acted very innocently;
but if this excuse of ignorance of the rules of the law be valid for
him, I think that it should also be so for Captain Wilkes, and that
there would be little justice in treating with extreme rigor a first
offence which evidently has taken every one by surprise, and has found
nowhere a very complete understanding of the conditions of the right of
search.

The commander of the _Trent_ saw men come to him, whose quality as
Southern Commissioners challenged his attention. He knew what anxiety
and trouble were pervading the North concerning their mission and
despatches, the contents of which excited grave suspicions; there had
even been talk, exaggerated, doubtless, of a proposition of a
protectorate and other offers, designed to gain at any price the support
of one or more maritime powers. The enthusiastic welcome which the
people of Havana, enemies of the United States, and ardent friends of
slavery, had just given to Messrs. Mason and Slidell, permits no doubt
of the especial gravity of the hostile mandate with which they were
charged. Then or never was the occasion to say that messengers and
messages of this nature must travel under their own flag, and that
neutrals were bound not to facilitate their mission in any manner. In
circumstances so grave, and with such a responsibility, commanders of
packets could not take refuge behind their innocence, or argue that the
consul of the United States had not taken pains to forewarn them. I
should like to know what reception a neutral would find in England, who
should take it into his head to say to her: "I thought myself at liberty
to carry hostile despatches and those bearing them, because the English
consul did not come to bind me to do nothing of the sort."

Is it true, as has been maintained, that the fault was divided, the
message having been carried by one packet and the messengers by another?
This appears doubtful, and matters little, moreover, in the eyes of
impartial judges. The fact is, that voluminous papers were seized on the
_Trent_, at the same time with the rebel commissioners.

Now, and to have done with the question of right, shall I say a few
words of what it is permissible to call the hackneyed rhetoric and
declamation of the subject?

Men have talked, of course, of an insult to the flag; they have called
to mind that the deck of an English vessel is the same as the soil of
the country; they have invoked the rights of British hospi