But there was never any hope of a peace being patched up, not with the mood abroad in England that summer. They were savage – they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tooting, and ‘Rule Britannia’ playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrant, and street corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize-fight where the two pugs don’t fight, but spar and weave and never come to grips.
Flashman at the Charge, pp.51-2, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.
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