THE COMING RECKONING.

It is not in human nature to pass over these things without a settlement. It may come soon, or it may be deferred. That the day of reckoning will come, we have no more doubt than that there is a God in the heavens. The deeds which demand it are imprinted on the memory of this generation indelibly. The impression will be transmitted to the generations to come. In God's own time and manner, whether soon or hereafter, the debt will be paid with compound interest. We but speak, as we verily believe, the common mind and common heart of this nation.

For the depredations upon American commerce committed by English piratical cruisers, we doubt not a demand will be made by our Government. That a record of every case is scrupulously made, we do know. Whether the demand for compensation will be complied with, we do not know. Whether refusal will be made a casus belli, is of no material concern. Full compensation for actual losses at sea would be but as a grain of sand in the scale of accumulated obligations. There are debts incurred which can never be paid in pounds, shillings, and pence. There are duties to be discharged which can be met only by an exhibition of the national power of the United States towards those who have forever blackened their honor in endeavoring to work our ruin; who have, with a meanness and a littleness which no words can adequately express, seized upon the hour of our domestic calamity to cripple the rivalry of our power by division, to humble our honor in the dust, that they might lord it over us, as they have always lorded it over the smaller States of Europe.

adjusted.

In no other way can this balance be

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RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.

But this is " vengeance," cry the timid and the meek. It is justice, we reply; and a justice which will meet the approval of Heaven. It will conserve the ultimate interests of humanity, and preserve the peace of the world. A nation, to make itself respected, must exact that which is just, and inflexibly hold to the right and the true. If it permit wrong after wrong to be heaped up mountain high, with no effort at redress, it sinks into contempt, becomes the prey of every power, and can never count securely on peace; while, on the other hand, such a course hazards the peace of the world.

The principle of justice is the highest recognized by writers on international law as proper between nations. This they must exemplify in practice. It is on this ground alone that we insist that the United States owes a debt to herself and to humanity, respecting the great powers of Western Europe, which she must eventually discharge. That it is a debt of the clearest justice, we shall not waste words to argue with any one who chooses to dispute it. That it will be cancelled, we have no manner of doubt.

ESSENTIAL DISCRIMINATIONS.

That we have warm friends in both England and France we all know. We honor Victor Hugo, and others of the French Academy. Looking to England, we praise God for her John Bright and her Richard Cobden in her Parliament; for her Professor Newman and Goldwin Smith, among scholars; for her Star and her News of the London press; and for hosts of others. But her Government, her aristocracy, and hordes of her merchant princes, have been our sworn enemies, to the full extent that their selfish interests and their sordid fears would permit. With the

government and the aristocracy, the interest is concentrated in their power; with the trading classes, in the pocket.

As for their opposition to slavery, so demonstrative in days that are past, it was strong, and their weapons were always burnished and ready, so long as slave products were filling their coffers with gold. But when a rebellion arose to make slavery more secure than ever, to expand its area and perpetuate its power, with honorable exceptions they wheeled promptly about in support of the war waged in its interest, and against the Government seeking its overthrow, because their profits from the institution were diminished.

POCKET PHILANTHROPY.

We shall never be at a loss hereafter for an exact standard by which to measure British philanthropy, in a cause where the interests of down-trodden millions are concerned. Its criterion is the pocket. They are for their freedom and elevation, so long as their actual bondage helps the pocket. They are for their slavery and degradation, if their freedom or their efforts to obtain it endanger the fulness of the pocket.

We would not revile our British brethren; we have friends among them, and relatives. But the great Napoleon once said, that they were but a nation of shopkeepers.

While we thus speak, we shall ever honor those, in Parliament and out of it, who have raised their voices for freedom and humanity, and for our right to manage our internal affairs in quelling a foul rebellion without their interference; resisting on the one hand class interests and governmental power at work to reach their sinister ends, and on the other that narrow spirit which measures every

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thing by the value of a farthing. For them we have an abiding affection.

OUR CAUSE MISREPRESENTED.

The class for whom we have the deepest contempt, among foreign nations, embraces those who are looked up to as guides of public opinion. The impression they have most studiously sought to make is, that ours is a mere contest for power, for territorial aggrandizement. This they reiterate in Parliament, upon the hustings, through the press. They say it so often, so boldly, and in such places, that it is not wonderful that many among the people who take their cue from them believe it.

But this is not only the basest of falsehoods, but, the worst of all is, they know it to be so; and this is true when applied to Lords Palmerston and John Russell in Parliament, and to the columns of the London Times. We presume that neither of these high dignitaries, nor the great Thunderer, will care for our individual opinion; nor we for theirs. The only importance the case has in our eyes, is, that they delight in stabbing our national life through their personal and official villany.

FOREIGN ENMITY PERSISTENT.

Let it not be said that we are stirring up bad blood. That element has already been infused into our international relations by the course of the powers of which we speak. We take the case simply as they present it. In a great contest for existence, we treat those abroad as those at home; as friends or as foes.

If it be said, that these foreign powers are more friendly now than formerly, we answer that we see no proof of it. If it be said that there is less danger of intervention now than formerly, or no danger at all, we

admit it. But it is because they see it to be useless, or that in intermeddling there may be danger. Those who have been our enemies abroad are so still. Give them an opportunity, and they would show it. Let our national capital be taken, or any extraordinary disaster to our arms occur, and all the aristocracies of Europe would shout for joy, and the echoes would be heard over the earth. Let Jefferson Davis and his Slave Confederacy be recognized by us, and their exultations would rend the very heavens.

While the great antagonistic elements of American and European civilization exist before the eyes of the world's millions, it is perfectly idle to say that the ruling powers of Europe have any other wish than our national dismemberment and total overthrow. If we are pointed to the large numbers of the middle classes, we find this to be true: the more influential among them, as a whole, would be for or against us, as their own commercial profits would be enhanced by the one course or the other; while those honorable exceptions who sympathize with our Government against rebellion, are but the exceptions, and are well-nigh powerless against those who sway the destinies of European politics.

THE POPULAR MASSES WITH US.

Turning away from the rulers to the teeming millions, and though we do not find them arrayed in court dresses and rolling by in aristocratic pomp, the view is refreshing. They have a true sympathy with popular liberty, a heart detesting oppression and a hand raised to strike it down, whether the sceptre of power be the mace of the nobleman or the whip of the slave-driver. They watch our contest with an intensity of interest surpassed only by our loyal citizens.

They have confidence in our triumph. This is seen in