We can aid this one in some measure.  America, which affects sometimes to declare itself indifferent to our opinions, gathers them up, however, with jealous care.  I have seen respectable Americans blush at encountering that instinctive blame which, among us, is addressed to the progress of slavery; they suffered at seeing their country thus fallen from the esteem which it formerly enjoyed.  Proud nations like America always avenge themselves by noble impulses for the reprobation which they are conscious of having deserved.  The moral intervention of Europe is not, therefore, superfluous; it is the less so, in that the South insults us by counting on us.  The ringleaders of Charleston and New Orleans affect to say that England is ready to open her arms to them, and that France promises a sympathizing reception to her envoys!  These envoys themselves have been selected with care, honorable, having friends among us,—­capable, in a word, of presenting the cause of slavery in an almost seductive light.  It is important, therefore, that we should not keep silence.

Let governments be reserved; let them avoid every thing that would resemble direct action in the internal affairs of the United States, let them have recourse to the commonplaces of speech employed by diplomacy to escape pledging their policy—­this is well.  But to imagine that these commonplaces promise alliance or protection, is to be credulous indeed!  A rebellion under cover of the flag of slavery, be sure, will find it difficult to make partisans among us French, whatever may be our indolent indifference in other respects in this matter, an indifference so great that at the present time the American question does not exist to the most of us.  Moreover, we shall shake off this inertia; and, as to the English, they will not suffer their brightest title to glory in modern times to be tarnished by any latent complicity with the Gulf States.  The brutal doctrines of interest, so often professed publicly in Parliament by Mr. Bright, may indeed find organs; and Great Britain will be counselled to remember cotton and forget justice.  The measure already taken by her at Washington, and which appears to have been supported by France, a measure designed to declare that the blockade of the Southern ports must be effectual to be recognized, is perhaps a concession wrested from her by this detestable school of selfishness.  Happily, there is another school face to face with this; the Christian sentiment, the sentiment of abolition, will arise and enforce obedience.  Never was a more important work in store for it.  To unveil every suspicious act of the British Government, to keep public opinion aroused, to maintain, in fine, that noble moral agitation which makes the success of good causes and the safety of free nations, such is the mission proffered in England to the defenders of humanity and the Gospel.  If they could forget it, the populace of Mobile or Savannah pursuing English consuls, would remind them to what principle the name of Great Britain is inevitably pledged, for the sake of its honor.  France and England, I am confident, will act in unison, here as elsewhere; their alliance which comprises within itself the germs of all true progress, will be found as useful and as fruitful in the New World as it has proved in the Old.