gave orders for eleven of the most perfect engines that could be built by eleven of the most skillful and eminent engine-builders in the United Kingdom, without limit as to the cost, or any other limitation, except as to class or size.  At the same time orders were issued for the building of thirteen frigates of a medium class by thirteen of the most skillful shipbuilders in the kingdom, in order to ascertain the best models, the best running lines, and the best of every other quality desirable in a war vessel.  This is the mode in which Great Britain prepares for any contingencies which may arise.  She cannot tell when they may occur, yet she knows that she has no immunity from those chances which, at some time or other, are seen to happen to all nations.  In my opinion, the construction of this road from the Mississippi to the Pacific is essential to the protection and safety of this country, in the event of a war with any great maritime Power.  It may take ten years to complete it; but every hundred miles of it, which may be finished before the occurrence of war, will be just so much gained—­so much added to our ability to maintain our honor in that war.  In every view of this question I can take, I am persuaded that we ought at least prepare to commence the work, and do it immediately.

JUDAH PHILIP BENJAMIN (1811-1884)

Judah P. Benjamin, the “Beaconsfield of the Confederacy,” was born at St. Croix in the West Indies, where his parents, a family of English-Jews, on their way to settle in New Orleans, were delayed by the American measures against intercourse with England.  In 1816 his parents brought him to Wilmington, North Carolina, where, and at Yale College, he was educated.  Not until after he was ready to begin life at the bar, did he reach New Orleans, the destination for which his parents had set out before he was born.  In New Orleans, after a severe struggle, he rose to eminence as a lawyer, and his firm, of which Mr. Slidell was a partner, was the leading law firm of the State.  He was elected to the United States Senate as a Whig in 1852 and re-elected as a Democrat in 1859.  With Mr. Slidell, who was serving with him in the Senate, he withdrew in 1861 and became Attorney-General in the Confederate cabinet.  He was afterwards made Secretary of War, but as the Confederate congress censured him in that position he resigned it and Mr. Davis immediately appointed him Secretary of State.  After the close of the war, when pursuit after members of the Confederate cabinet was active, he left the coast of Florida in an open boat and landed at the Bahamas, taking passage thence to London where he rose to great eminence as a lawyer.  He was made Queen’s Counsel, and on his retirement from practice, because of ill health, in 1883, a farewell banquet was given him by the bar in the hall of the Inner Temple, probably the most notable compliment paid in England to any orator since the banquet to Berryer.  He died in 1884.