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454 RISE OF THE CONTINENTAL,however powerful, has certain definite limits to which itssphere of action should be confined, is an immutable truthand he who would deny the conclusions drawn from it'would be guiltyof an absurdity. Yet if we look into history, how seldom do we find this truth kept in view !Howmany unsuccessful plans and undertakings do we discoverwhich it were easy to see beforehand could not succeed!Indeed it would seem to require nothing more than soundcommon sense, and a moderate degree of intelligence, todetermine the sphere of action to which a nation shouldconfine itself. But still we must not forget to take inaccount the great influence of the passions upon politics,and, above all,the exaggerated conception, which everyminister isprone io form, of the importance of the state atthe head of which he is placed, in order to explain the manydisastrous errors from which scarcely any state has keptitself wholly exempt. Even England did not exhibit at thisperiod the only example of this kind. Justice, however,assuredly demands of us to remark, that it is much moredifficult for a maritime and commercial state to determinethe boundaries of its interests and its sphere of action, thanit is for a continental one. Not only the direct, but, stillmore, the indirect points of contact are here so numerousthe calculation of how much damage may be inflicted onother powers by its fleets, is made on no determinate data,and is on that account in the highest degree indeterminate.The indirect damage, is greater than the direct ;and thestate is so much misled by an exalted opinion of its ownpower, as to think itself still greater, and its own influencemoredecisive than it really is, and from its nature can be.We have thus far traced the continental policy of land Engup to the period at which, by the great revolutions ofEurope, not only the triple alliance last concluded wasdissevered, but all political relations were at once violentlyrent asunder, and then forcibly joined together again bynew ties, which, after such sanguinary conflicts, could notkeep together the contracting parties for any length of time.How, under such^ circumstances, could the former relations of England be maintained? It was not, however,merely a change in individual instances which they underwent, but the whole system of her continental policy