I think that our present King once
cried, "Buck up, England!" and his Majesty spoke true; very few
things can be done in this world without taking a little trouble.
To return, after this long digression, to the portly German
middle-aged business men who met weekly in Brunswick to improve
their working knowledge of French and English, I must candidly say
that I never detected the faintest shadow of animosity to Great
Britain in them. They were not Prussians--they were Hanoverians
and Brunswickers. They felt proud, I think, that the throne of
Britain was then occupied by a branch of their own ancient House
of Guelph; they remembered the hundred years' connection between
Britain and Hanover; as business men they acknowledged Britain's
then unquestioned industrial supremacy, and they recognised that
men of their class enjoyed in England a position and a power which
was not accorded to them in Germany. Certainly they never lost an
opportunity of pointing out that Britain was neither a military
nor a fighting nation, and would never venture again to conduct a
campaign on the Continent.
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