Now the people against whom I am contending go upon two assumptions which I take the liberty absolutely to object to. The one is, that the French nation is composed nationally, and in regard to the action of their Government, composed of brigands (laughter) — not of honest men, not of men according to the average of our political acquaintance and historical acquaintance, but men brigands of the worst and the most desperate character (laughter). And at the same time they assume that the great English nation, which has its arm stretched all over the globe, at home is a nation of imbeciles (laughter). There is an idea in the minds of some men that by some sudden, secret, undiscovered method until the catastrophe is developed, like a great explosion — that the French Grovernment could arrange a succession of great trains, an army of soldiers, a vast collection of artillery — that all these could be put into this Tunnel (a laugh) from the French end of it, and although English people were passing every hour (a laugh) — they say that all this could be done, and nobody in England or at Dover would know anything about it, and thus there might be an invasion of this country through the Tunnel.