The pretended cause of the Crimean war, as alleged, was the threatened invasion of Turkey by Nicholas. But what injury was that to England, compared to the seizure of Mexico by France?
England had not for two hundred years made it the chief object of her foreign policy to resist the expansion of the Russian empire. She had acquiesced in the partition of Poland, and by the Treaty of Vienna made herself a party to that nefarious spoliation by Russia, Austria, and Prussia. She knew that Austria, Prussia, and the German Confederation were pledged to protect Turkey from Russia.[7] Her subserviency to France in separately with her making war on Russia, upon the pretence of the protection of Turkey, was supererogatory as well as needless.
The truth is, and so will history make up the record, the French emperor desired to humiliate England, and England dare not refuse to be humiliated by him. It was a 'GREAT SURRENDER.'[8]
It will not do for England to excuse herself for not resisting the French invasion of Mexico by any such allegation as that she has received Napoleon's assurances that he does not intend to make a French province of Mexico. She must know, that no confidence can be placed in his veracity. She must know, that such assurances are but a flimsy veil to deceive her and other nations. They are designed to meet the contingency—of Federal success in crushing rebellion.
He has been willing to be fooled by those who surround him, into the belief that the rebels will achieve their independence.[9] In that event, he will never relinquish his grasp on Mexico, unless compelled to do so by force of arms. Should the rebellion succeed, as he professes to believe it will, his instrument and accomplice, Maximilian, will be discarded with as little ceremony as the first Napoleon discarded some of the puppet kings whom he saw proper to crown and discrown according to the exigency of his occasions.
The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) terminated one of the wars of England with Louis XIV. The renunciation by France of the cause of the Pretender was the most material advantage accruing to England from that treaty. But the ink was hardly dry with which it was written, before England took umbrage at France for efforts to rebuild her navy, which had been seriously reduced and crippled by the events of the previous war, and also for the encroachments of the French in Canada on the English settlements. For these causes the Seven Years' War was commenced, and, under the auspices of the first William Pitt, successfully prosecuted, until France was completely humbled. Now, however, Napoleon the Third constructs a navy more powerful than France ever before possessed, and, instead of molesting some obscure English settlement in the interior of America, appropriates to himself a great country, fertile in resources, with mines of incalculable wealth, and in close proximity to English colonies, cherished by the most vigilant protection of England.
The value of Mexico is thus portrayed by the British historian Alison (vol. iv., p. 423):
'Humboldt has told us that he was never wearied with astonishment at the smallness of the portion of soil which, in Mexico and the adjoining provinces, would yield sustenance to a family for a year: and that the same extent of ground which in wheat would maintain only two persons, would yield sustenance under the banana to fifty; though in that favored region the return of wheat is never under seventy, sometimes as much as a hundred fold. The return on an average of Great Britain is not more than nine to one. If due weight be given to these extraordinary facts, it will not appear extravagant to assert that Mexico, with a territory embracing seven times the whole area of France, may at some future and possibly not remote period contain two hundred millions of inhabitants.'
This is the magnificent empire which France now seeks to conquer, without a murmur of remonstrance from Great Britain, who so often combined Europe to resist the petty acquisition by France of territory less than one of the Mexican States.
It is needless to say that England relies on the United States to prevent Mexico becoming a French province. Her statesmen have for the past two years professed the belief that the dismemberment of the United States is inevitable. In that event, they must know that the United States would prove no obstacle to the occupation of Mexico by France. No; the acquiescence of England in this gigantic acquisition of France can be ascribed to no such assurance of the power of the United States. It may be said that she has flattered herself that by letting alone Napoleon, he may possibly, by an alliance with the rebels, secure the permanent dissolution of the American Union;—that the United States, if successful in crushing the rebellion, would be to her a greater terror than Napoleon. We do not believe that she is influenced by such considerations. She knows that the United States, however powerful by the recent development of military strength, would hardly attempt the invasion of the British Islands. But she has no such faith in her crafty neighbor. She knows that France and the Bonapartes owe her a debt of vengeance which only the ravage and desolation of the British soil will ever liquidate. She remembers that the favorite scheme of Napoleon the First was the invasion of England; and she knows that this scheme is among the Idées Napoléon of the nephew. She is aware, too, that Napoleon the Third has the means at his command which will enable him to place any number of troops on her shores. She is satisfied that upon the first provocation which she offers, he will gratify the treasured hatred of the French and of his family, by consummating the darling project of his uncle. The terror of invasion has induced her to change the nature of her foreign policy. She will cling to the French alliance until the French emperor has satiated his national craving for her degradation; and not until he strikes her a blow, which will resound throughout the world, will England be prepared to battle with the Gaul. No future accession of territory would make France more formidable for the invasion of England than she is now. Her army of five hundred thousand men, and her steam navy and ironclads are all-sufficient for that purpose, whenever the French emperor chooses so to employ them. But if Napoleon devotes this army and that navy to such a formidable conquest as that of a country seven times as large as France, three thousand miles from her shores, it is not probable that he will soon be able to spare them for the invasion of Great Britain. Spain vainly struggled for years to conquer her revolted provinces in America. England failed to conquer her rebellious colonies, with a population not exceeding three millions. France lost an army of thirty-five thousand men, veterans of Moreau's, in the vain effort to subdue the negroes of St. Domingo. England could desire no better scheme for the destruction of the military strength of Napoleon than that of the attempted conquest of Mexico. She will therefore rather stimulate than restrain the second French emperor in his desire to devote his legions to the enlargement of the area for the supremacy of the Latin race in America. Her motive will be the despicable safety of her shores from Gallic invasion. For this she sacrifices her prestige in the world—her hereditary policy—the time-honored traditions of the Anglo-Saxon. The world hereafter is free to the Frenchman, for robbery, spoliation, conquest, and invasion, wherever else than in England he chooses to prosecute the vocation of national crime. England is no longer the foe of French ambition or rapacity. So long as France will abstain from the invasion of the 'inviolate isle,' where for almost a thousand years no foreign enemy has placed his foot, so long she may be free from molestation from England, whatever else she may attempt; and this is the inglorious policy of England in the year of our Lord 1862-'3.