of the times. Even such observers, while directing the opinion of mankind towards the abolition of slavery in the countries which tolerated it, have habitually forgotten that foreign interests and agencies have co-operated with domestic ones in the planting, hedging, cherishing, and preserving of slavery, and equally so in aiding or hindering and retarding its removal. It is not unnatural, therefore, that those who, anywhere, have discussed the subject of slavery with a view to its removal have forgotten that a policy directed to that end must for a time materially affect private and public interests, reaching far beyond the direct action of the policy itself. There are two African slaveholding nations on the American continent-Brazil and the United States. The world has agreed that the practice of slavery by these two nations is, on their part, an error, perhaps I may say a crime, and has for more than half a century demanded its speedy and complete discontinuance. This impatient demand was inspired by convictions of natural justice and sentiments of universal humanity, and the United States and Brazil, in different degrees, according to natural circumstances and national sympathies, have responded. The empire of Brazil has interdicted the African slave trade, and slavery is declining there from that cause. United States prohibited the African slave trade, but, owing to peculiar circumstances, slavery recovered from the blow, and alarmingly increased. The United States have, therefore, interdicted slavery in the new and unorganized portions of the republic, with the expectation that under that interdiction slavery would slowly, perhaps imperceptibly, but certainly, decline.

The

No sooner did these measures take effect than Brazil and the United States began to experience inconveniences resulting from them. This was expected; for it is a political truism that every political reform, in proportion to its magnitude and its ultimate benefits, is immediately followed by social inconveniences, losses, and sufferings. If it were otherwise, public virtue, or virtue in the conduct of nations, would be relieved of trials such as individual virtue never escapes. It is understood that in Brazil whole provinces in which the coffee tree is relatively unproductive are being depopulated by the removal of slaves to others more favorable to its culture, the price of labor increases, and the relative profits derived from it abate. In the United States the slaveholders resist the reform, and wage civil war to overthrow the government. Brazil and the United States have not claimed from other nations any indemnity for, or even any sympathy in, these sacrifices. They would have exhibited a want not merely of magnanimity, but of common sense, if they had done so. But both of these countries have a right to expect that other nations will bear with equal magnanimity their own lesser shares of the inconveniences resulting from the measures which were adopted, in part at their own instance, and in the name of common justice and humanity. I think that this expectation has not been disappointed in the case of Brazil. I do not hear that any nation or people propose to disturb or destroy, or aid in disturbing or destroying, that empire because coffee has become relatively more scarce, and therefore more costly. All nations take cheerfully the coffee that Brazil can send them, and look elsewhere for supplies of the deficiency.

But in this country the slaveholding insurgents solemnly resolve to compel foreign nations to join them in overthrowing the government, and to guaranty boundless and endless African slavery on this continent by burning the cotton already produced, and preventing the production of more; and, strange to say, these nations are asked to entertain the question whether they shall not intervene to defeat the reform they so justly urged, at the cost of the national existence of the United States. The resistance of the

slaveholders is thus seen to be not merely treason against this country, but a war against human nature itself, and the European nations not only claim to be neutral, but they are represented as hesitating whether, under the pressure of a want of cotton, they shall not become allies in that war.

What are the reasons urged upon those governments by short-sighted politicians for such a proceeding. They are various, but none of them will bear examination? First it was said that civil war among us endangers the commerce of foreign nations, and that they have a right to practice neutrality. So, indeed, they have, if their commerce is endangered, and if pronounced neutrality will save their commerce. But no slaveholding cruiser from this country ever attacked, or even menaced, the commerce of Europe before the attitude of neutrality was adopted. Then it was said that the United States resorted to a blockade, but the blockade is an application of force allowed by the laws of nations to all belligerents. Then the blockade was represented as being imperfect; but if it had been so, it was therefore the less injurious. Then it was too rigorous, and prevented the export of cotton and the import of fabrics. Is not this the lawful object of a blockade? Then it was alleged that the closing of the cotton ports by the blockade was continued too long. We opened them to trade, and invited it; the insurgents refuse to let cotton be sent forward to market. We apply all our means and energies, confessedly greater than any nation ever before applied, to suppress insurrection and restore the freedom of our inland and foreign commerce, and we gain victory after victory, yet this does not satisfy our enemies abroad. Defeats in their eyes prove our national incapacity. Victories won in conformity with the most humane practices of war are attended with such destruction of life as to shock and confound their sensibilities. Complaints against an increase of duties on foreign merchandise, and against the rigor of our taxation, come upon us in the very same breath with representations that our engagements will never be fulfilled, and our bonds not yet matured are advised to be forced back upon our newly filled money market for sale. The same voices which are proclaiming to the world that the preservation of the Union is a task too expensive for the government denounce the revenue measures adopted to secure the accomplishment of that task as hostile to foreign nations. first the government was considered as unfaithful to humanity in not proclaiming emancipation, and when it appeared that slavery, by being thus forced into the contest, must suffer, and perhaps perish in the conflict, then the war had become an intolerable propagandism of emancipation by the sword.

At

I do not require you to complain, as these facts, perhaps, might warrant me in doing, that there seems a predisposition in western Europe, if not in favor of the slaveholders and their cause, at least against the Union and the cause of humanity that is now for weal or woe identified with its preservation.

I have brought this identification of the cause of humanity with that of our country thus prominently into view for the purpose of showing that the motives and the objects of those who oppose or seek to embarrass the latter, either at home or abroad, may be well understood and fairly weighed, and the moral as well as the material resources of the country may not be undervalued.

Having done this, it remains for me only to say further, that the purpose of the American government and people to maintain and preserve the Union and their Constitution remains unchanged; that the war in which they have been engaged, though it has been opposed by agencies and influences abroad which we had not foreseen, has been crowned with successes which are satisfactory to our calmer reason and judgment; that

temporary disappointment of our expectations, with our grief over losses of valuable lives, unavoidable among a humane, affectionate, Christian people, has already culminated, and it is now declining; that our arinies remaining in the field, with their appointments, excel by far all the forces which the insurgents have now, with any augmentation they can make; that, in addition to the present forces, the orders are issued, the machinery is in motion, for the immediate addition of three hundred thousand men, all of whom will come into camps with an alacrity equal to that which has heretofore been exhibited by the people; that inactivity is already giving place to new and effective exertions which will be sufficient for the termination of the war; that below these new ranks of volunteers there still remains a mass yet sedentary, and which is daily increased by immigration, which is equal to all that has been called forth, which will be prepared as a reserve, and, if necessary, will be brought up to decide the contest. Neither the government nor the country has experienced exhaustion, or even financial pressure, but in the midst of wars and campaigns the fiscal condition of both is satisfactory, and superior to that of any other government and people. We are a nation not chiefly of cotton-growers, but of farmers, manufacturers, and miners. We will induce or oblige our slaveholding citizens to supply Europe with cotton if we can. So far as we fail we fill up the deficiency promptly by sending bread and gold. We invite foreign products such as we need at prices which we can afford to pay, and we invite a premature return of all our bonds and stocks, and will promptly pay and redeem in gold, with which cotton may be bought wherever freemen can, with gold, be induced to raise it. Let the world judge whether more can be required of us. If we are not met by serious obstacles raised by foreign powers we shall speedily open all the channels of commerce, and free them from military embarrassments, and cotton, so much desired by all nations, will flow forth as freely as heretofore. We have ascertained that there are three and a half millions of bales yet remaining in the region where it was produced, though large quantities of it are yet unginned and otherwise unprepared for the market. We have instructed the military authorities to favor, so far as they can consistently with the public safety, its preparation for and despatch to the markets, where it is so much wanted; and now, notwithstanding the obstructions which have necessarily attended the re-establishment of the federal authority in that region against watchful and desperate public enemies, in whose hands the suppression of the cotton trade by fire and force is a lever with which they expect to raise up allies throughout Europe, that trade has already begun to revive, and we are assured by our civil and military agents that it may be expected to increase fast enough to relieve the painful anxieties expressed to us by friendly nations. The President has given respectful consideration to the desire informally expressed to me by the governments of Great Britain and France for some further relaxations of the blockade in favor of that trade. They are not rejected, but are yet held under consideration, with a view to ascertain more satisfactorily whether they are really necessary, and whether they can be adopted without such serious detriment to our military operations as would render them injurious rather than beneficial to the interest of all concerned. An answer will be seasonably given, which will leave foreign powers in no uncertainty about our course. Such are the expectations of this government. They involve a continued reliance upon the practice of justice and respect of our sovereignty by foreign powers. It is not necessary for me to say that if this reliance fails, this civil war will, without our fault, become a war of continents-a war of the world; and whatever else may revive, the cotton trade built upon slave labor in this country will be

irredeemably wrecked in the abrupt cessation of human bondage within the territories of the United States.

SIR: I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 18th of July, (No. 191.) It is accompanied by a note which was addressed to you by Earl Russell, of the following effect, namely:

It brings into view the 6th article of the new treaty for the suppression of the African slave trade, which provides that British or American merchant vessels may be lawfully detained, and sent or brought before the mixed courts of justice, if in their equipment there should be found any of the things specified in that article as usually forming part of the equipment of slave vessels.

Earl Russell then specifies several suspicious circumstances, which are mentioned in the treaty as being sufficient to warrant seizure, such as a quantity of water larger than is required by a merchant vessel, an extraordinary supply of provisions, a boiler or other cooking apparatus of an unusual size, or capable of being made larger than requisite for the use of merchantmen.

Earl Russell then calls attention to the 7th article of the same treaty, which provides that if any of the things specified in the said 6th article shall be found on board a vessel that may have been detained, or if any of these things shall be found to have been on board during the voyage on which she was captured, no compensation for losses or expenses consequent upon the detention of such vessel shall in any case be granted, even though she should not be condemned by the mixed court of justice.

Earl Russell then observes that some of the things specified in article 6, particularly unusual supplies of water and provisions and a large cooking apparatus, may be found on board of vessels legally employed on the African coast, and therefore, he remarks, it becomes important that such vessels should not be put to any unnecessary inconvenience or detention. In this view he supposes that an American vessel, engaged in carrying liberated Africans to Liberia or to any other port of Africa, may on her voyage to or from the African coast fall in with a British cruiser, and unless the commander of the British vessel were assured that the vessel was engaged on a legal voyage she might suffer detention. So, on the other hand, his lordship supposes that a British vessel, engaged in transporting or fitted for the conveyance of liberated Africans from Sierra Leone or from St. Helena to another British colony, might suffer detention at the hands of the commander of an American cruiser, unless the commander were assured of the legality of the voyage of the British ship.

His lordship, pursuing the subject, next states that, with a view to provide for the exemption from seizure or detention of vessels legally fitted for the conveyance of Africans to or from the African coast, it is the intention of her Majesty's government to cause British vessels so employed to be provided with a passport or safe conduct, to be signed by one of her Majesty's secretaries, or by the governor of the British colony from which such vessel

may have sailed, and that such passport or safe conduct will state the name, tonnage, and description of the vessel, and the name of the commander, and the purpose of the voyage, and will be good only for the voyage on which the vessel will be chartered.

His lordship finally proposes that this government shall furnish to American vessels which may be legally employed on the African coast, and whose equipment may render them liable to seizure and detention under the terms of the treaty, a similar passport or safe conduct, signed by a competent United States authority, and Earl Russell, on the part of her Majesty's government, guarantees that British cruisers shall not molest American vessels provided with such passports, and asks a similar guarantee to be given by this government to British vessels provided by their own government with passports in the manner before stated.

The propositions have been submitted to the President of the United States. You are authorized to inform Earl Russell that they are entirely and cheerfully accepted by this government. Passports or safe conducts in the cases specified will, until further notice, be signed only by the Secretary of State of the United States. Instructions proper for executing this new arrangement will be immediately given to the naval commanders concerned therein.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of despatches from the department numbered from 291 to 302, both inclusive; also, the two despatches numbered 281 and 287, heretofore noted as missing; also, two circulars, one in writing, enclosing a copy of the emancipation bill, as proposed in the message of the President, the other printed, containing direc tions to the legation in regard to charges for passports. And lastly, three printed copies of the treaty lately executed for the more effectual suppression of the slave trade.

This is the closing week of the session of parliament. Ministers indulged in the valedictory whitebait dinner yesterday, and nothing remains to be done but to perfect the details of the bill intended to give temporary relief to the operatives of the manufacturing districts during the continuance of the difficulty about cotton. It is announced that the Queen, after a brief sojourn in Scotland, is to visit the continent and spend the autumn in seclusion in Germany. So that, to all outward appearances, no expectation is entertained of the happening of any public event to vary the customary monotony of the amusements of the vacation. The speech of Sir George Cornwall Lewis, in the course of a debate last week about Canada, seemed to indicate a state of security against difficulty in America which, if well founded, would leave us nothing to desire. According to this representation, I should feel justified in making my calculations upon a considerable period of repose.

On the other hand, I cannot fail to perceive the progressive consolidation of the popular prejudice against America under the operations of the continuous denunciations of the London Times. The sympathies of the higher classes are decidedly enlisted in the struggle, not from any particular affec