CHAP. LXII.] INDIFFERENCE TO AMERICAN OPINION. 537 got accustomed to their dislike, as we have to wet summers and foggy autumns-" Views on the proc of prayer. The American government had desired the people, in view of the great national affliction that lamation of a day had befallen them, to observe a day of humiliation, and, in their several places of worship, to cast themselves on the goodness of the Almighty. On this it is said, "The republic has betaken itself to mortification on an appointed day, and has sought by mournful litanies to avert its dangers, in the hopes that a rupture may be avoided. Americans are religious even to superstition, and more than usually prone to those accesses of fanaticism which, in their effect on the human frame, approach the confines of madness and epilepsy. In their national capacity they have been sufficiently pagan. Individually they have been miserable sinners; as a people they have been the greatest, the most powerful, the most enlightened and virtuous that ever defied the universe. So they prayed yesterday. That great, powerful, unscrupulous government, which inspired uneasiness among politicians and anger among philanthropists, has not come to its end by means of those it had injured. The class to which it truckled has destroyed it. The Union has burst asunder by explosive forces generated within itself, and now the two republics stand like cliffs which of old were the same rock, but which can never again be united." Success of these in Such were the views and opinions scattered over England, and, indeed, all over Europe, in the sidious misrepre- summer and autumn of 1861. No impartial person can now peruse these publications without being shocked. The poison did its work the more effectually since it was doled out in daily doses, a sentations. 538 RETALIATIONS OF AMERICAN JOURNALISTS. [SECT. XIII. little at a time. Europe was drugged before she detected the insidious practice perpetrated upon her. Again and again the guilt not only of provoking, but of declaring war, was laid upon Lincoln. He was accused of working upon the pugnacity of an excitable people, and making them fight for a shadow. "It is only a boyish patriotism which regrets to see the great republic rent asunder." Not a measure taken by the government was suffered to pass without misrepresentation and derision. By a profligate press, powerful and persistent attempts were unceasingly made to write down American finance and ruin American credit. Threats of the joint interference of England and France in American affairs became more and more frequent as the Mexican understanding matured. Retaliation of papers. Such persistent provocation could bring no other result than retaliation. When the London newspapers protested, in the name of humanity and civilization, against the closing of Charleston Harbor by the sinking of ships laden with stone, they were answered by the New York newspapers with engravings of Sepoys blown from the mouths of cannon in India. When Earl Russell stated in the House of Lords that the principle upon which England acted was always to encourage the independence of other countries, he was asked to illustrate his declaration by beginning with Ireland. Sometimes these bitter repartees occurred in places more responsible than newspaper printing-offices. Advantage had been taken of the "Stone Blockade" to cause a singular excitement in Europe. The French and English journals denounced it in the name of modern civilization. Earl Russell stated to the Liverpool ship-owners that Lord Lyons would inform the American govern CHAP. LXII.] CAUSE OF THE CHANGE IN FOREIGN OPINION. 539 ment that England regarded it as unjustifiable even as a measure of war. In his subsequent communication with Earl Russell, Lord Lyons reported that " Mr. Seward said the best proof he could give me that the harbor of Charleston had not been rendered inaccessible was that, in spite of the sunken vessels and of the blockading squadron, a British steamer, laden with contraband of war, had just gone in.". Injured innocence nalists, With an air of injured innocence, the London journalist raised up his hands and exclaimed, What of the London jour- have I done to merit this flood of transatlantic insolence? "Like Lord Clive, we are absolutely astonished at our own moderation. We shall probably be driven to give terrible proofs of our strength." It is said by Sallust, "Neither place nor friends protect him whom his own arms have not protected." The conquest of the South-a work which, as we have seen, had been declared too great even for the power and genius of Napoleon, transcending immeasurably in difficul ty his Russian campaign, had been thoroughly completed. American battles, leaving their tens of thousands of dead and wounded on the field, had proved to be, both in hor ror and result, something more than "the mere cricketmatches of Cockneys"-something more than the "blowing up of Western steam-boats." A navy of many hundred war-ships, some of them, perhaps, not unworthy antagonists of the most powerful cuirassed ships of Europe, kept watch and ward on the American coast, from the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Rio Grande. The Republic had placed in the field, and for years had maintained, an army of more than a million of men. Dis banded without difficulty when their work was done, those soldiers would reassemble at a word. Not even the most profligate journalism could conceal the portent 540 THE TRENT AFFAIR. [SECT. XIII. ous facts that one of the greatest military monarchies of Europe had been constrained to obey an order from Washington, and that the Power which remembered Sebastopol had come into firm accord with the Power which had been insulted by the concession of belligerent rights to its domestic assailant. No longer could it be hidden that the Republic of the West must inevitably share in the determination of the destinies of Europe. Then who finally modify many of those whose sentiments we have been reading made haste to unsay what their opinions. they had said. Trent. The United States sloop of war San Jacinto was returnThe affair of the ing from the African coast (October, 1861). Her commander, Captain Wilkes, learning that the Confederate privateer Sumter was cruising in the West India Seas, sailed from the port of St. Thomas in pursuit. While at Havana he was informed that the Confederate agents, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, with their secretaries, were about to proceed to Europe in the char acter of embassadors to England and France. They had escaped from Charleston on October 12th, in a small steam-boat, running the blockade successfully on a dark and rainy night. They had taken passage from IIavana in the English mail steamer Trent. Capture of the Captain Wilkes determined to intercept them. He went out into the Bahama Channel, two Southern envoys. hundred and fifty miles from Havana, and waited for them. On the approach of the Trent he required her to heave to, and on being disregarded, fired a shell across her bow. A party was sent on board, and the four passengers seized. They were first carried to New York, and then confined at Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor. Although the conduct of Captain Wilkes met with CHAP. LXII.] EXCITEMENT PRODUCED IN ENGLAND. The President disapproves of the proceeding. 541 popular commendation, Lincoln did not ap prove of it. When the intelligence of it was first brought to him, he said, "Captain Wilkes has undoubtedly meant well in seizing these traitors, but it will never answer. This is the very thing the British captains used to do. They claimed the right of searching American ships and carrying men out of them. That was the cause of the War of 1812. Now, we can not abandon our own principles; we shall have to give these men up, and apologize for what we have done." The news reaching England produced at once a violent excitement. Without waiting to hear from the United States, the government at once made preparations for war. Troops were hurriedly prepared for transportation to Canada; a proclamation was issued prohibiting the export of arms and munitions of war; the shipment of saltpetre was forbid den. Without delay, a special queen's messenger was dispatched to Washington, directing the British minister, Lord Lyons, to demand the liberation of the prisoners, their restoration to the protection of England, and a suitable apology for the aggressions which had been committed. Excitement produced in England. Communication to the American government. "Her majesty's government, bearing in mind the friendly relations which have long existed be from the English tween Great Britain and the United States, are willing to believe that the United States naval officer who committed the aggression was not act ing in compliance with any authority of his government, or that, if he conceived himself to be so authorized, he greatly misunderstood the instructions which he had received; for the government of the United States must be fully aware that the British government could not allow such an affront to the national honor to pass without full reparation, and her majesty's government are unwil |