That Sweet Enemy
Chapter One
Chapter 1
Britain joins Europe
England is worth conquering, and whenever there is a probability of getting it, it will surely be attempted. When the people are . . . weak, cowardly, without discipline, poor, discontented, they are easily subdued; and this is our condition . . . nothing can be added to render them an easy prey to a foreigner unless a sense of their misery and hate of them that cause it make them look on any invader as a deliverer.—Algernon Sidney, political writer
A Nation which hath stood its ground, and kept its privileges and freedoms for Hundreds of Years, is in less than a Third of a Century quite undone; hath lavishly spent above 160 Millions in that time, made Hecatombs of British Lives, stockjobb’d (or cannonaded) away its Trade, perverted and then jested away its Honour, Law, and Justice.—Political pamphlet, 1719
In a Europe devastated by more than a century of ferocious religious conflicts, culminating in a Thirty Years War (1618–48) that had killed millions, France, emerging from its own internal conflicts in the 1650s, became the pre-eminent powe ... read full excerpt from: That Sweet Enemy ebook
