only by the United States and Russia.  The dynastic disputes of France, which are far from being at an end, and the generally unsettled character of French politics, must long prevent that country from becoming the permanent rival of England.  France is great to-day, and England acts wisely in preparing to meet her in war; but to-morrow France may become weak, and her voice be feeble and her weight light in Europe and the world.  Three houses claim her throne, and the Republicans may start up into active life again, as we saw they did in 1848.  Neither Austria nor Prussia can ever furnish England cause of alarm.  With Russia the case is very different, as her government is solidly established; her resources are vast, and in the course of steady development, and her desire to establish her supremacy in the East is a fixed idea with both rulers and ruled.  Unchecked, she would have thrown England into the background, and supposing that she had resolved not to allow that country a share of the spoil of Turkey.  The hard character and harsh policy of Nicholas ended in furnishing to England an opportunity to throw Russia herself into the background for the time, and that opportunity she made use of, but not to the extent that she had determined upon, owing to her dependence upon France, which became the shield of Russia after having been the sword of England.  The United States were a formidable rival of England; and, but for the breaking out of our troubles, we should have been far ahead of her by 1870, and perhaps have stripped her of all her American possessions.  When those troubles began, she proceeded to take the same advantage of them that she had taken of the Czar’s blunder.  To sever the American nation in twain is her object, as some of her public men have frankly avowed; and she believes that the disintegrating process, once commenced, would not stop with the division of the country into the Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy.  She expects, should the South succeed, to see half a dozen republics here established, and is not without hope that not even two States would remain together; and for this hope she has very good foundation.  The American nation destroyed, England would become as great in the West as she is in the East, and would hold, with far greater means at her command, the same position that was hers in the last days of George II., when the French had been expelled from America and India.  She would have no commercial rival, and there would no longer be an American navy susceptible of gigantic increase.  She would be truly the sea’s sovereign; and whoso rules the sea has power to dictate to the land.  ‘Whosoever commands the sea,’ says Sir Walter Raleigh, ’commands the trade of the world; whosoever commands the trade of the world, commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.’  England never would have gone to war with the United States to prevent their growth; but, now that they have instituted civil war, it is certain that she will