, and in some measure conciliated, by the change referred
to, there is no such thing possible as returning to the _status quo ante
bellum_. We can never feel in all respects to England as we felt of old.
This is a fact which finds expression in so many forms that it is
natural to wish to see how deep it lies: whether it is an effect of
accidental misunderstanding and collision of interests, or whether it
is because the events of the last few years have served to bring to
light the organic, inherent, and irreconcilable antagonism of the two
countries.

We are all of us in the habit of using words so carelessly, that it will
help us to limit their vagueness as here employed. We speak of "England"
for Great Britain, for the simple reason that Ireland is but a reluctant
alien she drags after her, and Scotland only her most thriving province.
We are not surprised, for instance, when "Blackwood" echoes the abusive
language of the metropolitan journals, for it is only as a village-cur
joins the hounds that pass in full cry. So, when we talk of "the
attitude of England," we have a tolerably defined idea, made up of the
collective aspect of the unsympathetic Government, of the mendacious and
insolent press, of the mercenary trading allies of the Rebels, of the
hostile armaments which have sailed from British ports, of the
undisguised enmity of many of her colonists, neighbors of the North as
well as neighbors of the South; all of which shape themselves into an
image having very much the look of representing the nation,--certainly
much more the look of it than the sum of all those manifestations which
indicate sympathy with the cause of the North.

The attitude of England, then, has been such, since the Rebellion began,
as to alienate much of the affection still remaining among us for the
mother-country. It has gone far towards finishing that process of
separation of the child from the parent which two centuries of exile and
two long wars had failed to complete. But, looking at the matter more
clearly, we shall find that our causes of complaint must be very
unequally distributed among the different classes of the British people.

The _Government_ has carefully measured out to us, in most cases
certainly, strict, technical justice. It could not well do otherwise,
for it knows the force of precedents. But we have an unpleasing sense
that our due, as an ally and a Christian nation, striving against an
openly proclaimed heathen con