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had to be exchanged for action; and the reaction of feeling among this party was proportionate to the extent of their previous pro-English sympathies. I recollect a lady, who was a very strong Abolitionist, telling me that just before the secession of South Carolina, she was talking to Mrs. Jefferson Davis about the absurdity of the Secessionist scheme. On remarking that the Confederacy could have no hopes of support from England, on account of our known hostility to slavery, Mrs. Davis answered-" My dear Mrs. , you don't know Eng"land as well as I do. She dislikes slavery very much, "but she loves cotton a great deal more, and before "six months are over, we shall have all England sympa"thizing with our cause." And my friend concluded by saying, "I never felt so much sorrow in my life as when I found that I was wrong and Mrs. Davis right." I quote this instance as illustrative of a state of feeling which is almost universal in the Abolitionist party; and I hardly think it is so monstrous as our English critics appear to assume, that men like Ward Beecher and Wendell Phillips should surpass other American orators in the vehemence of their feeling against England.

How far the existing and, I fear, increasing sentiment of hostility which the tone of England has, reasonably or not, produced, will prove a lasting one, is very hard to judge. For my own part, I believe and hope that the very susceptibility to the blame or depreciation of England, which has created such bitterness of feeling

amongst Americans, will also render them, perhaps, unreasonably susceptible to any reaction of feeling on the part of the mother country; and if, at last, England begins to admit, what I feel more and more convinced is the truth, that amidst much exaggeration and absurdity, the struggle between the North and South is a grand cause grandly fought for, then there will be a return of the same kindly feeling as was exhibited, not three years ago, when the Prince of Wales visited America.

POLITICAL SPECULATIONS.

THE outlook for the future of America occupies far more attention amongst foreign observers than it does at home. The crew of a vessel labouring beneath a hurricane, are not likely to devote much attention to the consideration of what they are to do when they get safely into harbour; and so, in like manner, in the midst of this insurrection there is little time or care to think of anything but how it can be suppressed. After all, what is to be done, or rather what is to happen hereafter, is still a matter of abstract speculation; and the Americans, as a people, have an Anglo-Saxon distaste and incapacity for abstract speculation of any kind. The men by whom the country is ruled and represented are, as a body, shrewd, self-made men, with very little appreciation for the philosophy of government. Though the average culture of America is probably higher than that of any country in the world, yet, at the same time, any very high degree of intellectual culture is uncommon. There are no public

men here of the class of Mill, Gladstone, or Lord Stanley; and if there were, their influence on the country would be very limited. It is a land of workers, not of thinkers.

Still, making all allowance for this, and for a natural reluctance to face the belief that the Union is not in itself a remedy for every evil, it seemed strange to me to observe how little thought there appeared to be in the public mind about the inevitable future. The future, too, was not only inevitable, but appeared so near at hand. The prevalent belief at this time was, that the South was at its last gasp. All the plans of the Government, during the spring of 1862 (and in saying this I am not expressing merely a private opinion, but an official conviction), were based upon the idea, that by the end of June, at the very latest, the insurrection would be so far suppressed as to present no further military dangers. At this time, a stop had been put to further enlistment, contracts for army supplies were curtailed, and sufficient funds had only been provided to meet the current military expenditure for some ten weeks more. Within three months it was expected that the Federal Government would have to re-organize its rule over the revolted States; and yet neither Government, nor Congress, nor people appeared to have any definite idea or prospect of how that re-organization was to be effected. The truth is, the country was drifting towards peace just as it drifted towards war. In

order to understand the history of the crisis through which America was passing, it may be well to say something here of the political speculations which were rife at the period when the "Army of the Potomac" had set forth in its full pride and strength, and when the suppression of the insurrection was believed to be imminent.

The only political question towards which public attention had been directed, so far as to form any definite ideas regarding it, was that of the Negro. The subject, indeed, was an unwelcome one, but still it forced itself upon the public mind. Almost every day, amongst the petitions presented to Congress at this period, there was a request, from somebody or other, begging the House to leave the negro alone, and attend to business. There was something almost pitiable in the painful anxiety expressed by newspapers, and politicians, and the leaders of private society, to ignore the question of the everlasting negro. Abolitionists were unpopular, because they kept on thrusting the wrongs of the negro upon unwilling ears; pro-slavery men were unpopular, because they kept dinning the rights of negro ownership on an unsympathetic public; and the men who were popular were the prophets of the "Seward stamp," who spoke pleasant things, and who recommended the people to wait upon Providence (or, in stock phrase, "Not to interfere with its manifest interposition") for the ultimate solution of the Negro question. Still, the question cropped up at every

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