AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16308, 4 September 1918, Page 9

AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

A REMARKABLE PROPHECY. The following extract is from a letter addressed by the American General, G Watson Webb, to the London "Times,'' and in that journal on.March 18th, 1854, when Groat Britain was drifting into war with Russia. Tho letter has been rediscovered by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, and reprinted in "The Publishers' Circular" :— "The contingency to which I allude as being the only ono which could prompt an interference in European affairs is, I sincerely hope, very far dis- | tant. but it should never bo lost sight j of in England, and may ultimately be averted altogether by its being constantly kept before the world—l mean a combination of the Continent of Europe at some future dav against England as tho great embodiment of constitutional liberty in Europe. That day may come, how soon, if ever. He alone knows in Whose hands • are the destinies of nations; but come when it may, our interests and our feelings will alike combine to make us come to the rcseuc. We shall come; it may bo from a conviction that, in fighting your battles, we are contending for tho cause of constitutional liberty. Our plea or our excuse may be self-preservation, but in such a contingency come we will; cn<l bo assured that the youthful giant —for wo shall be a giant before that day arrives—will not come the less willingly or strike less effectively because hi<T strength will be put forth on behalf of a parent who, if she was not alwavs a kind mother, gave to us our Anglo-Saxon blood, and sent us forth imbued with her her literature, and her love of constitutional .liberty."