Nothing During All This Time Astonished Me So Much As The Estimation In Which Mr. Seward Was Then Held By His Own Party.

It is, perhaps, the worst defect in the constitution of the States, that no incapacity on the part of a minister, no amount of condemnation expressed against him by the people or by Congress, can put him out of office during the term of the existing Presidency.

The President can dismiss him; but it generally happens that the President is brought in on a "platform" which has already nominated for him his cabinet as thoroughly as they have nominated him. Mr. Seward ran Mr. Lincoln very hard for the position of candidate for the Presidency on the Republican interest. On the second voting of the Republican delegates at the Convention at Chicago, Mr. Seward polled 184 to Mr. Lincoln's 181. But as a clear half of the total number of votes was necessary - that is, 233 out of 465 - there was necessarily a third polling, and Mr. Lincoln won the day. On that occasion Mr. Chase and Mr. Cameron, both of whom became members of Mr. Lincoln's cabinet, were also candidates for the White House on the Republican side. I mention this here to show that though the President can in fact dismiss his ministers, he is in a great manner bound to them, and that a minister in Mr. Seward's position is hardly to be dismissed. But from the 1st of November, 1861, till the day on which I left the States, I do not think that I heard a good word spoken of Mr. Seward as a minister, even by one of his own party. The Radical or Abolitionist Republicans all abused him. The Conservative or Anti- abolition Republicans, to whose party he would consider himself as belonging, spoke of him as a mistake. He had been prominent as Senator from New York, and had been Governor of the State of New York, but had none of the aptitudes of a statesman. 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 of every American traveler before we let him on board, and be stopped in our work if we take anybody on one side whose journeyings may be conceived by the other side to be to them prejudicial! Not on such terms will Englishmen be willing to spread civilization across the ocean! I do not pretend to understand Wheaton and Phillimore, or even to have read a single word of any international law. I have refused to read any such, knowing that it would only confuse and mislead me. But I have my common sense to guide me. Two men living in one street, quarrel and shy brickbats at each other, and make the whole street very uncomfortable. Not only is no one to interfere with them, but they are to have the privilege of deciding that their brickbats have the right of way, rather than the ordinary intercourse of the neighborhood!

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