mortal, redeem the pledges that have been given for him. He has received in advance, as a small instalment of public admiration, the title of "the Young Napoleon." From this we gather that, according to popular belief in America, Napoleon was solely remarkable as a soldier for making reviews the most serious business of his army, for complimenting his subordinates on their blunders and disasters, and for spending months in presence of his enemy, in forming a plan of campaign which he never ventured to execute. It is this singular way of estimating events and men that renders it so easy to maintain a position as a celebrity in America. The nation confers its fame as, according to the cynic, people give their gratitude-from a lively sense of favours to come. The prospect of taking up these heavy bills on the events of the future would appal most untried men. But luckily General M'Clellan, who is a great man for what he is going to do, has before him the reassuring example of Commander Wilkes, who is a great man for what he has already done. There are many other circumstances to soothe and comfort the future hero. General Jackson and General Scott are among the greatest commanders the world has ever seen. The battles of somebody's Bluff and somebody else's Ferry are the most important actions that ever were fought, as the victors of Waterloo, Inkermann, and Solferino are bound to admit. Bunker's Hill was a great victory. All American history is written to prove, not that Americans have performed great actions, but that the actions were great because they were performed by Americans. Let him who doubts it refer to some history of modern America written by a native, and he will be speedily satisfied that no foreigner would ever willingly undertake the dreary task of wading through the voluminous records, the grand object of which is to render trivialities important, and nobodies illustrious. All timorous candidates

for celebrity may learn from these chronicles that no American need think himself too insignificant to figure in the annals of his country. The materials for history now in course of preparation, in speeches and newspapers, are equally authentic, and much more entertaining. The bulletins and telegrams are frequently as comic as anything in Punch. The sporting enterprises of Mr Briggs are not more amusing than the military exhibitions of Jonathan. And the clever creation of Dickens-Mr Jefferson Brickwho has been accepted as a caricature, proves to be a faithful and even flattering portrait of that most indefatigable of modern American fictionists, the War Correspondent.

We admit that there is a serious and even tragic side to the aspect of American affairs, but it is not what commonly passes for such. It is not in the dissolution of a system that had become rotten and offensive while yet it preserved the appearance of life-not in the parades which Americans mistake for campaigns, nor the scuffles which they call great battles: it is in the fiendish spirit in which the contest is carried on on the part of the North-a spirit without example in modern conflicts, and to find a parallel for which we must go back to the time when Louis XIV. affixed an everlasting stain to his name by ravaging the Palatinate, or when the Spaniards under Alva so richly earned the curses of the Dutch by turning a prosperous territory into a frightful desert. But the Spaniards showed at least that, while doing the work of fiends, they had the courage of men. Not so these Northern destroyers, who, while they launch nothing but big words against the armies of the South, take advantage of their command of the sea to blot out of the map of the world those Southern harbours which were meant for the benefit, not of the South only, but of mankind. The Stone Fleet, which is supposed already to have done its diabolical

could not, in the interests of mankind, permit it, only shows more forcibly the nature of an act which is so villanous as to forbid reprisal, and the perfect warrant that the Powers who guard civilisation possess to interfere in the name of mankind in this envenomed struggle. Imagine a war between France and England conducted on such a principle on the one side the channels of the Clyde and the Mersey, on the other, those of the Seine and Garonne, choked to gratify an insane and insatiate spirit of revenge; while the inflictors of these deadly injuries exulted in the facts that Glasgow and Liverpool, Rouen and Bordeaux, were to be destroyed by "a silent blight, falling on them as though out of the night-deadly, inevitable!" Would not the whole world be justified in raising its universal voice against such mad vindictiveness? Let the apologists of the North, whether of the Bright or the Tom Brown school (if there be such schools), read the New York Times, and then say whether, as professed humanitarians, they wish any longer to identify themselves with the savage Abolitionists or the frenzied Unionists of the North. And if, naturally doubtful whether in this age of the world men are indeed relapsing into barbarism, they wish further to ascertain what the spirit is in which the war is waged, let them ask the next ardent Northern American whom they meet, whether, if the Union is only to be maintained by the ruin and desolation of the South, he would wish the struggle to proceed? They will be surprised to hear the calm, cool, highly civilised gentleman at their side testifying to the extent of his fanatic devotion to Abolition or to the Union, by a reply that would disgrace the savages of Central Africa; and we advise these enthusiasts to deliberate before they become known as the abettors of those who have devised the commission

of the abomination of desolation. That Stone Fleet ought to sink the Northern cause. *

Both our own and the French press have been profuse of compliments to the British public on the self-restraint which it exercised on receiving the news of the outrage on the Trent. There is, undoubtedly, matter for pride and congratulation in the unanimity with which jealousy has been expressed for the honour of our flag, indignation at the ruffianly insult, and inflexible determination to have due reparation. But we do not feel equally proud of remembering the doubts at first expressed on so clear a case; still less do we see any reason to rejoice in the hypothetical concessions to the adversary with which a simple matter has been perplexed. There was extraordinary readiness to grant that the exercise of the right of search was perfectly admissible, and that had the ship been taken into port to be adjudicated on by a prize-court, we should have had no reason to complain. These concessions have been granted, we presume, in deference to that bastard kind of generosity, so fashionable in public affairs, so unpopular in private business, of furnishing your adversary with every possible advantage. With the view, apparently, of further muddling what was in itself too clear to be mistaken, international law has been rummaged for precedents. We consider that the concessions and the appeals to authority were alike unnecessary. Let Templars who wish to air their learning write as much as they like of Vattel and Puffendorff, but we sincerely hope that our Government has not hampered its demands with any futile admissions, the only effect of which can be to raise grounds of discussion. International law, like any other law, has its basis and origin in common sense, the light of which alone is sufficient to interpret so plain a case. That a

belligerent should stop the vessels of a neutral power on the highway of the ocean, is in itself a privilege so obnoxious that it needs necessity to excuse, and clear boundaries to restrict, it. Accordingly, the principle which sanctions the exercise of this right is clear and unmistakable, and it is one which England, in the days of her unquestioned naval supremacy, and her fullest assumption of power, never departed from. To be liable to capture, a vessel must not merely contain supplies that would be useful to the enemy, but must be intercepted under circumstances which render it probable that they were intended for the enemy's use. Whether or not such was their destination, is for the Admiralty Court to decide. And the right of search is necessarily conceded in order that the character of doubtful vessels may be ascertained. The only case, then, in which the right of search is admissible is that of neutral vessels whose character is doubtful, and whose destination is suspicious. And the only case for capture is when the destination is suspicious and the cargo or contents contraband. The Trent was a well-known mail-steamer, proceeding on her ordinary errand between neutral ports, and her course was not towards, but away from, the coast of America. Neither her character nor her destination was doubtful. We say, then, that not only had the Americans no right to capture her though she had been crammed from stem to stern with munitions of war, but they had no right even to search her. Yet we, a maritime people, whose very existence depends on the sacredness of our flag, have within this month, over and over again, gratuitously admitted, through our press, that our mail-steamers may be stopped, overhauled, and taken into port as prizes by every insolent agent of a petty neutral that happens to be a belligerent. It would follow, from the doctrine thus laid down, that one of our hired transports, laden with guns and ammunition for the

batteries of Jamaica, might be taken into New York, when the kind of law that would be brought into operation may be divined from the late speech of the Secretary of the American navy. Again, suppose a British man-of-war had appeared in sight when the Americans were boarding the Trent. If the right of search and of capture be, as they have been, conceded, then the presence of our man-of-war could not modify the right, and a British captain must submit to see a British mailsteamer carried off from under his guns. We should not envy the officer who would permit such an act, and we do not believe that there is a commander in the service who would not have been prompt to prevent it. Nevertheless, the tone of our press shows that there may be sensible and intelligent, yet morbidly conscientious, men in the world, who would, in such a case, be terribly embarrassed by the double sense that they might be disgraced if they did not interfere, yet disowned if they did.

Whatever may be thought about the necessity of our searching for authorities to warrant the act of Commander Wilkes, it was of course to be expected that the Americans would ransack the records for precedents to justify it. The result

of their researches, and of those of our own investigators, is not of any importance, further than that it shows us to have been always guided by justice in cases of the capture of neutrals. But had it been otherwise-had there been fifty such precedents against us-they ought not to have availed. That a former generation had overridden the rights of others, would be no reason why we should allow our rights to be overridden, any more than the fact that our grandfathers pulled the noses of those with whom they differed would be a reason why we should allow our noses to be pulled. All nations have at one time or another claimed to be a law to themselves, and many have put the claim in practice; but if the

sins of the fathers were, in such cases, to be visited on the children, all law would be at an end, except for those immaculate people who had never transgressed. To know the right is for those who are wise; to practise it, for those who are just; and to uphold it, for those who are strong. We wish to think ourselves wise and just, and we know ourselves strong, and our business is to stand for the right, whether our own or another's, leaving it to the foolish and the weak to be the slaves of bad precedent.

It would appear that our principles of international law, having long lain by, were at the bottom of the drawer, and in bringing them to light we have pulled out a vast quantity of useless matters, cases, precedents, and irrelevant questions along with them. Whether the Americans choose to stultify themselves by calling the Commissioners rebels in one breath, and ambassadors in the next-whether ambassadors are contraband of war-whether the act of the Americans is contrary to their previous interpretation of the rights of neutrals-what was done in 1812-what was done in 1856-whether the case of Lucien Bonaparte or of Laurens is most in point-are matters which serve very well to allay the cravings of an expectant public, but which can only overload the case if seriously imported into the argument. Of all these, however, it may be easily winnowed; but if a less manageable difficulty should arise, it will probably spring from our own unfortunate admissions. What use may be made of these to evade the real question, if our Foreign Minister has been as hasty as our press in making them, may be easily seen. Americans have not been slow to assert, both here and in their own country, that, if the right of capture be admitted, not only was it right to take the Commissioners without the vessel, but that it was even an indulgence to let the vessel go free. And to this proposition we thoroughly assent. The

right to take the vessel includes the right to take any part of what the vessel contained. Grant that, the Americans had a right to take the Commissioners to New York at all, and what matters it, even as a point of form, whether they were taken in the Trent or the San Jacinto? To this it has been replied, that the whole question turns upon that point, and that what we complain of is, that the American captain had no right to decide for himself, upon a matter which should have been left to the decision of the proper court. But this is merely an attempt to blunder out of a blunder. The American captain did not decide any point whatever by taking his captives to America in his own ship, any more than if he had taken them thither in the Trent. either case it would not rest with him to determine what should be done with them. We do not suppose that the British nation is ready to go to war because the Trent was not taken; but we do suppose that the British nation is ready to go to war to resist the claim of the Americans to meddle at all with either the Trent or her passengers, and to violate the protection of our flag. And we sincerely hope that the demands of the Ministry have rightly interpreted the feeling of the people.

In

But while all England is stirred with indignation like one manwhile the only alternatives we think of are restitution or war, our naval squadrons are concentrating, and our troops already traverse the sea-the inhabitants of New York and Boston are entertaining the immediate author of all this tumult in the most pleasant and convivial manner. While we have been growing more and more anxious to forget our first too-indulgent admissions, our friends on the other side are casting doubt to the winds, and getting more and more confident and hilarious. They have settled that Great Britain will not trouble herself. Great Britain, say they, does not mind having her flag insulted. That being the case,