tality, and
demanded whether she could consent to see her guests taken from her by
force. So many phrases for effect, which unhappily never fail to arouse
implacable passions! But what is there behind these phrases?

The flag is not insulted when the search is exercised in conformity with
the law of nations. It is in vain that the deck of an English merchant
vessel is the soil of the country; a belligerent is authorized to seize
it, if it is carrying men employed in behalf of the enemy; officers, for
example. The rights of hospitality are bounded by the duties of
neutrality, and the vessel which would claim to protect its guests at
any price, when its guests serve the war, would simply be guilty of a
culpable action.

In brief, there are wrongs on both sides, and if ever difference
admitted of discussion, interpretation, if necessary, arbitration even,
it is certainly this. Be sure, therefore, that Europe, attentive to all
that is passing, and desirous of averting war, will find it inexplicable
if the question be put in insulting terms, of a nature to render
hostilities almost inevitable.

If, in fine, Captain Wilkes had seized the vessel instead of seizing the
Commissioners, and if the vessel had been duly condemned by an American
court, the proceeding would have been irreproachably regular. This being
so, by the acknowledgment of the English themselves, who will be willing
to admit that any will be found bold enough to cause an irretrievably
fatal rupture to grow out of a quarrel of this kind, concerning the mode
of procedure. England has consulted her legal advisers; America will
consult hers also. Do disputes in which the national honor is involved
admit of consultations of this sort? Are lawyers or judges ever asked
whether the country is insulted or attacked when it really is so?

Let England assure herself that the first condition of the demand for
reparation is, that she shall make the reparation _possible_. Time is
needed. Patience is needed--patience which will not pause before the
first difficulty, and take as final the first refusal. Courtesy is
needed--courtesy, which, in the stronger, agrees so well with dignity,
and avoids rendering the form of satisfaction unnecessarily wounding and
consequently almost inadmissible. It is clear that if she contents
herself with signifying to Washington an absolute demand, if she gives a
single week, if she exacts (let us foresee the impossible) not only the
setting a