The following Letter is selected from the Paston Collection, as it exhibits the spelling
deavoured to light the fire-brands of sedition and misrule in this and every other country which their arts, or arms, or ill-gotten wealth could reach, it is impossible to contemplate without horrour the period when it may be found convenient to enter into any kind of amity with such a nation. The only safety for us, in my apprehension, will be, to form a barrier to prevent any Frenchman ever entering into this country; which would naturally produce a similar prohibition on their part. This, I acknowledge, would only be a kind of smothered war: but unless some such measure be adopted, on the day on which any treaty of peace shall be signed with that nation, on that day will be signed the death-warrant of the Constitution of England. Its destruction indeed, will not be immediate: the man of narrow income will be pleased with the prospect of a diminution of taxes; the merchant will look to his money-bags, and anticipate in imagination the commerce of the world; the leveller and republican will clap his hands, and rejoice; and the gay and inconsiderate will not perceive the ruin impending over our heads: but, ere a very few years shall have passed away,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war,---
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear’d by their breed, and famous by their birth, ---
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,---
