He was there, and it was a pity.  He was not so bad as Mr. Cameron, the Minister for War; that was the best his own party could say for him, even in his own State of New York.  As to the Democrats, their language respecting him was as harsh as any that I have heard used toward the Southern leaders.  He seemed to have no friends, no one who trusted him; and yet he was the President’s chief minister, and seemed to have in his own hands the power of mismanaging all foreign relations as he pleased.  But, in truth, the States of America, great as they are, and much as they have done, have not produced statesmen.  That theory of governing by the little men rather than by the great has not been found to answer, and such follies as those of Mr. Seward have been the consequence.

At Boston, and indeed elsewhere, I found that there was even then—­ at the time of the capture of these two men—­no true conception of the neutrality of England with reference to the two parties.  When any argument was made, showing that England, who had carried these messengers from the South, would undoubtedly have also carried messengers from the North, the answer always was—­“But the Southerners are all rebels.  Will England regard us who are by treaty her friend, as she does a people that is in rebellion against its own government?” That was the old story over again, and as it was a very long story, it was hardly of use to go back through all its details.  But the fact was that unless there had been such absolute neutrality—­such equality between the parties in the eyes of England—­even Captain Wilkes would not have thought of stopping the “Trent,” or the government at Washington of justifying such a proceeding.  And it must be remembered that the government at Washington had justified that proceeding.  The Secretary of the Navy had distinctly done so in his official report; and that report had been submitted to the President and published by his order.  It was because England was neutral between the North and South that Captain Wilkes claimed to have the right of seizing those two men.  It had been the President’s intention, some month or so before this affair, to send Mr. Everett and other gentlemen over to England with objects as regards the North similar to those which had caused the sending of Slidell and Mason with reference to the South.  What would Mr. Everett have thought had he been refused a passage from Dover to Calais, because the carrying of him would have been toward the South a breach of neutrality?  It would never have occurred to him that he could become subject to such stoppage.  How should we have been abused for Southern sympathies had we so acted!  We, forsooth, who carry passengers about the world, from China and Australia, round to Chili and Peru, who have the charge of the world’s passengers and letters, and as a nation incur out of our pocket annually loss of some half million of pounds sterling for the privilege of doing so, are to inquire the business