rights which his humane conduct gave to her, the United States
must be bound by their own principles at any cost to themselves.
Accordingly the "envoys" were handed over to the commander of the
English gunboat Rinaldo, at Provincetown, on January 1, 1862.

The decision of the President and the secretary of state was thoroughly
wise. Much hung upon it; "no one," says Arnold, "can calculate the
results which would have followed upon a refusal to surrender these
men." An almost certain result would have been a war with England; and a
highly probable result would have been that erelong France also would
find pretext for hostilities, since she was committed to friendship with
England in this matter, and moreover the emperor seemed to have a
restless desire to interfere against the North. What then would have
been the likelihood of ultimate success in that domestic struggle,
which, by itself, though it did not exhaust, yet very severely taxed
both Northern endurance and Northern resources? It is fair also to these
two men to say that, in reaching their decision, instead of receiving
aid or encouragement from outside, they had the reverse. Popular feeling
may be estimated from the utterances which, even after there had been
time for reflection, were made by men whose positions curbed them with
the grave responsibilities of leadership. In the House of
Representatives Owen Lovejoy pledged himself to "inextinguishable
hatred" of Great Britain, and promised to bequeath it as a legacy to his
children; and, while he was not engaging in the war for the integrity of
his own country, he vowed that if a war with England should come, he
would "carry a musket" in it. Senator Hale, in thunderous oratory,
notified the members of the administration that if they would "not
listen to the voice of the people, they would find themselves engulfed
in a fire that would consume them like stubble; they would be helpless
before a power that would hurl them from their places." The great
majority at the North, though perhaps incapable of such felicity of
expression, was undoubtedly not very much misrepresented by the
vindictive representative and the exuberant senator. Yet a brief period,
in which to consider the logic of the position, sufficed to bring nearly
all to intelligent conclusions; and then it was seen that what had been
done had been rightly and wisely done. There was even a sense of pride
in doing fairly and honestly, without the shuffling e