in any quarter as to our ultimate triumph. Our deeds must speak for us, and, in order that our deeds be really telling, they must not be too hasty. This is the language necessary to hold in Europe, and I trust it will be veri fied by the event. On the 14th November, according to a notification received three days before from Count Rechberg, I proceeded to the imperial palace, and was received by the Emperor. Mr. Jones, my predecessor, had, on the same day at an earlier hour, presented his letter of recall. The Emperor received me quite alone, and, so soon as I had presented myself, I made him a short complimentary harangue, assuring him that the President, the government, and the American people desired to maintain the most friendly relations with his Majesty and the Austrian empire, and that it would be my object, so long as I occupied my present position, to do my best to cultivate kindness and good will between the two nations. He answered in a similar strain; expressed his gratification at my appointment, and assured me that there was every disposition on his part and on that of his government to cultivate the friendship of the United States, and to maintain the present agreeable international relations. After these formalities had been finished, the Emperor engaged in conversation with me. As I had made my address to him in German, he had responded in that language, and thus continued the conversation. His first question was, are you a German? I told him, no; but that I had been much in Germany in my youth, when I had acquired the language. He then added, but you are of German birth and parentage. I said, no; that I was descended of the early pilgrims of New England, and therefore of entirely English extraction. Again, I have to observe that I do not state this from egotism. The Emperor obviously did not ask the question for the sake of paying a compliment, but because he was curious, even anxious, I thought, to learn whether or no I was a German exile, returned in diplomatic character to these regions, and he seemed relieved by my reply. He then asked many questions about America, opening at once the subject of the war, and manifesting much intelligent curiosity in regard to its causes and probable results. I was glad to have so early an opportunity of conversing with his Majesty on this important subject; and from the nature of his questions I should infer that the great topic of negro slavery had never been presented to him in the light in which it is at present regarded at Washington. I said that the great cause of the war was slavery; that the seceding States had revolted, and were doing their best to destroy our national existence, because they were no longer to be allowed to extend the institution to regions where it did not exist. He almost hesitated when he expressed the opinion that after all, at the present day, the extension and perpetuation of negro slavery were hardly commendable aims for an enlightened government, in which sentiment you may suppose that I expressed my hearty concurrence. It is highly probable that the nature of our polity and the probable tendency of our history have been formerly represented to the imperial government in different colors from those in which I endeavored to depict them. So long as I have the honor to represent the United States, I shall certainly omit no occasion to convince those with whom I may converse that the extension of African slavery is not the only legitimate aim and object of a free government, and that the American republic neither intends to pursue those ends any longer nor to abdicate its place among the nations as a penalty for abstaining from that pursuit. The Emperor expressed surprise that the confederates were able to maintain so large an army as they were reported to have on foot; but I warned his Majesty that those armies were not to be regarded as having much resemblance in equipments, discipline, or the cohesive qualities, to the armies of Europe, and that a day would come when they would melt away faster than they had rolled together. On the other hand, I ventured to predict that every day would see the United States government growing stronger. We could afford to wait, and our greatest danger was in haste. He observed that he was quite aware of the strength and great resources of the government and of our superiority to the enemy, and expressed considerable confidence in the issue. I shall not weary you with any more details of my interview with the Emperor. As he manifested much interest in American affairs, and asked many questions, I was of course the principal speaker, and found myself engaged, somewhat to my surprise, in delivering a regular lecture on American politics. As the discourse, however new in the imperial palace of the Hapsburgs, would not have the charm of novelty in your ears, I forbear to add anything more. But the department may be sure that I preached sound doctrine. I say nothing to-day of Austrian politics, concerning which my predecessor has kept the government well informed up to the present time. I am quite aware that, at this moment, the pre-occupation of the United States government with its own most momentous affairs would make any disquisitions upon foreign matters, not bearing directly on our international relations, tedious and irksome. Nevertheless, as the condition of this part of Europe is so critical, and as the position of this empire offers so many curious parallels and contrasts with that of our republic, and as a complication of our own politics in the great web of intrigue now stretching over all christendom is at least possible, I shall observe the current of events carefully, and from time to time ask for the attention of the government, even at the risk of being thought tedious. One thing is very certain: The government here will be much influenced by the course of policy pursued towards the United States by the British and French governments; and I am therefore glad that, in pursuance of your instructions, I passed some time before coming to my post, informing myself at the fountainheads, in England and France, of the probable nature of that policy. I am constantly questioned on the subject by all with whom I come in contact. Should a tory government succeed the present cabinet of England I anticipate much trouble. Nothing can exceed the virulence with which the extreme conservative party regard us, nor the delight with which they look forward to our extinction as a nation. They consider such a consummation of our civil war as the most triumphant answer which could be made to their own reform party. The hatred to the English radicals is the secret of the ferocity and brutality with which the Times, the Saturday Review, and other tory organs of the press, have poured out their insults upon America ever since the war began. In the present administration and its supporters I know that we have many warm friends, warmer in their sentiments towards us than it would be safe for them in the present state of parties to avow. I have the honor to remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of Stale, Washington. No. 3.] Mr. Motley to Mr. Seward. [Extract.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: No despatches have been received from the Department of State at this legation since my last. The purpose of this brief communication is simply to express my sincere congratulations upon the able and honorable manner in which the dangers created by the Trent affair have been averted. I have not thought it a part of my duty to obtrude my reflections or my advice upon the government while this matter was pending. Even had the administration required assistance from abroad--which, as the event has proved, it did not there were not wanting able heads and hands at London and Paris to communicate everything of importance in the way of counsel or information. Nor do I desire, now that this momentous affair is so fortunately terminated, to occupy the time of the department with any reflections of my own. I will merely state, therefore, that during this anxious period of suspense-during the six weeks which have elapsed between the arrival of the news of the arrest of the commissioners and that of their liberation-[ have held, without wavering, one language in all my communications with the members of the government here, and with the representatives of foreign powers, that our government would do all that was possible, in honor and in consistency with international law, to avoid a rupture with England. I have always taken the ground that our whole history showed us to have been uniformly the champions of the rights of neutrals and of the largest liberty of the seas, and that I could not imagine, under so trivial a temptation, that we were now likely to abandon our most cherished principles, in exchange for the violent and lawless practice too often pursued by England, when belligerent, to ourselves and other powers, when neutral. I knew that the administration of our affairs was in the hands of upright and sagacious statesmen, and I constantly expressed the hope that their treatment of this untoward event would signally put to shame the unjust and venomous spirit by which the English press, with a few most honorable exceptions, has been characterized. I take pleasure in saying that the English ambassador here, Lord Bloomfield, was as unaffectedly sincere in his desire for an amicable settlement of the affair, and as magnanimous and courteous in his attitude, as the best friend of either country could desire. I may add that all my colleagues manifested the greatest anxiety that peace should be preserved, although it was very difficult for me to inspire many of them with much of my confidence that this fortunate result would be secured. In regard to the imperial government of Austria, you have already been informed of their views by the letters of Count Rechberg to his Majesty's representative at Washington, of December 18. I had one or two interviews with the minister during the interval of suspense, and took occasion to express, with much energy, my confidence in the pacific intentions of our government. Count Rechberg, while enlarging with fervor on the calamitous. results to the world of a rupture and a war between the United States and Great Britain, stated his doubts whether our government was strong enough to resist the popular pressure, or bold enough to confront the popular passon, by firmly maintaining the law, even at the risk of what might seem like concession. I told him that the Americans were a reasonable and lawabiding people; that, if they were convinced the demands of England were founded in justice and reason, and were not accompanied by menace, they would sustain their government in every honorable concession. The picture of the United States government overborne by a tumultuous, violent, uneducated, and unreasoning mob had been painted by hostile and foreign pencils, and the model did not exist in nature. So soon as the result had so amply justified the predictions I had ventured, I had another interview with Count Rechberg. The minister, in very warm language, expressed his satisfaction at the pacific termination to t's affair, and begged me to convey to the President and to yourself his most sincere congratulations and thanks for the able, temperate, courageous, and statesmanlike manner in which the government had borne itself throughout these trying circumstances. Especially he commended the concluding despatch of the Secretary of State to Lord Lyons. Lord Bloomfield, too, expressed to me his deep satisfaction that the danger of war between the two nations had been averted, and his hope that more amiable relations than ever might succeed to this mutual misunderstanding. Nearly every one of my colleagues here have expressed themselves to the same effect and in the strongest terms, and all compliment and congratulate the United States government upon the prudent and honorable course which it has adopted. These expressions have been so spontaneous and energetic that there can be no doubt of the feeling of relief which is experienced in this part of the continent by the removal of the impending danger. The reasons why the government here should deprecate a great maritime conflict between the United States and Great Britain, with its inevitable results in Europe, are too obvious to need comment. Moreover, the consequence of this affair has been to draw from the great powers strong vindications of the rights of neutrals and of the freedom of the seas, always cherished by the United States when neutral, and it is the general feeling that a victory has been gained for humanity and civilization by the issue of the Trent affair. It may be confidently asserted that there is no true friend to America nor to humanity that does not sincerely rejoice in the decision of the Presi dent. You are too well acquainted, through your able representatives in England and France, with the state of public feeling in those countries to require any allusion to it on my part. Nevertheless, as I maintain a constant private correspondence with influential persons of various parties in England, I may take the liberty of stating that the cause of our government is strengthened in public opinion by the recent events. The idea which has been so carefully planted and nurtured in England, that our government desired to force that country into a war, in order to escape from a dilemma at home and to cover our incapacity to deal with the southern insurrection— this idea, which to our minds seems like the weak delusion of a sick man's brain, has taken possession of a considerable portion of the English population. Profligate and unscrupulous writers and speakers have done their best to perpetuate the delusion, until it has become almost an article of the national creed. The conduct of the United States government in the Trent affair has, as I am assured by eminent persons in England, done much to dispel the fiction. In regard to the British public, no doubt there is a considerable and influential portion which cordially detests the United States, its institutions, its government, its people, and earnestly desires its downfall. Among this portion there is a less numerous but a noisy and ferocious faction which is anxious for a war with us, and will make the most of every pretext, as they have already done of the Trent affair, to precipitate hostilities and to throw the weight of the English nation on the side of the slave confederacy. These are not theories, but facts within my knowledge. The slaveholders have many warm partisans in England and France. On the other hand, there are many in England who do not love us, but who, for selfish reasons, would deprecate hostilities, if they can be honorably avoided. And, again, there is a large, powerful mass who warmly sympathize with our cause. The anti-slavery feeling in England is so strong that it has been necessary for the southern partisans to persuade the British public that slavery has nothing to do with the American civil war, and this ridicu lous notion has found many believers in Europe. It is gravely asserted, by many who pass in the world for reasonable beings, that the secession was brought about by southern opposition to tariffs and by the love of free trade! It is superfluous to say that the victims of this delusion see in the recognition of the slaveholders' confederacy an additional expansion for English markets, combined with the weakening of a hated rival. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. * J. LOTHROP MOTLEY. No. 4.] Mr. Motley to Mr. Seward. [Extract.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: Yesterday I had a long and interesting conversation with Count Rechberg at the foreign office. He asked me what was the latest intelligence from America. I spoke of the recent victory of the national troops near Somerset, in Kentucky-news of which, with but few details, reached us two or three days ago-observing that the movement seemed to be part of a general plan to surround and crush the insurrection on land, even as it had been already shut off from the sea by a stringent blockade along three thousand miles of coast. I intimated that the weather, rendering the roads in Virginia almost impassable at this season, would probably delay for a few weeks our operations against the main body of the confederates, now intrenched in the neighborhood of Manassas; but that the expeditions along the southern coast, the movements in the direction of Tennessee and the Mississippi valley, seemed indications of a plan to be developed before long on a large scale. We had been bringing our armies into a state of discipline, and providing ourselves with the necessary machinery to bring the war to a decisive issue when we once began to strike, and I assured the minister that I felt perfect confidence in the cabinet and commander-in-chief, the army, and the national spirit. Men, money, and munitions of war were in superabundance. If I felt any apprehension, it arose rather from the general impatience, not only in America, but in the world, that some result should be reached. I said that the impatience seemed to me most unreasonable, for, after all, six or seven months of discipline for an army of such colossal dimensions was but a very short allowance. The minister said, energetically, that this was, indeed, but a very brief space for bringing an army, even of the best raw material, into training, and that it was almost impossible that a really disciplined force could be created in so short a time. He then observed, spontaneously, that he and the Austrian government felt quite certain of the result. It was impossible, he said, that the insurrectionists could provide men enough or money enough to contend for any great length of time with the United States power. The shorter or longer |