em material, I am instructed to say
the government of the United States will, if agreed to by her Majesty's
government, go to such friendly arbitration as is usual among nations,
and will abide the award."

The most practised diplomatic pen in Europe could not have written a
more dignified, courteous, or succinct presentation of the case; and
yet, under the necessities of the moment, it was impossible to adopt
this procedure. Upon full discussion, it was decided that war with Great
Britain must be avoided, and Mr. Seward wrote a despatch defending the
course of Captain Wilkes up to the point where he permitted the _Trent_
to proceed on her voyage. It was his further duty to have brought her
before a prize court. Failing in this, he had left the capture
incomplete under rules of international law, and the American government
had thereby lost the right and the legal evidence to establish the
contraband character of the vessel and the persons seized. Under the
circumstances, the prisoners were therefore willingly released. Excited
American feeling was grievously disappointed at the result; but American
good sense readily accommodated itself both to the correctness of the
law expounded by the Secretary of State, and to the public policy that
averted a great international danger; particularly as this decision
forced Great Britain to depart from her own and to adopt the American
traditions respecting this class of neutral rights.

It has already been told how Captain George B. McClellan was suddenly
raised in rank, at the very outset of the war, first to a
major-generalship in the three months' militia, then to the command of
the military department of the Ohio; from that to a major-generalship in
the regular army; and after his successful campaign in West Virginia was
called to Washington and placed in command of the Division of the
Potomac, which comprised all the troops in and around Washington, on
both sides of the river. Called thus to the capital of the nation to
guard it against the results of the disastrous battle of Bull Run, and
to organize a new army for extended offensive operations, the
surrounding conditions naturally suggested to him that in all
likelihood he would play a conspicuous part in the great drama of the
Civil War. His ambition rose eagerly to the prospect. On the day on
which he assumed command, July 27, he wrote to his wife:

"I find myself in a new and strange position here; President, cabinet,