Spirit Of The Age

The position of these two countries towards each other, has again begun to assume a squally appearance, or as Hamlet said of the Ghost, a "questionable shape." France, seeing England making great warlike preparations in peace—augmenting her navy to the extreme and building up her maritime defences, so as to be prepared for the worst in case her powerful and ancient rival, though now her ally, should pay her an unfriendly visit, has begun to follow the example of England, as if to give her some ground of argument for this extraordinary preparation for war in time of peace; and although she well knows her neighbor has not the most distant idea of molesting her, she has an excellent plea for extraordinary preparations on her part also, without being charged with want of devotion to the entente cordiale.—Thus they are going on—and a loss of confidence on the part of each in the other and mutual suspicions of foul play following, we should not be surprised in the end if these two excellent friends and allies once more fall together by the ears. Heaven forbid that it should be so, is our earnest prayer; but at present it looks very much like it.

The last advices from Europe inform us that France is busily increasing her naval force, and fortifying her harbors; and the Paris correspondent of the London Herald says:

The public mind is depressed by some vague foreboding, and a sense of impending evil. The preparations going on in the dock-yards on both sides of the channel have revived the rumors of war with England. A great impetus has been given to these rumors of war by a Paris letter in the Independance Belge, which plainly tells us that the Emperor made peace with Austria merely for the purpose of putting down the naval supremacy of England, and that unless we submit quietly to have our naval estimates fixed by France, there must be war."