across her bows to bring her to. Then two officers and twenty men, more or less, put off from the San Jacinto, boarded the Trent, and, after a search, took out Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell and their two secretaries, and, by force, against the protest of the Trent's officers, bore them to their vessel. These rebel emissaries Captain Wilkes brought to the United States, and they were lodged in Fort Warren.

The excitement which this affair produced in both countries was intense, and but little favorable to its calm consideration. It was unquestionably a doubtful proceeding, and cool British blood came up to a boiling heat wherever in England or her provinces the intelligence of the affair was published. The news found the loyal people of America smarting under a sense of the injustice of the relation which England had assumed toward their struggle, and sensitive to the insults which their people had received from the British press and public. America came to care less for England afterward; but then she was sensitive in every fiber to her opinion, her lack of sympathy, and her covert aid to the rebellion. To the American public the news of this capture was most grateful. They felt that whatever the laws of nations might be-and in these they were but little versed-it was morally right that these men should be in their power, and that it was morally wrong that any other power should have our traitors under its protection. So they greeted the event with huzzas, and made a hero of the impulsive Captain Wilkes, who, though a most loyal and excellent person, was possessed by a zeal that sometimes surpassed his discretion.

The effect of this capture was, of course, foreseen by the government; and on the thirtieth of November Mr. Seward communicated to Mr. Adams, our minister in England, a statement of the facts, with the assurance that Captain Wilkes had acted without any instructions from the government, and that our government was prepared to discuss the matter in a friendly spirit, so soon as the position of the British government should be made known. Earl Russell wrote under the same date to Lord Lyons, rehearsing his understanding of the

facts of the case, and saying that his government was "willing to believe that the naval officer who committed the aggression was not acting in compliance with any authority from his government," because 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." The minister expressed the hope that the United States would, of its own motion, release the commissioners, and make an apology.

This was a very sensible and neighborly dispatch, but Earl Russell seems to have been subjected afterward to a pressure that changed his feelings and sharpened his policy, for, in a subsequent note, he transformed his polite dispatch into an insulting ultimatum.. Lord Lyons was directed to wait seven days after having made his demand for reparation; and then, in case no answer should be given, or any other answer should be given than a full compliance with the terms of the demand, he should pack up the archives of the legation, and return to London, bringing his archives with him. Usually an ultimatum comes at the end of a long series of negotiations—after all the resources of diplomacy are exhausted-after there is plainly seen to be a warlike, or unreasonable, or contumacious spirit on the part of the power from which redress is sought. Earl Russell gave Mr. Lincoln his ultimatum at the start. It was an insult—a threat. It was uttered to gratify the warlike feeling of the British people. There is no question that they desired war; and when the British people are mentioned in this connection, those are meant who, in print and speech, represent them and assume to speak for them. War with America was looked upon in England as probable. Measures were taken to prepare for it. Indeed, many of the London journals regarded war as inevitable; and when the peaceful nature of Mr. Seward's first dispatches were known, the Morning Post hastened to publish in large type an official contradiction of the news. "The war will be terrible," said the London journals. "It will begin by a recognition of the South, by the alliance of the South, by the assured triumph

of the South." That was the precise point. War was wanted by the people, that their cherished desire for the disruption of the Republic might be fulfilled; and they were disappointed when they found that even an impertinent ultimatum could not bring it.

If British statesmen sympathized with these views and feelings, and some of them did,-it showed how poorly informed they were; for there was never anything in the difficulty, from the first, to give either government alarm. The British people found that there was a government at Washington,— calm, dignified and intelligent, not under the control of the mob at all, and showing, in the cool independence of its action, its entire freedom from the misdirected passions of the people. Only in the early approval of the Secretary of the Navy and of the lower House of Congress, awarded to Captain Wilkes, was there anything to give the British government cause of alarm, or ground of serious complaint; and the news of these ill-advised indorsements reached England after the tempest of passion had been spent.

On the twenty-sixth of December Mr. Seward addressed a note to Lord Lyons, in which he elaborately discussed all the questions growing out of the case. The paper was one of great moderation, and consummate ability-indeed, one of the finest to which he ever gave utterance. It was a profound lesson in the law of nations, which could not be read without benefit by statesmen everywhere. By it the British government learned that there were two sides to the case, and that there was something to be said upon the side of Captain Wilkes; for in it he argued most ingeniously, if not in all instances decisively, that Messrs. Mason and Slidell and their dispatches were contraband of war, that Captain Wilkes might lawfully stop and search the Trent for contraband persons and dispatches, and that he had the right to capture the persons presumed to have contraband dispatches. He did not, however, exercise the right of capture in the manner allowed and recognized by the laws of nations, as understood and practically entertained by the American government. "If I decide this

case in favor of my own government," said Mr. Seward, "I must disavow its most cherished principles, and reverse and forever abandon its essential policy. If I maintain those principles and adhere to that policy, I must surrender the case itself." He therefore declared that the persons held in military custody in Fort Warren would be "cheerfully liberated." Mr. Seward could not forbear to say that, if the safety of the Union required their detention, they would have been detained; to draw a contrast between the action of our government and that of Great Britain under similar circumstances; and to indulge in the irony that "the claim of the British government is not made in a discourteous manner."

Earl Russell was satisfied with the "reparation." The prisoners were released, peace between the two nations was kept, the war feeling subsided, disunion sympathizers all over Europe were disgusted with Mr. Seward's pusillanimity, and at the South there was no attempt to disguise the disappointment felt at the result. The hopes excited in the South by the difficulty are well expressed in the language of Pollard's "History of the First Year of the War," which says: "Providence was declared to be in our favor; the incident of the Trent was looked upon almost as a special dispensation; and it was said in fond imagination that on its deck and in the trough of the weltering Atlantic the key of the blockade had at last been lost." The same author continues: "The surrender was an exhibition of meanness and cowardice unparalleled in the political history of the civilized world." Patriots may well be content with a decision which brought grief to their enemies everywhere, and raised the whole nation in the respect of Christendom.

On the second day of December, Congress met in regular session, and on the following day Mr. Lincoln sent in his annual message. The message opened with an allusion to the attitude of foreign governments, and a statement of the fact that, should those governments be controlled only by material considerations, they would find that the quickest and best way out of the embarrassments, of commerce consequent upon the

American difficulties, would be rather through the maintenance, than the destruction, of the Union. It was undoubtedly with reference to the excitement then existing concerning the Trent affair that he penned the sentence: "Since, however, it is apparent that here, as in every other state, foreign dangers necessarily attend domestic difficulties, I recommend that adequate and ample measures be adopted for maintaining the public defenses on every side."

The message announced the financial measures of the government to have been very successful; recommended a re-organization of the Supreme Court, the machinery of which the country had outgrown; suggested a codification or digest of the statutes of Congress, so as to reduce the six thousand pages upon which they were printed to the measure of a volume; indicated his wish that the Court of Claims should have power to make its decisions final, with only the right of appeal on questions of law to the Supreme Court; asked for increased attention on the part of Congress to the interests of agriculture; expressed his gratification with the success of efforts for the suppression of the African slave trade; and broached a plan for colonizing such slaves as had been freed by the operation of the confiscation act, passed on the previous sixth of August, on territory to be acquired. The progress made by the federal armies, and by his own careful and moderate management of affairs in the border states, is shown in the following passage:

"The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably, expired at the assault upon Fort Sumter; and a general review of what has occurred since may not be unprofitable. What was painfully uncertain then, is much better defined and more distinct now; and the progress of events is plainly in the right direction. The insurgents confidently claimed a strong support from north of Mason and Dixon's line; and the friends of the Union were not free from apprehension on the point. This, however, was soon settled definitely, and on the right side. South of the line, noble little Delaware led off right from the first. Maryland was made to seem against the Union. Our soldiers were assaulted, bridges were burned, and railroads torn up within her limits; and we were many days, at one time, without the ability to bring a single regi