duties of neutrals, but to the legal and moral obligations Ch. XVIII which the people of the revolted States owed to the Union. The Confederates were "disloyal citizens," "insurgents," "rebels;" to receive them into neutral ports was to harbour rebels; to sell them guns and ammunition, or even to send them calicoes or French brandy, was to furnish supplies to rebels; to trade with blockaded ports was to assist rebellion. Rebels and disloyal they unquestionably and avowedly were, since they were in arms, not merely to subvert the Government under which they lived, but to make themselves independent of it; and he who does this carries rebellion and disloyalty to the extreme. But in the view of the Governments of Europe these rebellious and disloyal communities were merely large masses of people engaged in war, and both reason and usage justified those Governments in so regarding them. The Government of the United States was not bound to treat its revolted citizens as belligerents, but it was bound by its own history, by usage, and by reason, to know and acknowledge that they were belligerents, and that only, to Great Britain, to France, to the Netherlands, to Brazil, to Spain. And this was what it could never persuade itself to do.

It will have been observed also that the rights of war were asserted and enforced, with somewhat more than usual rigour, by a nation which has commonly been the advocate and champion of the interests of peace. American precedents in this war have carried belligerent rights a step or two further than they were carried even by Lord Stowell. It is by the United States that the doctrine of continuous voyages has been applied to the transportation of contraband, and to breaches of blockade. It is the Government of the United States which has asserted, rightly or wrongly, the claim of a belligerent to capture a neutral vessel conveying a diplomatic agent of the enemy from one

Ch. XVIII. neutral port to another. It is by the United States that the latest example has been afforded of the blockade of an immense range of sea-coast-a blockade rigorous and protracted, yet loose and imperfect, at least in its earlier stages. And, as if this were not enough, we have seen it made matter of complaint against a neutral Government, by the representative of the United States, that the enforcement of the blockade was left entirely to the vigilance of the belligerent, and that blockade-running was not prohibited by municipal law.

I do not recall these facts in order to throw blame on the American Government, but because they show how the point of view from which a State regards questions of international right and expediency may be affected by the situation in which it is placed, and how rapidly even cherished opinions may give way before a great and violent change of circumstances. The history of International Law is full of such variations and inconsistencies. We ourselves are not clear from them. Among the complaints urged by Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams there are some which seem but reproductions of those addressed by Lord Stormont and Sir Joseph Yorke to the French and Dutch Governments during the War of American Independence. And it would be easy to draw an effective contrast between the severity with which Great Britain formerly enforced the rights of belligerents, and the warmth with which she lately asserted the rights of neutrals.

It would argue a great want of candour and generosity, did we not unreservedly admit that there is no situation more painful and irritating than that of a people struggling with a great and formidable revolt. When foreign conquest hews away a province, it is a heavy misfortune, but it is the fortune of war. But the bitterness of a family quarrel, pushed to the last extremity and tearing sinew and fibre asunder, rouses the passions more effectually, and excites intenser

resentment and an acuter sense of wrong. The people of the States which adhered to the Union felt that they were fighting not for a province, or for half-a-dozen provinces, but for the grandeur, the security, the very existence of their country, for the many present advantages, and the almost illimitable expectations, which were the birthright of every American citizen. I wrote these words during the first year of the war; I write them over again now. We may try and we ought, if we would be just to the Americans-to imagine their situation our own, and realize the feelings it would inspire. But to do this completely is beyond the power of any one: we cannot do it, try as we will. An almost unbounded allowance is to be made for people surrounded by circumstances so likely to make them over-sensitive, impatient, and exacting. But this does not make unreasonable pretensions just; and it does not warrant or excuse the revival, in a more extravagant form, after five years of profound peace, of complaints and demands which were unjust when originally urged during the strife and fever of the

war.

Is it a just inference that general rules of international conduct are practically useless, being so liable as we see they are to be disturbed and shaken by transitory causes, to be trampled underfoot in the heat of passion, or disregarded at the solicitation of temporary interest? No; the conclusion is the other way. General rules are the only security we have against a perpetual conflict of opposing interests; the only security that every question, as it arises, shall not be decided according to the will of the most powerful or the most eager of the parties concerned, and that the solution which on the whole is most for the advantage of all nations shall prevail over that which happens at the time to be most for the advantage of any one particular nation. And we see that they really effect that object to a great degree;

Ch. XVIII.

Ch. XVIII. that they really furnish a common standard for the

adjustment of disputes, which is useful, though the application of it may be and often is vehemently contested; and that after every transient disturbance they regain their force. In every one of the controversies which we have reviewed the litigants had much common ground: a general principle was admitted, and the quarrel was about the limits and application of the principle: the field of dispute is thus conveniently narrowed, and the number of disputes greatly diminished. The protection of neutral trade in war against the encroachments of rude force, and of the sovereign rights of the lesser Powers against the greater, is ordinarily due to general rules, and to the interest which nations generally have in sustaining them. It is of the highest consequence, therefore, that such rules should be steadily asserted and firmly defended; and it is for the advantage of the world that there should always be Powers able and willing to assert and defend them.

The judgment to be passed on the conduct of Great Britain depends on the answers which may be given to two plain and simple questions. Was her Government right in resolving to be neutral? Was its neutrality sincere in intention, and enforced with reasonable care? On the first of these there is really little room for difference of opinion. As to the second, the reader, who has patiently travelled through this history, will decide for himself whether it be not, as I think it is, that of an honest neutrality, steadily and on the whole efficiently maintained, under circumstances of no common difficulty.

The difficulties, such as they were, with which the Government of Great Britain had to contend, lie for the most part on the surface of this narrative, and call for no particular explanation. But I may be permitted to say, in conclusion, that the peace and mutual regard of these two countries appears to be too often endangered

by the very circumstances which knit them so closely Ch. XVIII. together. They are so nearly allied by blood, by language, and by a common literature-their habits of political thought and action, though differing in many ways, are so much alike-their intercourse is so constant, that any trivial cause of offence between them is apt to be magnified, and every trait of unfriendliness to be resented as coming from those who are―

"A little more than kin, and less than kind.”

But they are also free countries, and full of political activity accustomed to freedom of speech, they are free-spoken; and opinion expresses itself in each of them with little restraint and little regard to remote consequences. From several causes, on which I need not dwell, this is the case in America more than it is the case in England. Yet Americans are at the same time far more keenly sensitive to what we say of them than we are to what they say of us. In truth, it is not too much to affirm that, did the annals of our Parliament reflect in this respect those of Congress, and did public speakers and writers in England indulge in the same freedoms as they do in America, there would be a rancour between the two countries which would make the preservation of peace well nigh impossible. During the civil war the ample license of expression which all men enjoy in England caused, I fear, some pain and irritation in the United States; for feelings always sensitive become morbidly acute in the heated atmosphere of civil war. By many persons in England the cause of the Union was regarded with no friendly eye, and the extent of this sentiment was grossly and inexcusably exaggerated in America. These exaggerations are still current, and these feelings have not yet ceased to rankle. I know not whether it is chimerical to hope that we may learn in time to be more considerate towards one another. But this at any rate is clear, that the public responsibilities of nations are