ng
done to his friend. He says:--

"How little Mr. Motley merited anything but respect and courtesy
from the secretary is attested by all who know his eminent position
in London, and the service he rendered to his country. Already the
London press, usually slow to praise Americans when strenuous for
their country, has furnished its voluntary testimony. The 'Daily
News' of August 16, 1870, spoke of the insulted minister in these
terms:--

"'We are violating no confidence in saying that all the hopes of Mr.
Motley's official residence in England have been amply fulfilled,
and that the announcement of his unexpected and unexplained recall
was received with extreme astonishment and unfeigned regret. The
vacancy he leaves cannot possibly be filled by a minister more
sensitive to the honor of his government, more attentive to the
interests of his country, and more capable of uniting the most
vigorous performance of his public duties with the high-bred
courtesy and conciliatory tact and temper that make those duties
easy and successful. Mr. Motley's successor will find his mission
wonderfully facilitated by the firmness and discretion that have
presided over the conduct of American affairs in this country during
too brief a term, too suddenly and unaccountably concluded.'"

No man can escape being found fault with when it is necessary to make out
a case against him. A diplomatist is watched by the sharpest eyes and
commented on by the most merciless tongues. The best and wisest has his
defects, and sometimes they would seem to be very grave ones if brought
up against him in the form of accusation. Take these two portraits, for
instance, as drawn by John Quincy Adams. The first is that of Stratford
Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe:--

"He is to depart to-morrow. I shall probably see him no more. He
is a proud, high-tempered Englishman, of good but not extraordinary
parts; stubborn and punctilious, with a disposition to be
overbearing, which I have often been compelled to check in its own
way. He is, of all the foreign ministers with whom I have had
occasion to treat, the man who has most severely tried my temper.
Yet he has been long in the diplomatic career, and treated with
governments of the most opposite characters. He has, however, a
great respect for his word, and there is nothing false about him.
This is an excel