It Would Not, Perhaps, Be Possible To Welcome All The
World In London As Is Done In Washington, But There Can Be No Good
Reason Why The Space Given To The Public With Us Should Not Equal
That Given In Washington.
But, so far are we from sheltering the
public, that we have made our House of Commons so small that it will
not even hold all its own members.
I had an opportunity of being present at one of their field days in
the senate, Slidell and Mason had just then been sent from Fort
Warren across to England in the Rinaldo. And here I may as well say
what further there is for me to say about those two heroes. I was
in Boston when they were taken, and all Boston was then full of
them. I was at Washington when they were surrendered, and at
Washington for a time their names were the only household words in
vogue. To me it had from the first been a matter of certainty that
England would demand the restitution of the men. I had never
attempted to argue the matter on the legal points, but I felt, as
though by instinct, that it would be so. First of all there reached
us, by telegram from Cape Race, rumors of what the press in England
was saying; rumors of a meeting in Liverpool, and rumors of the
feeling in London. And then the papers followed, and we got our
private letters. It was some days before we knew what was actually
the demand made by Lord Palmerston's cabinet; and during this time,
through the five or six days which were thus passed, it was clear to
be seen that the American feeling was undergoing a great change - or
if not the feeling, at any rate the purpose. Men now talked of
surrendering these Commissioners, as though it were a line of
conduct which Mr. Seward might find convenient; and then men went
further, and said that Mr. Seward would find any other line of
conduct very inconvenient. The newspapers, one after another, came
round. That, under all these circumstances, the States government
behaved well in the matter, no one, I think, can deny; but the
newspapers, taken as a whole, were not very consistent, and, I
think, not very dignified. They had declared with throats of brass
that these men should never be surrendered to perfidious Albion; but
when it came to be understood that in all probability they would be
so surrendered, they veered round without an excuse, and spoke of
their surrender as of a thing of course. And thus, in the course of
about a week, the whole current of men's minds was turned. For
myself, on my first arrival at Washington, I felt certain that there
would be war, and was preparing myself for a quick return to
England; but from the moment that the first whisper of England's
message reached us, and that I began to hear how it was received and
what men said about it, I knew that I need not hurry myself.
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