In a letter to the Times, Captain Edward Plunkett assails
Mr. Cobden's er- roneous estimate of the pacific spirit which the latter believes now to animate the French nation. Captain Plunkett recalls the time, not many years ago, when the National, Presse, and Commerce, were daily filled with diatribes and ca- lumnies against England. Not long since, when a fire in Toulon Dockyard de- stroyed a valuable depot of timber, the French papers one and all attributed the conflagration to " perfide Albion." Modern French literature abounds with ex- pressions of hatred to England. The historical truth of M. Thiers's history is vitiated by the Anti-English feeling which is apparent wherever opportunity oc- curs; and the same animus is apparent in the writings of Victor Hugo, De Toc- gneville,Lamartine, Capefigue, and Beaumont.
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