the Minister of Foreign Affairs so willing to
call in foreign nations by this blockade, thus transforming a purely
domestic and municipal question into an international, public one?

The President is to quench the rebellion, a domestic fire, and to do
it he takes a weapon, an engine the most difficult to handle, and in
using of which he depends on foreign nations. Do they not know better
here in the ministry and in the councils? Russia dealt differently
with the revolted Circassians and with England in the so celebrated
case of the Vixen.

The administration ought to know its rights of sovereignty and to
close the ports of entry. Then no chance would be left to England to
meddle.

Yesterday N---- dined with Lord Lyons, and during the dinner an
anonymous note announced to the Lord that the proclamation of the
blockade is to be issued on to-morrow. N----, who has a romantic turn,
or rather who seeks for _midi a 14-3/4 heures_, speculated what lady
would have thus violated a _secret d'Etat_.

I rather think it comes from the Ministry, or, as they call it here,
from the Department. About two years ago, when the Central Americans
were so teased and maltreated by the filibusters and Democratic
administration, a Minister of one of these Central American States
told me in New York that in a Chief of the Departments, or something
the like, the Central Americans have a valuable friend, who, every
time that trouble is brewing against them in the Department, gives
them a secret and anonymous notice of it. This friend may have
transferred his kindness to England.

How will foreign nations behave? I wish I may be misguided by my
political anglophobia, but England, envious, rapacious, and the
Palmerstons and others, filled with hatred towards the genuine
democracy and the American people, will play some bad tricks. They
will seize the occasion to avenge many humiliations. Charles Sumner,
Howe, and a great many others, rely on England,--on her anti-slavery
feeling. I do not. I know English policy. We shall see.

France, Frenchmen, and Louis Napoleon are by far more reliable. The
principles and the interest of France, broadly conceived, make the
existence of a powerful Union a statesmanlike European and world
necessity. The cold, taciturn Louis Napoleon is full of broad and
clear conceptions. I am for relying, almost explicitly, on France and
on him.

The administration calls in all the men-of-war scattered in all
waters. As