different from the Southern settlers, who came out afterwards, and were Royalists.

Talking of negroes, one of the Secretaries of State told me he had just seen an officer lately exchanged, who, when in the prisoners' exchange office at Baltimore, heard a negro who entered ask for a pass to go South; the General who gave the passes said he could not give it, he must stay; and he observed, "That is the thousandth application from these fellows I have been obliged to refuse." Mr. Myers told me he knew of many slaves in Virginia before the war who had been emancipated and gone North, but voluntarily came back to slavery.

Saw to-day a lad of eighteen, from Texas, who had been wounded at the battle of Malvern Hill on the 1st of July: leg taken off above the knee, and was nearly well already! If, as is pretty evident, the finger of God is with the Southern hosts in the wonderful successes which they have gained in so many battles, surely it is also seen in the wonderful recovery of the wounded.

The Texan says, "We achieved our independence. Santa Anna called the Government of Mexico, under which we were, 'a republic,' but he was a dictator; so now the Executive of the United States Government calls it a republican government,

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but in reality it is an oligarchy of abolitionists, and its chief is a dictator."

On the 27th of August, having an introduction to some Senators, I was allowed to go on the floor of the Senate House, which is also in the capitol of the State Senate House, upstairs. Mr. Stevens was President, a man of small, delicate figure, but of great mind. Here also business was conducted as gravely as in our House of Peers. The Rev. Dr. Early, Methodist Bishop, offered up the prayer: meeting him in the lobby, I introduced myself to him. I observed I had seen the Articles of the Church of England in the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church; he said, "Yes, but we have cut out the 17th." He told me of a negro girl having chopped off the hand of a soldier, who was forcing himself into a house where there were only ladies.

CHAPTER X.

Mr. Mason a Friend to England.-Visit to
Roanoke River, &c.

THERE are some relatives of Mr. Mason at Richmond with whom I have become acquainted; they inform me that he is descended from Colonel G. Mason, who was in the Royalist army at the battle of Worcester, after which, the cause being gone, he emigrated to America and settled in Virginia. They deny that Mr. Mason ever wrote against England as was alleged by some of the English press.

I had brushed up my diary so far when I was gratified by receiving the following letter from Mr. Mason's secretary :

February 26, 1863.

MY DEAR SIR,-In regard to Mr. Mason's ancestry, and the circumstances attending their emigration to, and settlement in America—

His first ancestor, George Mason, Esq., of Staffordshire, England, was a member of Parliament for that county; and though opposed to the policy

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of the Stuarts, was warmly attached to the Crown, to whose falling fortunes he attached himself during the wars of the Protectorate, and as a colonel of cavalry in the army of Charles Stuart, fought under his banner at the battle of Worcester. After that defeat, he emigrated to America in 1651, landed at Norfolk, Virginia, and subsequently established a plantation on the banks of the Potomac River, where he was afterwards joined by his family: from this gentleman Mr. Mason derives his descent in a direct line; his family having always remained in Virginia.

In the case of one whose antecedents are so purely and traditionally English, these genealogical facts would alone seem a sufficient refutation of a calumny as unjust as it is unnatural. But if other evidence were wanting to disprove an assertion which has its origin only in a distempered or prejudiced imagination, I need but recall to your recollection one of those rare acts of international courtesy so pre-eminently graceful that they must ever endure as the typical landmarks of an elevated and enlightened statesmanship. I allude to the restitution of Her Majesty's ship the "Resolute" to the British Government, under circumstances which are yet fresh in the recollection of all,

The "Resolute," as you are aware, while engaged in a voyage of exploration of the Arctic Seas, about the year 1856, became imbedded in the ice, and having been abandoned by her crew, remained thus ice-bound until, released by the periodical thaw, she floated off several hundred miles to the south, was discovered by a New England whaler, boarded, and brought into the harbour of New London, Connecticut. The usual claim for salvage having been filed by the claimants in a Court of Admiralty, she was duly condemned under a decree of that Court, the British Government generously relinquishing its title to the salvors; upon which a Senator from Connecticut offered a resolution in the Senate of the United States to have an American register granted her. At this stage of the proceedings, Mr. Mason, then a Senator from Virginia, came forward with a counterresolution that she should be purchased by the Government of the United States, and by that Government restored to the British navy. The resolution was unanimously adopted; and under an order of the Secretary of the Navy (embraced in the Act) the ship was thoroughly refitted, placed under the command of Commander Hartstene, United States navy, with a full complement of naval officers and men, and by him restored to her original flag and ownership.