to give you some more definite information on the subject to which it related. I am, &c., 'H. Hertz, Esq.

'JOHN F. CRAMPTON.'

What can these letters prove beyond the innocent fact, acknowledged by Mr. Crampton, that Hertz volunteered his services, and that Mr. Crampton saw and spoke to him about them? They can prove nothing, but in themselves they are held to corroborate what Hertz says passed in the conversation, and which Mr. Crampton solemnly denies on his honour as an English gentleman. But the abominable Memorandum of instructions-We hunt through it in vain for even an indiscretion. The parties who may go to British territory for security are told that they must clearly understand that they must refrain from anything which would constitute a violation of the law of the United States-must avoid any act which might bear the appearance of recruiting within the jurisdiction of the United States for a foreign service, or of hiring or retaining anybody to leave that jurisdiction, with the intent to enter into the service of a foreign power. No promises, written or verbal, on the subject of enlistment must be entered into with any person within that jurisdiction. Other instructions, in minute detail, to avoid not only an illegal act, but what may be construed into the appearance of one are given; and the parties are told that if they neglect the strict observance of these points the British Government will be compelled, by the clearest dictates of international duty, to disavow their proceedings. Where, then, is the offence of Mr. Crampton? Is it conceivable? The offence is in these very cautions. The offence is, that because he forbade all violation of the neutrality laws, therefore he counselled their evasion.

We believe that scarcely the Star-Chamber under Charles I. could have so distorted the laws on the misprision of treason. On such charges, on such evidence, produced in such a trial, the American Government demanded the recall of Mr. Crampton and the British consuls. The British Government hastened to furnish the American with proof upon affidavit of the worthless character of the witnesses, and with the solemn denial of the accused, that they ever did hire, or knowingly engage recruits within American jurisdiction.' The affidavits are impugned, the denial is disbelieved, the British minister and consuls are dismissed. Since the evidence on the trial is disputed new documents are added, of the validity of which the following specimen will suffice. Counter affidavits are put in, criminating Mr. Crampton, on the alleged authority of a Colonel Smolenski. Colonel Smolenski, happily in London, offers to state on oath the falsehood of them all; and whereas it was declared by these worthy wit

nesses,

6

nesses, that they knew the handwriting of the British minister from having seen the whole of Colonel Smolenski's correspondence, Colonel Smolenski deposes that he never received a single line from Mr. Crampton, nor ever had any of that minister's handwriting in his possession.' We need pursue such evidence no. further. Five years hence, what high-minded American will not blush to recall it?

The dismissal of Mr. Crampton is accompanied by a despatch, acquitting our Government, while condemning its accredited ministers, stating that Mr. Dallas is empowered to negotiate upon the vexed questions affecting Central America, and for the first time evincing a readiness to meet in any way the views of Great Britain upon those questions. Thus, upon the ministers of England is thrown this artful responsibility. 'Submit' is the true option placed before them-submit to the dismissal of your public servants, to our rejection of their veracity, to our ungracious return for your apology; continue our minister at your Court, and we will negotiate with you the terms upon which you may avoid the displeasure of the United States, by the surrender of the possessions or the rights which you contend that the treaty of 1850 carefully maintained. If you do not take this course, if you suspend diplomatic relations, you suspend the settlement of questions which involve the germs of war. And we know how attached your people is to ours-how great are the commercial interests involved in the maintenance of peace, while, to embarrass your situation still more, simultaneously with the dismissal of your minister and consuls, and our conciliatory proposal to negotiate, we recognize at Nicaragua the Government, of which our own citizen, by infringing our national laws, and in defiance of the usages of European nations, has become the armed head, and our countrymen, in consequence of that recognition, will flock to his standard. Our vessels will lie beside your own, collision may take place; weigh these contingencies; pocket the affront, or incur the hazard of the direst calamity which can afflict the interests and sadden the hearts of England.' Placed in such a dilemma we do not blame the British Government for adopting the milder course, as the lesser of two great evils; and that course once adopted the more gracious the acceptance the more dignified in reality the bearing. To have subscribed indeed to the charges against their agents, in whom they recognized no breach of their own instructions, would have covered them with infamy; but to concede to the United States the right to object to diplomatic ministers on purely personal grounds, and abide by their own view of their own laws, in a word to abstain from recrimination when deciding

to

to decline quarrel, was, at least, the most courtly method, by which prudence when high-bred can parry affront when coarse.

So far then the dispute itself we may hope to be concluded. We are not so sanguine as to the results which the memory of the dispute may engender. We will not disguise from the Americans that these late events have tended greatly to alienate the affection which it is the nature of Englishmen to feel towards those of a common origin and speaking the English language in a commonwealth governed by free laws. And here that question, with which we prefaced our remarks on the causes alleged for the dismissal of Mr. Crampton, is mournfully enforced upon our reflections-are we dealing with an unfriendly Government or a hostile people? For that which has most deeply stung and most effectually chilled us, is not in the actions of President Pierce's expiring Cabinet, but in the sentiments towards our country in which we are told that those actions have their originating motive. That to humble the Britisher should become a passport to popularity, and serve the purpose of an electioneering cry in a state which admits of universal suffrage; that the few who may be friendly to us dare not speak out, so intolerant is the hatred against us conceived by the many-this it is which most profoundly wounds us, and in the discourtesies of a Government bids us beware of the enmities of a nation. Wars do not arise so much from clashing interests as from national angers; from the sense of wounded pride on the one side, from the tone of arrogant dictation on the other; and what we most apprehend is, that while England may tacitly resolve that she can stoop no lower, America may be encouraged by the misconstrued impunity with which one indignity has been received to be yet haughtier in her aspect and ruder in her tone. The precedent for the retention of Mr. Dallas, founded on the retention of his American predecessor when our agent, Mr. Jackson, had been sent from Washington, is of evil omen. Were the results of English forbearance at that time, amity and peace? Two years afterwards America had declared war upon us. For the people of the United States we have an affection, not the less sincere because we cannot stoop to flatter their momentary passions. We yield to none in the ardour of our desire for peace. But the caution once addressed to our Government in negotiations with Russia is not less applicable to our People in disputes with the United States. If we want to secure peace, we must not let it be supposed that ignominy is possible and that war is not. It is for America now to prove that appearances wrong her genuine sentiments to England. Mr. Dallas has before him a noble chance of achieving a durable reputation.

Let

Let him cautiously forbear from pressing points we cannot concede in honour, and it is his own fault if he do not submit to his Government the basis of negotiations in which Great Britain may concede all which honour does not compel her to preserve. But we must warn our public not to exaggerate the powers which the American constitution gives to its representative. They are far more limited than those which the British monarchy concedes to a plenipotentiary of its own. The last may ratify and conclude a treaty, the former cannot; whatever the powers entrusted to him, the subsequent consent of the American Senate is necessary to all that he proposes and subscribes to.

If a settlement is to be effected during the tenure of the existent Presidency and its government, no time must be lost-in a few weeks the senators will be dispersed-not to meet again till November-the Congress then re-assembles but for a very short time, and the probability is that if the dispute be not settled at the commencement of August it will be under the consideration of President Buchanan and his government in the month of next March. Judging from ordinary motives of policy, we should deem it the interest of President Pierce and Mr. Marcy to make their retiring act that of reconciliation with Great Britain. They can thus effect a double triumph, and say to those who, while they wished to humble us, never dreamed of going to war-' we have humbled England, we now present to you the fruits of our firm and patriotic policy.' It should be the object of the English Government, not to deny to the American a triumph which we need not envy. Who can predicate the policy which a new Government in the United States representing the same party, inaugurated not long before the general election for the Representative Chamber, may deem it desirable to address to those who are taught by their journals from which we quote the sentence, that by making a firm stand, peace or war, yea or no, the United States can secure from Great Britain the rights without the hazards of war.'

But do not let even Lancashire be terrified into the error that acquiescence in extortion is ever the preventive of war-far less is this the case with a democracy than an absolute despot-it is the inherent instinct of numbers to advance as the object which they menace recedes. Self-interest puts a check on the pride of a monarch-the public opinion of Europe acts at last on the obstinacy of a regal power, that acknowledges moral authority in its compeers. But a democracy, once whirled on by the impetus of movements unresisted, forgets its commerce in its passions; nor is there anything which less conciliates and more provokes a multitude than a paling cheek and a recreant back. Would we

really

really avoid a war we must be as firm in indicating what we mean to resist, as we should be frank in announcing what we are willing to concede. Would we keep the brazen gates of war menacingly ajar, we have but to sit on the threshold as suppliants, and to confirm the American democracy in the delusion that our party divisions and our commercial interests will make us craven to threats and powerless against aggression.

We rejoice to see that in the recent debate in the House of Commons upon Mr. Moore's motion, the Conservatives, as a body-however some, in their capacity of individual members, might blame the conduct of the British Government-declined to unite in that blame as a party question.

That our Ministers were guilty of intentional and fraudulent evasion of the American law, of deliberate and wilful deceit towards the Government and people of another country, is a charge that even Mr. Marcy has withdrawn, and of which we believe no English minister can be rightfully accused so long as one spark of the spirit that is inherent in English gentlemen animates our national councils. But that they committed mistakes which laid them fairly open to the criticism of an Opposition, few of their apologists will deny: a mistake in the first experiment of recruiting in the United States, a mistake in its continuance after the earliest intimation of its risks; nor can they altogether escape blame if, though their accredited agents refrained from violating the law, those agents could only fulfil their instructions by going so close to its confines as to incur the accusation of skilfully evading what they did not openly infringe; while the admitted violations of the law by persons whom, though not accredited agents, the application of the Foreign Enlistment Act necessarily called into employment, attest the want of that prudence which should have foreseen so unavoidable a result. But the American Government had so placed the whole question at issue as not to allow the Opposition, as a party, to forget that the formal censure of our own executive, if unaccompanied by a strong expression of opinion on the course adopted by President Pierce's cabinet, would have been to ask the House of Commons to give a signal triumph to the President who had struck at the British throne, and approve the indictment against the functionaries of our civil service, in which the American Secretary of State still vindicated the testimony that would not have justified the hastiest master in the dismissal of a footman. We thank Mr. Baillie, then, for the withdrawal of his motion, though he retained the conviction of its abstract justice. We approve in that self-denial the patriotism of himself and his advisers.

When Mr. Moore persisted in provoking the discussion which

Mr.