complaint was the one that said the convention overlooked the moral wrong, did not even refer to the Alabama claims by name, and made the whole question a matter of mere dollars and cents. But any objection was good enough if it helped to defeat the convention. This was accomplished by a vote of forty-four to one.

It was a hard blow to Seward. Although he foresaw that Reverdy Johnson's negotiations would encounter much hostile criticism, he predicted success. The possibility of having to choose an arbiter by lot in case of disagreement was likely to bring about decisions inconsistent with one another, for the American appointee would decide some questions and the British appointee others. Probably he chose the convention of 1853 as a model because he hoped that, as it had already been approved, it would be less open to ob jections than any new plan. After having warded off direct European intervention, it was a worthy ambition to desire to settle the claims resulting from what was popularly known as Great Britain's indirect intervention. Although he failed, and although the terms of the treaty of Washington, concluded under other auspices a few years later, were better adapted to solve the differ ent problems, he did much toward bringing about a more friendly feeling between the two countries, and accomplished all that was possible, considering the adverse influences he had to contend with.

II. SOME TRAITS AS SECRETARY OF STATE

Seward's personal appearance had undergone slight change since he entered the Senate, save for the injuries he received in April, 1865. His face was a little thinner, and this made more conspicuous his noticeable features a strong aquiline nose, a wide and shapely mouth, and large, thin ears. His shock of hair was now

"silvery and fine"-" snow-white" it seemed to some -but it never quite lost its auburn tinge. The head, .with its beetling brows, appeared too heavy for the slender neck and slight body, and projected over the chest in an argumentative sort of way, as if the keen eyes-" lively with humor of some kind twinkling about them”—were seeking an adversary. Professor Dicey saw him early in 1862 sitting in his office "dressed in black, with his waistcoat half unbuttoned, one leg over the side of his arm-chair, and a cigar between his lips," looking like "a shrewd, well-to-do attorney, waiting to learn a new client's story." Seward's frankness and bonhomie at once put the Englishman at his ease.' In Seward's face and manner there was slight indication of his intellectual power and activity: he was almost as plain and homely as Lincoln, but lacked the President's impressive height.

Seward cannot be defended from the charge of Sydney Smith against Lord Melbourne: "I accuse our Minister of honesty and diligence." During the entire period of the war he kept long office - hours, and frequently devoted Sunday to the important and exacting work of drafting despatches. Foreign mails often came at the end of the week, and required immediate answers. Saturday was consumed in reading the reports from United States Ministers. On Sunday he could meditate in quiet on the dangers abroad, and prepare further instructions, which on Monday were laid before the Presi dent. After the carriage accident, Seward's right arm remained so stiff that it was very difficult for him to write and for the reader to decipher what was written. Thus dictation became necessary, though at first it was hard for him to express his thoughts satisfactorily by this method. While dictating he often walked to and

11 Dicey's Federal States, 230.

fro, puffing his inevitable cigar, his hands behind his back, and his eyes fixed on the floor. He progressed slowly, making many changes as he proceeded. The first draft was read to him by the stenographer, and improved as much as possible, or discarded and redictated. The first copy was made on alternate lines, and subjected to a careful criticism as to words, phrases, ideas, and general style, just as a painstaking author would labor over an ambitious description.

In the following comments on Seward's diplomatic papers there is no intention to modify opinions already expressed, but only to notice some minor qualities that gave the color of the politician to much that he wrote.

Seward was so enthusiastic, and his skill in expression so great, that his despatches were spirited, fresh, and popular. The style was more often that of a political pamphlet or a public speech than that of a diplomatic document. This was due not to lack of familiarity with the usages of diplomacy, but rather to his habitual desire to influence the popular audience, which he as a leader had ever in mind. Many of his despatches were promptly given to the press, and all of them, except those containing important secrets or objectionable comment, were printed annually in the Diplomatic Correspondence, the publication of which Seward began in 1861. When he wrote to such men as Adams and Dayton and Bigelow about the mission of the United States in the world's progress, and informed them that this or that occurrence was natural and inevitable in times of civil war and popular excitement, he was addressing the reading public at home. It is inconsistent with Seward's intelligence that he expected to impress Russell or Thouvenel by didactic magniloquence. "But," says Justin McCarthy, in writing of the Trent affair, "Mr. Seward always was a terribly eloquent despatch-writer, and

he could not, we may suppose, forego the opportunity of issuing a dissertation." Undoubtedly Seward did too much thinking in ink; and a "spendthrift verbosity"

1 Here is part of a passage taken from a despatch to Adams: "For what was this continent brought up, as it were, from the depths of what before had been known as 'the dark and stormy ocean'? Did the European states which found and occupied it, almost without effort, then understand its real destiny and purposes ? Have they ever yet fully understood and accepted them? Has anything but disappointment upon disappointment, and disaster upon disaster, resulted from their misapprehensions? After near four hundred years of such disappointments and disasters is the way of Providence in regard to America still so mysterious that it cannot be understood and confessed? Columbus, it was said, had given a new world to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. What has become of the sovereignty of Spain in America? Richelieu occupied and fortified a large portion of the continent, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Straits of Belleisle. Does France yet retain that important appendage to the crown of her sovereign? Great Britain acquired a dominion here surpassing, by an hundred-fold in length and breadth, the native realm. Has not a large portion of it been already formally resigned? To whom have these vast dominions, with those founded by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Swedes, been resigned but to American nations, the growth of European colonists, and exiles who have come hither bringing with them the arts, the civilization, and the virtues of Europe? Has not the change been beneficial to society on this continent? Has it not been more beneficial even to Europe itself than continued European domination, if it had been possible, could have been? The American nations which have grown up here have been free and self-governing."-Dip. Cor., 1862, 167.

His first instructions to Reverdy Johnson-a profound lawyer and a man of learning and ideas-began as follows:

"SIR,-It is a truism that commercial and industrial interests continually exert a powerful influence in favor of peace and friendship between the government and people of the United States and Great Britain. Intimate consanguinity, together with a nearly entire community of language and a very considerable community of political and religious principles, ideas, and sentiments, work in the same direction. On all occasions when the moral sentiment of mankind is moved in favor of national regeneration or other political reform in any part of the world, a very cordial sympathy and regard to such advances in civilization is found to exist between the two countries. This mutual, friendly disposition between the two nations manifests

called "the nightmare of foreign ministeries" 1 was sometimes the result.

Yet Seward's democratic method of carrying on foreign relations from the public square had its advantages. The English custom by which a Cabinet-Minister can address the country in a political speech to his constituents or from the floor of Parliament was not open to Seward. His influence upon his generation was due to the fact that he never failed to consider the probable popular effect of what he said or wrote. If his aim had been merely to please the people and to gain their favor, it would have been demagogical; but when he, like Gladstone, sometimes wheedled them, or played to the gallery, it was either as a means of retaining power or of gaining the support necessary to enable him

itself more strongly now than at any former period."-1 Dip. Cor., 1868, 328. For other examples, see Dip. Cor., 1861, 183, 196–201; Dip. Cor., 1862, 352-53; 1 Dip. Cor., 1863, 325–28.

1 Lowell's Political Essays, 293. "More than any Minister with whose official correspondence we are acquainted, he carried the principle of paper money into diplomacy, and bewildered Earl Russell and M. Drouyn de Lhuys with a horrible doubt as to the real value of the verbal currency they were obliged to receive."-Ibid.

James E. Harvey reported that he had attended the ceremony of laying the corner-stone of a monument to Camoens, "the great poet of Portugal." It was no more worth noticing, beyond the formal acknowledgment of its receipt, than the “bright and benignant sky" of that day. Seward replied:

"SIR,-Your despatch of June 29 [1862] has been received.

"The erection of a monument in Lisbon to the memory of the immortal poet of Portugal was not merely an act of national justice and a proper manifestation of national pride. It illustrates the eclectic, conservative faculty of nations, by which they rescue and save whatever is great, good, useful, and humane from the wrecks of time, leaving what is worthless, vicious, or pernicious to pass into oblivion.

"The incident seems doubtless the more pleasing to us because it occurs at this conjuncture, when we are engaged in combating, in its full development, a gigantic error which Portugal, in the age of Camoens, brought into this continent."-Dip. Cor., 1862, 584.