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! If that be national law,
national law must be changed. It might do for some centuries back,
but it cannot do now. Up to this period my sympathies had been
with the North. I thought, and still think, that the North had no
alternative, that the war had been forced upon them, and that they
had gone about their work with patriotic energy. But this stopping
of an English mail steamer was too much for me.
What will they do in England? was now the question. But for any
knowledge as to that I had to wait till I reached Washington.
CHAPTER XVII.
CAMBRIDGE AND LOWELL.
The two places of most general interest in the vicinity of Boston
are Cambridge and Lowell. Cambridge is to Massachusetts, and, I
may almost say, is to all the Northern States, what Cambridge and
Oxford are to England. It is the seat of the university which
gives the highest education to be attained by the highest classes
in that country.
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