Secondly, Because France cannot have to deal with any of these
Continental sovereigns, without their feeling that nation, as a maritime
power, greatly superior to them all put together,--a force which is only
to be kept in check by England.
England, except during the eccentric aberration of Charles the Second,
has always considered it as her duty and interest to take her place in
such a confederacy. Her chief disputes must ever be with France; and if
England shows herself indifferent and unconcerned, when these powers are
combined against the enterprises of France, she is to look with
certainty for the same indifference on the part of these powers, when
she may be at war with that nation. This will tend totally to disconnect
this kingdom from the system of Europe, in which if she ought not rashly
to meddle, she ought never wholly to withdraw herself from it.
If, then, England is put in motion, whether by a consideration of the
general safety, or of the influence of France upon Spain, or by the
probable operations of this new system on the Netherlands, it must
embrace in its project the whole as much as possible, and the part it
takes ought to be as much as possible a leading and presiding part.
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