of distinction, some of whom have long been held in high esteem here, have not hesitated to express a desire for our overthrow, because we were becoming too strong, though our free population is not materially different, as regards numbers, from that of the British Islands, and is as nothing when compared with the number of Queen Victoria’s subjects.  They were not ashamed to be so thoroughly un-English as to admit the existence of fear in their minds of a people living three thousand miles from their country:  a circumstance to be noted; for your Englishman is apt to err on the side of contempt for others, and as a rule he fears nobody.  Others have so wantonly misrepresented the character of our cause,—­Mr. Carlyle is a notable member of this class,—­that it is impossible not to be offended, when listening to their astounding falsehoods.  But it is the British press that has done most to array Americans against England.  That press is very ably conducted, and the most noted of its members have displayed a degree of hostility toward us that could not have been predicted without the prophet being suspected of madness, or of diabolical inspiration.  All its articles attacking us are reproduced here, and are read by everybody, and the effect thereof can be imagined.  Toward us British journalists are playing the same part that was played by their predecessors toward France sixty years since, and which converted what was meant to be a permanent peace into the mere truce of Amiens.  Insolent and egotistical as a class, though there are highly honorable exceptions, those journalists have done more to make their country the object of dislike than has been accomplished by all other Englishmen.  Their deeds show that the pen is mightier than the sword, and that its conquests are permanent.  It has been said that France has been as unfriendly to us as England, and that, therefore, we ought to feel for her the same dislike as that of which England is the object.  But, admitting the assertion to be true, we know little of what the French have said or written concerning us.  The difference of language prevents us from taking much offence at Gallic criticism.  Not one American in a hundred reads French; and of those who do read it, not one in a thousand, journalists apart, ever sees a French quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily publication.  Occasionally, an article from a French journal is translated for some one of our newspapers, but it is oftener of a friendly character than otherwise.  The best French publications support the Union cause, at their head standing the “Debats,” which is not the inferior of the “Times” in respect to ability, and is far its superior in all other respects.  Besides, judging from such articles from the French presses devoted to Secession interests as have come under our observation, they are neither so able nor so venomous as those which appear in British Secession journals and magazines.  Most of them might be translated for the purpose of showing that the French have no wish for our destruction, while the language of the British articles indicates the existence of an intense personal hostility, and an eager desire to see the United States partitioned like Poland.  We should be something much above, or as much below, the standard of humanity, if we were not moved deeply by such evidences of fierce hatred, expressed in the fiercest of language.