‘We are too rich, too industrious, too dependent on other nations, to face indifferently the prospect of a blockade’

People of England are too rich, too industrious, and too dependent on other nations, to face indifferently the prospect of a blockade like the one that Russia had to submit to during two years. On 25 July, 1860, Napoleon III wrote candidly to his new ambassador in London, the Comte de Persigny, that current affairs were so complicated thanks to the mistrust excited everywhere since the war in Italy, that a frank conversation with Palmerston was now clearly necessary. The French under Napoleon III had proven themselves adept and increasingly determined as well; the Crimean War taught both maritime powers what was possible. The idea that danger could arise to the constitution from putting the Dockyards in a condition to be defended against a foreign enemy seems to me an opinion which could scarcely be seriously put forward even by a Fifth Form Boy at one of the public schools.