even before there was as yet a war, the Northern men had taught themselves to expect what they called British sympathy, meaning British encouragement.  They regarded, and properly regarded, the action of the South as a rebellion, and said among themselves that so staid and conservative a nation as Great Britain would surely countenance them in quelling rebels.  If not, should it come to pass that Great Britain should show no such countenance and sympathy for Northern law, if Great Britain did not respond to her friend as she was expected to respond, then it would appear that cotton was king, at least in British eyes.  The war did come, and Great Britain regarded the two parties as belligerents, standing, as far as she was concerned, on equal grounds.  This it was that first gave rise to that fretful anger against England which has gone so far toward ruining the Northern cause.  We know how such passions are swelled by being ventilated, and how they are communicated from mind to mind till they become national.  Politicians—­American politicians I here mean—­have their own future careers ever before their eyes, and are driven to make capital where they can.  Hence it is that such men as Mr. Seward in the cabinet, and Mr. Everett out of it, can reconcile it to themselves to speak as they have done of England.  It was but the other day that Mr. Everett spoke, in one of his orations, of the hope that still existed that the flag of the United States might still float over the whole continent of North America.  What would he say of an English statesman who should speak of putting up the Union Jack on the State House in Boston?  Such words tell for the moment on the hearers, and help to gain some slight popularity; but they tell for more than a moment on those who read them and remember them.

And then came the capture of Messrs. Slidell and Mason.  I was at Boston when those men were taken out of the “Trent” by the “San Jacinto,” and brought to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.  Captain Wilkes was the officer who had made the capture, and he immediately was recognized as a hero.  He was invited to banquets and feted.  Speeches were made to him as speeches are commonly made to high officers who come home, after many perils, victorious from the wars.  His health was drunk with great applause, and thanks were voted to him by one of the Houses of Congress.  It was said that a sword was to be given to him, but I do not think that the gift was consummated.  Should it not have been a policeman’s truncheon?  Had he at the best done any thing beyond a policeman’s work?  Of Captain Wilkes no one would complain for doing policeman’s duty.  If his country were satisfied with the manner in which he did it, England, if she quarreled at all, would not quarrel with him.  It may now and again become the duty of a brave officer to do work of so low a caliber.  It is a pity that an ambitious sailor should find himself told off for so mean a task, but the world would know that