hate their victims; and we are sure that an insult
was never yet forgiven by any nation, or by any individual, whose
resentment was of any account. Now, England has poured insults upon us,
or rather Englishmen have done so, until we have become as sore as bears
who have been assailed by bees. English statesmen and politicians have
told us that we were wrong in fighting for the restoration of the Union,
violating our own principles, and literally committing the grossest, of
crimes,--taking care to add, that our sins would provide their own
punishment, for we could not put down the Rebels. Even moderate-minded
men in England have not hesitated to condemn our course, while admitting
that our conduct was natural, on the ground that we had no hope of
success, and that useless wars are simply horrible. Our English enemies
have been fierce and vindictive blackguards,--as witness Roebuck,
Lyndsay, and Lord R. Cecil,--while most of our friends there have deemed
it the best policy to make use of very moderate language, when speaking
of our cause, or of the conduct of our public men. Englishmen of
distinction, some of whom have long been held in high esteem here, have
not hesitated to express a desire for our overthrow, because we were
becoming too strong, though our free population is not materially
different, as regards numbers, from that of the British Islands, and is
as nothing when compared with the number of Queen Victoria's subjects.
They were not ashamed to be so thoroughly un-English as to admit the
existence of fear in their minds of a people living three thousand miles
from their country: a circumstance to be noted; for your Englishman is
apt to err on the side of contempt for others, and as a rule he fears
nobody. Others have so wantonly misrepresented the character of our
cause,--Mr. Carlyle is a notable member of this class,--that it is
impossible not to be offended, when listening to their astounding
falsehoods. But it is the British press that has done most to array
Americans against England. That press is very ably conducted, and the
most noted of its members have displayed a degree of hostility toward us
that could not have been predicted without the prophet being suspected
of madness, or of diabolical inspiration. All its articles attacking us
are reproduced here, and are read by everybody, and the effect thereof
can be imagined. Toward us British journalists are playing the same part
that was played by their pred