Warlike Preparations

There is evidently a screw loose between us and some or other of the countries from which according to royal speeches, we are everlastingly receiving assurances of love and amity. Preparations for sudden hostilities are going on in all directions. Signs of the qui vive are to be traced in every quarter. Old fortifications are being repaired, added to, and strengthened.-New ones are being erected. There is an unusual bustle in the naval yards, as well as in the arsenals. Ships are being made ready up to that point from which they could at once be pushed into immediate service. Those in service are gradually increasing their crews to the war complement, while a large fleet, delicately called "an experimental squadron," as an army of observation is sometimes designated a 'cordon sanitaire,' is in high order, and fully manned, prepared for a dash to any part of the world, and against any enemy against whom it may be required. But what is it all for-what is it all about? These preparations cannot be from any apprehension of a quarrel with the United States about Mexico or the Oregon territory. Some of them are being made too near home for that.-The real cause is, we opine, without mincing matters, that, in spite of the recent bathing machine alliance, things are not quite comfortable between us and our French neighbors just now. The causes of difference, if not dispute, between us are indeed many. Not satisfied with kicking us out of Spain, and turning us out of Greece, they are now busy with their intrigues in China, that they may carry off all the advantages for which we fought and conquered in the late war with that country. Their eagerness to repeat the fable of the wolf and the lamb towards our ally of Morocco may, also in the end, lead to an unpleasant issue with us. But the grand bone of contention just now is the marriage of one of Louis Philippe's sons with the sister of the Queen of Spain, which is sure to elevate him to the throne of that country, and bring about a new and formidable compact between France and Spain. We say that such a marriage would surely elevate the French prince to the throne of Spain. We have not a doubt of it. Louis Philppe has no such thought; but the wretches by whom Queen Isabella is surrounded and held in captivity, are too deeply steeped in crime and

blood and villany [villainy], to hesitate about adding one more murder to those which they have already committed, to subserve their selfish and ambitious purposes.-Liverpool Chronicle, Nov. 1.