Note 47 — PART II. THE EASTERN QUESTION.

“Upon the Continental System he (Napoleon) had staked everything. He had united all Europe in the crusade against England; no state, least of all such a state as Russia, could withdraw from the system without practically joining England. Nevertheless, we may wonder that, if he felt obliged to make war upon Russia, he should have chosen to wage it in the manner he did, by an overwhelming invasion” (Seeley’s “A Short History of Napoleon the Great,” p. 169). Prof. Seeley also told the author that “if the Continental System had existed a little longer England would have been ruined, because it seems to me that a revolution would have taken place in England.”