from the disaffection of Europe, or that our institutions contained some conservative principle that did not usually exist in this hemisphere.  My Vevaisan was curious to know to which of these circumstances I ascribed the present quiet in Carolina.  I told him to both.  The opposition in that state, as a whole, were honest in their views; and, though some probably meant disunion, the greater part did not.  It was a governing principle of our system to seek redress by appeals to the source of power, and the majority were probable looking still, to that quarter, of relief.  Under other systems, rebellion, nine times in ten, having a different object, would not be checked by this expectation.

The Swiss listened to all this attentively, and remarked that America had been much misrepresented in Europe, and that the opinion was then getting to be general in his country, from improper motives.  He told me that a great deal had been said about the proceedings in the case of Rowland Stephenson, and he frankly asked me to explain them; for, being a commercial man, he admitted that injurious impressions had been made even on himself in relation to that affair.  This was the third Swiss who had alluded to this subject, the other two instances occurring at Rome.  In the latter cases, I understood pretty distinctly that there were reports current that the Americans were so desirous of obtaining rich emigrants, that they had rescued a criminal in order to reap the benefit of his gold!

Of course I explained the matter, by simply stating the facts, adding, that the case was an admirable illustration of the treatment America had received from Europe, ever since 1776.  An Englishman, a member of Parliament, by the way, had absconded from his own country, taking shelter in ours, by the mere accident of meeting at sea a Swedish brig bound thither.  A reward was offered for his arrest, and certain individuals had taken on themselves, instigated by whom I know not, to arrest him on a retired road, in Georgia, and to bring him covertly within the jurisdiction of New York, with the intention to send him clandestinely on board a packet bound to Europe.  Now a grosser abuse than an act like this could not well be committed.  No form of law was observed, and the whole proceeding was a violation of justice, and of the sovereignty of the two states interested.  It is true the man arrested was said to be guilty of gross fraud; but where such practices obtain, guilt will soon cease to be necessary in order to commit violence.  The innocent may be arrested wrongfully, too.  As soon as the circumstances became known, an application was made to the proper authorities for relief, which was granted on a principle that obtained in all civilized countries, where right is stronger than might.  Had any one been transferred from Canada to England, under similar circumstances, he would have been entitled to the same relief, and there is not a jurist in England who does not know the fact; and yet this transaction, which, if it redound to the discredit of either nation at all, (an exaggerated opinion, I admit,) must redound to the discredit of that which produced the delinquent, and actually preferred him to one of its highest legislative stations, has been so tortured all over Europe, as to leave an impression unfavourable to America!