ve prudence of the British Government had not tempered
this exultant movement, the hopes of civilization would have been
blasted by such a war as it is sickening to think of: England in
alliance with an empire trying to spread and perpetuate Slavery as its
very principle of life, against a people whose watchwords were freedom,
education, and the dignity of labor. If the silent masses of the British
people had not felt that our cause was theirs, there would have been no
saying how far the passionate desire to see their predictions made facts
might have led the proud haters of popular government.

Between these two forces the British Cabinet has found a diagonal which
has met with the usual success of compromises. The aristocracy, which
very naturally wishes to see the Union divided, is in a fair way of
being disappointed, because, as its partisans may claim, England did not
force herself into our quarrel. That portion of the middling classes
which could not tolerate the thought of a Slave Empire has been
compelled to witness a deliberate exposure in the face of the whole
world of the hollowness of those philanthropic pretensions which have
been so long the boast of British patriots. The people of the Union, who
expected moral support and universal indignant repudiation of the
slaveholding Rebel conspiracy, have been disgusted and offended. The
Rebels, who supposed Great Britain, and perhaps France also, would join
them in a war which was virtually a crusade against free institutions,
have been stung into a second paroxysm of madness. Western Europe failed
us in the storm; it leaves them in the moment of shipwreck.

The recent action of the British Government, under the persuasive
influence of Mr. Seward's polite representation, that instant
hostilities would be sure to follow, if England did not keep her iron
pirates at home, has improved somewhat the tone of Northern feeling
towards her. The late neighborly office of the Canadian Government, in
warning us of the conspiracy to free our prisoners, has produced a very
favorable impression, so far as the effect of a single act is felt in
striking the balance of a long account.

We can, therefore, examine some of our relations with Great Britain in a
better temper now than we could do some months ago, when we never went
to sleep without thinking that before morning we might be shelled out of
our beds by a fleet of British iron-clad steamers. But though we have
been soothed