ny value except to
fill out his morning paragraphs.

Whether the author of the scandalous letter which it was disgraceful to
the government to recognize was a professional interviewer or only a
malicious amateur, or whether he was a paid "spotter," sent by some
jealous official to report on the foreign ministers as is sometimes done
in the case of conductors of city horsecars, or whether the dying
miscreant before mentioned told the truth, cannot be certainly known. But
those who remember Mr. Hawthorne's account of his consular experiences at
Liverpool are fully aware to what intrusions and impertinences and
impositions our national representatives in other countries are
subjected. Those fellow-citizens who "often came to the consulate in
parties of half a dozen or more, on no business whatever, but merely to
subject their public servant to a rigid examination, and see how he was
getting on with his duties," may very possibly have included among them
some such mischief-maker as the author of the odious letter which
received official recognition. Mr. Motley had spoken in one of his
histories of "a set of venomous familiars who glided through every
chamber and coiled themselves at every fireside." He little thought that
under his own roof he himself was to be the victim of an equally base
espionage.

It was an insult on the part of the government to have sent Mr. Motley
such a letter with such questions as were annexed to it. No very exact
rule can be laid down as to the manner in which an insult shall be dealt
with. Something depends on temperament, and his was of the warmer
complexion. His first impulse, he says, was to content himself with a
flat denial of the truth of the accusations. But his scrupulous honesty
compelled him to make a plain statement of his opinions, and to avow the
fact that he had made no secret of them in conversation under conditions
where he had a right to speak freely of matters quite apart from his
official duties. His answer to the accusation was denial of its charges;
his reply to the insult was his resignation.

It may be questioned whether this was the wisest course, but wisdom is
often disconcerted by an indignity, and even a meek Christian may forget
to turn the other cheek after receiving the first blow until the natural
man has asserted himself by a retort in kind. But the wrong was
committed; his resignation was accepted; the vulgar letter, not fit to be
spread out on these pages, i