It Is, I Suppose, The Truth That We English Have
Insisted On This Right Of Search With More Pertinacity Than Any
Other Nation.
Now in this case of Slidell and Mason we have felt
ourselves aggrieved, and have resisted.
Luckily for us there was no
doubt of the illegality of the mode of seizure in this instance; but
who will say that if Captain Wilkes had taken the "Trent" into the
harbor of New York, in order that the matter might have been
adjudged there, England would have been satisfied? Our grievance
was, that our mail-packet was stopped on the seas while doing its
ordinary beneficent work. And our resolve is, that our mail-packets
shall not be so stopped wit impunity. As we were high handed in old
days in insisting on this right of search, it certainly behoves us
to see that we be just in our modes of proceeding. Would Captain
Wilkes have been right, according to the existing law, if he had
carried the "Trent" away to New York? If so, we ought not to be
content with having escaped from such a trouble merely through a
mistake on his part. Lord Russell says that the voyage was an
innocent voyage. That is the fact that should be established; not
only that the voyage was, in truth, innocent, but that it should not
be made out to be guilty by any international law. Of its real
innocency all thinking men must feel themselves assured. But it is
not only of the seizure that we complain, but of the search also.
An honest man is not to be bandied by a policeman while on his daily
work, lest by chance a stolen watch should be in his pocket.
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