Beschreibung:

A hand written letter from Garnet Joseph Wolesley at the war office to PAUL dated 6 April 1888 My dear Paul, All my books and papers are in my Hill street house, which being let, I cannot have access to. I have written a great deal about the tunnel but have nothing by me that I have written. At present we have the great blessing of being an island, a position that saves from the cost and loss of having an enormous Army like all the continental nations. A tunnel would make us continental people. The great danger would be that the French by a sudden disembarkation of say ten or twenty thousand men could obtain possession of our end of the tunnel by a 'coup de main'! They could then at their leisure, pour hundreds of thousands of troops into England through the tunnel, which would then be entirely in their hands. In fact the day the tunnel were made, one should have to expend enormous sums on fortifying our end of it, and we should require a great army always in England to counter balance the ever present risks. Everyone acknowledges it would entail risk, why accept the small increased risk? To please old ladies who suffer from sea-sickness? We are French enough already and don't want to become any more closely allied to that most detestable nation. Is this of any use to you? Your fondly attached friend, Garnet