peace between Great Britain and the other nations of the world, without any abandonment of national interests and without any sacrifice of national honor.  The next object to which their anxious and unremitting exertions have been directed has been by an appropriate exercise of the good offices and moral influence of Great Britain to heal dissensions which may have arisen among neighboring powers and to preserve for other nations those blessings of peace which Great Britain is so desirous of securing for herself.

The steady efforts of His Majesty’s Government have hitherto been, fortunately, successful in the accomplishment of both these ends, and while Europe during the last five years has passed through a crisis of extraordinary hazard without any disturbance of the general peace, His Majesty’s Government has the satisfaction of thinking that it has on more than one occasion been instrumental in reconciling differences which might otherwise have led to quarrels, and in cementing union between friendly powers.

But if ever there could be an occasion on which it would be painful to the British Government to see the relations of amity broken off between two friendly states that occasion is undoubtedly the present, when a rupture is apprehended between two great powers, with both of which Great Britain is united by the closest ties—­with one of which she is engaged in active alliance; with the other of which she is joined by community of interests and by the bonds of kindred.

Nor would the grounds of difference on the present occasion reconcile the friends and wellwishers of the differing parties to the misfortune of an open rupture between them.

When the conflicting interests of two nations are so opposed on a particular question as to admit of no possible compromise, the sword may be required to cut the knot which reason is unable to untie.

When passions have been so excited on both sides that no common standard of justice can be found, and what one party insists on as a right the other denounces as a wrong, prejudice may become too headstrong to yield to the voice of equity, and those who can agree on nothing else may consent to abide the fate of arms and to allow that the party which shall prove the weakest in the war shall be deemed to have been wrong in the dispute.

But in the present case there is no question of national interest at issue between France and the United States.  In the present case there is no demand of justice made by one party and denied by the other.  The disputed claims of America on France, which were founded upon transactions in the early part of the present century and were for many years in litigation, have at length been established by mutual consent and are admitted by a treaty concluded between the two Governments.  The money due by France has been provided by the Chambers, and has been placed at the disposal of the French Government for the purpose of being paid to the United States.  But questions have arisen between the two Governments in the progress of those transactions affecting on both sides the feelings of national honor, and it is on this ground that the relations between the parties have been for the moment suspended and are in danger of being more seriously interrupted.