the  greatest
calamity  that  can  befall  nations,  and  generally  the  greatest  crime
which  a  nation  can  commit  ;*  but  in  resistance  to  injustice  or  in
repulsion  of  insult,  he  and  every  wise  and  honourable  man  must
feel  that  war  may  be — however  painful — the  first  and  highest  of
national  duties.  That  duty,  if  forced  upon  her.  Great  Britain
was  never  less  inclined  to  abandon,  or  better  prepared  to  execute,
than  at  this  hour ;  and  if  the  United  States,  by  the  rejection  of
such  a  proposition,  as  even  her  own  legislators  think  reasonable,
should  drive  us  to  that  extremity,  on  them,  and  them  alone,  will

rest  the  awful  and  odious'responsibility,  and  on  them  we  trust in

the  righteousness  of  our  cause — will  fall  the  heavier  weight  of  the
provoked  calamities.
•  La  Martiniire,  Geographe  de  S,  M,  C.   U  Pot  d'Enagne,  thinki  that  Port  S,
Francisco  was  really  Porto  Francisco  Draco,  and  commonly  to  deoomiuated.
Postscript.
(    603    )


Postscript.
