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attitude in relation to foreign Powers, anarchy at home and weakness abroad. The picture is a gloomy one, but it is not overcharged. Who then are the truest friends of the American people? Ourselves,-who, in the exercise of a calm judgment and goodwill to both parties, conjure them to desist at the earliest opportunity from this internecine contest, — or their own chiefs and leaders who are hounding on bands of ill-disciplined soldiers to exploits which are ludicrous in the eye of military experience, and who will probably be hurried on in their turn by the passions or the resentment of the populace to still more deplorable excesses? Already it is dangerous in America, even in New England, to speak as the advocate of peace the probability is that the war will go on for a time, chiefly because no man has the strength and the courage to end it. It has already assumed a revolutionary character, for it is inflamed not so much by the deliberate policy of the government as by the passions of the people. Popular enthusiasm is a powerful engine, but it is the most costly of all allies; for when the day of reckoning comes, it is measured by its promises, not by its performances. The apparent unanimity of the North may well be the result of terrorism rather than of conviction: yet even now it is stated that eighty-one newspapers in the Free States are, or rather were, opposed to the war. Certainly, numerous instances have occurred of insubordination in particular regiments, and even of the refusal of volunteers to act in presence of the enemy, which denote anything but a final resolution to brave the last dangers of war. Not such would be the conduct of American citizens and soldiers if a foreign enemy had landed on their coasts. Their military means might be small, but their hearts would be undivided; but in this unnatural contest almost every man has ties of interest or ties of affection in either camp. Three years of warfare on the present scale will have saddled the United States, or whatever portion of them may still be United, with a national debt, an income tax, and a standing army, which will leave the old countries of Europe nothing to envy them. The effect of these burdens on their credit, on their finances, and on their political institutions would be incalculable; and it is not too much to assert that, in order to support them the supreme authority must have a degree of power and strength which no Federal Government in America has yet possessed. Beyond the perils of war we already discern the perils of revolution, not obscurely threatening the institutions and the chiefs of the Union itself, even in the North. One of the worst features of the contest, and one which marks in the eyes of Europe

its revolutionary character, is the use made by both parties of the barbarous penalty of confiscation. The South has repudiated the debts of its Northern creditors: the North has confiscated the private property of Southern citizens, and this apparently without even a pretence of judicial authority. So that in this war property is protected neither by municipal law nor by the law of nations. If successful, Mr. Lincoln and his friends can only maintain their ascendancy by measures of authority which no former executive has assumed; if unsuccessful, they will probably be made to expiate the faults of others, and to pay for the disappointed hopes and wounded pride of the nation.

No doubt there was something highly flattering to the pride of American citizens, and to the future condition of the human race, in the prophetic picture of a mighty commonwealth, ranging over a whole continent, speaking the same tongue, governed by the same laws, and united under the same powerful Executive. But is it not a delusion to suppose that the Constitution of 1789 which united Thirteen States, just struggling into national existence, and not very dissimilar in their internal institutions, can be indefinitely extended to embrace purchased and conquered territories, the slave-holding States of the South, and the semi-civilised States of the Far West, nay even to include the mongrel population of California and the priestridden polygamists of Utah? Such a Union may be maintained for a considerable time by mutual assent and for common convenience, but the moment the Government seeks to rest its authority over any large portion of its fellow-citizens on military force, the very principle of such a government seems to us to be at an end; for it was based, to use the words of the Declaration of Independence, on the precious and transcendent right of the people to abolish and alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Far from seeking to subdue seceding States by force of arms, it appears to us that it would be more consistent with sound policy to expel from the Union, and deprive of its protection, States refusing to acknowledge its Federal authority. Are the greatness, prosperity, and security of States like those of New England, of New York and Pennsylvania, or of the communities springing into life in the illimitable regions of the West, liable to be seriously affected by the possession or loss of a disputed authority over the slave lands of the South? The power of nations depends not upon an unwieldy extent of territory, but upon concentrated organisation, disciplined intelligence, and compact interests. The

efforts of the North American Union resemble those of a young giant who has outgrown his strength. Their effect would be far greater within a more restricted area. In reality, the Americans themselves are conscious that the habits, the opinions, the domestic institutions, and the political principles of the North and of the South differ so widely that they form in fact two distinct peoples, and the attempt to force them into one nation by the force of the majority can only be effected either by a compromise, or by military power.

We have endeavoured at some length to explain the views which we believe to be entertained by moderate and thinking men in this country, and in the other countries of Europe, because we hold it to be of great importance that our American friends should at least be made aware that, if we differ from them, it is not from any want of deep interest in their welfare and a cordial desire for the restoration of peace and good government in the United States. Our opinions are at least not swayed in the slightest degree either by passion or by interest. We do not participate in the vehement desire of the North to crush what they call revolution, or to attempt negro emancipation by force of arms; still less do we comprehend the madness of the slaveholders which has provoked this desperate quarrel. A certain amount of indirect injury and inconvenience results from this war to ourselves and to Europe, but these results are as nothing compared to the direct evils which it inflicts on the people of the United States. So far then are the nations of Europe from having any motive or inducement to intervene in this quarrel, that their sympathies are not enlisted on either side, and that their interests are equally assailed by both parties. In truth the only perceptible interest we have in the question is the interest of humanity, the interest of peace; but we are perfectly aware that in protesting against the continuance of such a war, we expose ourselves to the indignation of both the belligerents. Accordingly we are told by Mr. Jay and by many others of his countrymen, that the friendly feeling 'excited in America by the recent visit of the Prince of Wales, has suddenly been converted into one of intense and bitter disappointment by the conduct and tone of the English Government and by the ill-judged comments of the English 'press.' So that on the one hand, the Americans profess to require of us the strictest adherence to the principle of nonintervention, on which ground we are most ready to give them the fullest satisfaction; but on the other hand, they take it extremely ill that we have not extended to the North that moral support which is given by the countenance of a great

'nation;' and even that we have forbidden Englishmen to 'assist in maintaining in the United States constitutional order ' against conspiracy and rebellion, and the cause of freedom against chattel slavery.' It is rather too much to accuse us of a sinister design to interfere in American affairs, and also, in the same breath, to complain of our forbidding British subjects to take a part in this fray. Mr. Jay says with reference to the Royal Proclamation

'Before the Proclamation, to support our Government was an honourable affair for the subjects of Great Britain, and the rebels were insurgents with no rights save under the American Constitution. After the Proclamation for an Englishman to serve the United States is a crime, and the rebels are elevated into a belligerent power; and this intervention of England, depriving us of a support which her practice permitted, and giving the rebels a status and right they did not possess, we are coolly told is neutrality.' (Jay's Address, p. 37.)

It is difficult to conceive a more complete tissue of blunders and absurdities than this sentence, but we quote it because we are afraid this misapprehension is too common in America. In the first place, Mr. Jay requires to be informed that the Queen's Proclamation has in reality no power or effect at all, except to bring the provisions of the law more distinctly to the knowledge and notice of the public. The Proclamation does not make the law, nor even give effect to the law. The Foreign Enlistment Act is a statute in full force at all times, which renders it penal for British subjects to engage in hostilities in the service of foreign states, without the Queen's license. That Act has indeed sometimes been suspended by Proclamation or Order in Council, as in the Carlist War in Spain, but it is at all other times fully operative, and so far from being an almost ob'solete statute' of George III., which required to be revived,' it is notorious that it was in full operation during the war of France and Austria in 1859, and must be in operation whenever this country is in the position of a neutral. The Americans have the less pretence for being ignorant of this law, as their own Acts against Foreign Enlistment are very stringent, and in 1856, they were so far from thinking that it was an 'honourable affair' for American citizens to take service with Great Britain against the despotism of Russia, that they actually drove the British Minister from Washington, and several British consuls from their ports, on the ground that they had encouraged American citizens to proceed to Canada for the purpose of enlistment. It was at the same time notorious that Russia was drawing considerable supplies from the United

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States, and indeed the American Courts have held (in the case of the Santissima Trinidad') that it is not a breach of neutrality even to supply armed vessels for the use of belligerents. That is not our doctrine. When this country is neutral, we reprobate all intervention, and the subjects of the Crown are informed that if they take any part at all, they do it at their peril.

It is a manifest absurdity in Mr. Jay, to impute to the Queen's Proclamation the power or the intention of giving any status to the rebels. We have no power at all to modify their status - but in their relations with ourselves we consider them as belligerents. The course pursued by the British Government in this respect is strictly conformable to the rules of neutrality, to the law of nations, and to the principles and precedents established by the highest legal authorities of the United States themselves. When a similar case arose at the time of the struggle for independence, between one of the Spanish colonies in South America and the mother country, it was held by the Supreme Court of the United States, that neutrality required the recognition of both parties as belligerents, because to concede belligerent rights to one party and not to the other, would be in fact to depart from strict neutrality and to act upon the assumption that one party was entitled to a preference over the other. But there is still higher American authority than this on the point. In 1843, Mr. Wheaton, whose name can never be mentioned without a tribute to his great learning and spotless character, drew up a paper for the United States Government, on the claims of the representatives of Paul Jones, in which he examined the relations which the United States held, during the revolutionary war, towards other Governments which had not recognised their Independence; and he showed that in the case of a revolu'tion in a Sovereign Empire, by a province or colony shaking ' off the dominion of the mother country, and whilst the civil 'war continues, if a foreign Power does not acknowledge the 'independence of the new state, and form treaties of amity and commerce with it, though still remaining neutral, as it may do, it must, while continuing passive, allow to both the 'contending parties all the rights which public war gives to independent sovereigns.' But,' he continues, our case, in 1779, was not that of an ordinary revolt in the bosom of a 'state, but a civil war entitling both parties to the rights of 'war, war acknowledged by the parent state itself, in the exercise of the commercia belli usually recognised between civi