This plan is proposed by the French in the way in which they propose all
their plans,--and in the only way in which, indeed, they can propose
them, where there is no regular communication between his Majesty and
their republic.
What they propose is _a plan_. It is _a plan_ also to resist their
predatory project. To remain quiet, and to suffer them to make their own
use of a naval power before our face, so as to awe and bully Spain into
a submissive peace, or to drive them into a ruinous war, without any
measure on our part, I fear is no plan at all.
However, if the plan of cooeperation which France desires, and which her
affiliated societies here ardently wish and are constantly writing up,
should not be adopted, and the war between the Emperor and France
should continue, I think it not at all likely that Spain should not be
drawn into the quarrel. In that case, the neutrality of England will be
a thing absolutely impossible. The time only is the subject of
deliberation.
Then the question will be, whether we are to defer putting ourselves
into a posture for the common defence, either by armament, or
negotiation, or both, until Spain is actually attacked,--that is,
whether our court will take a decided part for Spain, whilst Spain, on
her side, is yet in a condition to act with whatever degree of vigor she
may have, whilst that vigor is yet unexhausted,--or whether we shall
connect ourselves with her broken fortunes, after she shall have
received material blows, and when we shall have the whole slow length of
that always unwieldy and ill-constructed, and then wounded and crippled
body, to drag after us, rather than to aid us.
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