against the accomplices of pirates,
they will be presented, and they will be paid. If there are any
uncomfortable precedents which have been introduced into international
law, the jealous "Mistress of the Seas" must be prepared to face them in
her own hour of trouble. Had her failings but leaned to Freedom's
side,--had she but been true to her traditions, to her professions, to
her pretended principles,--where could she have found a truer ally than
her own offspring, in the time of trial which is too probably preparing
for her? "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the
things which belong unto thy peace!" No tardy repentance can efface the
record of the past. We may forgive, but history is inexorable.

England was startled the other day by an earthquake. The fast-anchored
isle was astonished at such a tropical phenomenon. It was all very well
for Jamaica or Manila, but who would have thought of solid,
constitutional England shaking like a jelly? The London "Times"
moralized about it in these words:--"We see, afar off, a great empire,
that had threatened to predominate over all mankind, suddenly broken up
by moral agencies, and shattered into no one knows how many fragments.
We are safe from that fate, at least so we deem ourselves, for never
were we so united." "_A great empire, that had threatened to predominate
over all mankind_." That was the trouble. That was the reason the
"Times" was so pleased to say, a few months ago, "The bubble has burst."
How, if the great empire should prove not to have been shattered? how,
if the bubble has not burst?--nay, if that great system of intelligent
self-government which was taken for a bubble prove to be a sphere of
adamant, rounded in the mould of Divine Law, and filled with the pure
light of Heaven?

England is happy in a virtuous queen; but what if another profligate
like George IV. should, by the accident of birth, become the heir of her
sovereignty? France is as strong as one man's life can make her; but
what if that man should run against some fanatic's idea which had taken
shape in a bullet-mould, or receive a sudden call from that pale visitor
who heeds no challenge from the guards at the gate of the Tuileries, and
stalks unannounced through antechambers and halls of audience?

The "Times" might have found a moral for the earthquake nearer home. The
flame that sweeps our prairies is terrible, but it only scorches the
surface. What all the government