But I Have Another Complaint To Make Against The Authorities Of West Point, Which They Will Not Be Able To Answer So Easily As That Already Preferred.

What right can they have to take the very prettiest spot on the Hudson - the prettiest spot on the

Continent - one of the prettiest spots which Nature, with all her vagaries, ever formed - and shut it up from all the world for purposes of war? Would not any plain, however ugly, do for military exercises? Cannot broadsword, goose-step, and double-quick time be instilled into young hands and legs in any field of thirty, forty, or fifty acres? I wonder whether these lads appreciate the fact that they are studying fourteen hours a day amid the sweetest river, rock, and mountain scenery that the imagination can conceive. Of course it will be said, that the world at large is not excluded from West Point, that the ferry to the place is open, and that there is even a hotel there, closed against no man or woman who will consent to become a teetotaller for the period of his visit. I must admit that this is so; but still one feels that one is only admitted as a guest. I want to go and live at West Point, and why should I be prevented? The government had a right to buy it of course, but government should not buy up the prettiest spots on a country's surface. If I were an American, I should make a grievance of this; but Americans will suffer things from their government which no Englishmen would endure.

It is one of the peculiarities of West Point that everything there is in good taste. The point itself consists of a bluff of land so formed that the River Hudson is forced to run round three sides of it. It is consequently a peninsula; and as the surrounding country is mountainous on both sides of the river, it may be imagined that the site is good. The views both up and down the river are lovely, and the mountains behind break themselves so as to make the landscape perfect. But this is not all. At West Point there is much of buildings, much of military arrangement in the way of cannons, forts, and artillery yards. All these things are so contrived as to group themselves well into pictures. There is no picture of architectural grandeur; but everything stands well and where it should stand, and the eye is not hurt at any spot. I regard West Point as a delightful place, and was much gratified by the kindness I received there.

From West Point we went direct to new York.

CHAPTER XIII.

AN APOLOGY FOR THE WAR.

I think it may be received as a fact that the Northern States, taken together, sent a full tenth of their able-bodied men into the ranks of the army in the course of the summer and autumn of 1861. The South, no doubt, sent a much larger proportion; but the effect of such a drain upon the South would not be the same, because the slaves were left at home to perform the agricultural work of the country. I very much doubt whether any other nation ever made such an effort in so short a time. To a people who can do this it may well be granted that they are in earnest; and I do not think it should be lightly decided by any foreigner that they are wrong. The strong and unanimous impulse of a great people is seldom wrong. And let it be borne in mind that in this case both people may be right - the people both of North and South. Each may have been guided by a just and noble feeling, though each was brought to its present condition by bad government and dishonest statesmen.

There can be no doubt that, since the commencement of the war the American feeling against England has been very bitter. All Americans to whom I spoke on the subject admitted that it was so. I, as an Englishman, felt strongly the injustice of this feeling, and lost no opportunity of showing, or endeavoring to show, that the line of conduct pursued by England toward the States was the only line which was compatible with her own policy and just interests and also with the dignity of the States government. I heard much of the tender sympathy of Russia. Russia sent a flourishing general message, saying that she wished the North might win, and ending with some good general advice proposing peace. It was such a message as strong nations send to those which are weaker. Had England ventured on such counsel, the diplomatic paper would probably have been returned to her. It is, I think, manifest that an absolute and disinterested neutrality has been the only course which could preserve England from deserved rebuke - a neutrality on which her commercial necessity for importing cotton or exporting her own manufactures should have no effect. That our government would preserve such a neutrality I have always insisted; and I believe it has been done with a pure and strict disregard to any selfish views on the part of Great Britain. So far I think England may feel that she has done well in this matter. But I must confess that I have not been so proud of the tone of all our people at home as I have been of the decisions of our statesmen. It seems to me that some of us never tire in abusing the Americans, and calling them names for having allowed themselves to be driven into this civil war. We tell them that they are fools and idiots; we speak of their doings as though there had been some plain course by which the war might have been avoided; and we throw it in their teeth that they have no capability for war. We tell them of the debt which they are creating, and point out to them that they can never pay it.

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