pline of their ships of war_."

After the war of 1812 these unendurable insults to our flag were
not repeated by Great Britain, but her Government steadily refused
to make any formal renunciation of her right to repeat them, so
that our immunity from like insults did not rest upon any better
foundation than that which might be dictated by considerations of
interest and prudence on the part of the offending Power. The
wrong which Captain Wilkes committed against the British flag was
surely not so great as if he had seized the persons of British
subjects--subjects, if you please, who were of kindred blood to
one who stands as high in the affection of the British people as
Washington stands in the affection of the American people,--if
indeed there be such a one in English tradition.

The offense of Captain Wilkes was surely far below that in the
essential quality of outrage. He had not touched the hair of a
British subject's head. He had only removed from the hospitality
and shelter of a British ship four men who were bent on an errand
of destruction to the American Union. His act cannot be justified
by the canons of International Law as our own Government has
interpreted and enforced them. But in view of the past and of the
long series of graver outrages with which Great Britain had so
wantonly insulted the American flag, she might have refrained from
invoking the judgment of the civilized world against us, and
especially might she have refrained from making in the hour of our
sore trial and our deep distress, a demand which no British Minister
would address to this Government in the day of its strength and
its power.

FRIENDLY POSITION OF THE QUEEN.

It would be ungracious to withhold an expression of the lasting
appreciation entertained in this country of the course pursued by
Her Majesty, the Queen of England, throughout this most painful
ordeal. She was wiser than her Ministers, and there can be little
doubt but for her considerate interposition, softening the rigor
of the British demand, the two nations would have been forced into
war. On all the subsequent occasions for bitterness towards England,
by reason of the treatment we experienced during the war, there
was an instinctive feeling among Americans that the Queen desired
peace and good will, and did not sympathize with the insidious
efforts at our destruction, which had their origin in her dominions.
It wa