st sustained in Prussia the
famous MacDonald negotiation, is in a very good position to show herself
difficult in points of courtesy; nevertheless, the errors of Great
Britain in Germany do not excuse those of the United States on the
ocean. It appears that Captain Wilkes fired shot to enforce his first
order to stop. The remainder was in keeping. Nevertheless, to give every
one his due, it is just to remember that he offered to take on board the
families of the commissioners and to give them his best cabins. It is
just also to add that, after the arrest, the intercourse between the
officers of the _San Jacinto_ and the prisoners never ceased to be full
of decorum and courtesy.

Let us now approach more closely the question of right. It was well in
the first place to rid ourselves of secondary questions which hinder us
from seeing it, and above all from seeing it as it is.

They seem to have been afraid in England to look this question of right
boldly in the face. There is no subterfuge that they have not tried in
order to avoid its serious investigation.

Have they not gone so far as to object to the United States that,
considering the Southern States as rebellious and refusing them the
quality of belligerents, they could not exercise the right of search,
which is reserved to belligerents? From this point of view they add,
Messrs. Mason and Slidell would simply be rebels taking refuge under the
English flag; and what country would consent to give up political
refugees? The answer is simple: no country more than England has
recognized, in this instance, the quality of belligerents which her
partisans are seeking to contest in her name. Moreover, the Southern
blockade is admitted by her and by the other powers; now, blockade is as
impossible as right of search apart from a state of war.

Another subterfuge: the United States have always opposed the right of
search--it ill becomes them to exercise it. England has always exercised
the right of search; it ill becomes her to oppose it. Let us be honest;
rights of this kind are always odious to those who submit to them and
always dear to those who profit by them. Alas! this is not the only
instance in which, a change in our position works a change in our mode
of viewing things. Let us take the human heart as it is, and not demand
under penalty of war, that the Americans, in the midst of one of the
most terrible social crises (and also of the most glorious) of which
histor