have not rejoiced—­none, I take it, except that poor citizen King of the French.  And I can rejoice that England lost her American colonies, and shall rejoice when Spain has been deprived of Cuba.  But I hold that citizen King of the French in small esteem, seeing that he made no fight; and I know that England was bound to struggle when the Boston people threw her tea into the water.  Spain keeps a tighter hand on Cuba than we thought she would some ten years since, and therefore she stands higher in the world’s respect.

It may be well that the South should be divided from the North.  I am inclined to think that it would be well—­at any rate for the North; but the South must have been aware that such division could only be effected in two ways:  either by agreement, in which case the proposition must have been brought forward by the South and discussed by the North, or by violence.  They chose the latter way, as being the readier and the surer, as most seceding nations have done.  O’Connell, when struggling for the secession of Ireland, chose the other, and nothing came of it.  The South chose violence, and prepared for it secretly and with great adroitness.  If that be not rebellion, there never has been rebellion since history began; and if civil war was ever justified in one portion of a nation by turbulence in another, it has now been justified in the Northern States of America.

What was the North to do; this foolish North, which has been so liberally told by us that she has taken up arms for nothing, that she is fighting for nothing, and will ruin herself for nothing?  When was she to take the first step toward peace?  Surely every Englishman will remember that when the earliest tidings of the coming quarrel reached us on the election of Mr. Lincoln, we all declared that any division was impossible; it was a mere madness to speak of it.  The States, which were so great in their unity, would never consent to break up all their prestige and all their power by a separation!  Would it have been well for the North then to say, “If the South wish it we will certainly separate?” After that, when Mr. Lincoln assumed the power to which he had been elected, and declared with sufficient manliness, and sufficient dignity also, that he would make no war upon the South, but would collect the customs and carry on the government, did we turn round and advise him that he was wrong?  No.  The idea in England then was that his message was, if anything, too mild.  “If he means to be President of the whole Union,” England said, “he must come out with something stronger than that.”  Then came Mr. Seward’s speech, which was, in truth, weak enough.  Mr. Seward had ran Mr. Lincoln very hard for the President’s chair on the Republican interest, and was, most unfortunately, as I think, made Secretary of State by Mr. Lincoln, or by his party.  The Secretary of State holds the highest office in the United States government under the President.