Ten years later, in the United States Senate, during the debate upon the Fisheries dispute, Mr. Seward said, after discussing England’s financial and commercial position:  ’England can not wisely desire nor safely dare a war with the United States.  She would find that there would come over us again that dream of conquest of those colonies which broke upon us even in the dawn of the Revolution, when we tendered them an invitation to join their fortunes with ours, and followed it with the sword—­that dream which returned again in 1812, when we attempted to subjugate them by force; and that now, when we have matured the strength to take them, we should find the provinces willingly consenting to captivity.  A war about these fisheries would be a war which would result either in the independence of the British Provinces, or in their annexation to the United States.  I devoutly pray God that that consummation may come; the sooner the better:  but I do not desire it at the cost of war or of injustice.  I am content to wait for the ripened fruit which must fall.  I know the wisdom of England too well to believe that she would hazard shaking that fruit into our hands.’

Another question, now asked,—­’Will Mr. Seward exhaust negotiation?’—­may be in like manner answered by himself.  In a succeeding debate on the same ‘fisheries’ controversy, commenting upon negotiation, he said:  ’Sir, it is the business of the Secretary of State, and of the government, always to be ready, in my humble judgment, to negotiate under all circumstances, whether there be threats or no threats, whether there be force or no force:  but the manner and the spirit and the terms of the negotiation will be varied by the position that the opposing party may occupy.’

It can not be denied that more cordial relations exist between the President and the Secretary of State than ever any previous administration disclosed:  so that when Mr. Seward acts, the government will prove a powerful unit.  Indeed, in this connection, history will hereafter write precisely what Mr. Seward, in his speech on the ‘Clayton-Bulwer treaty,’ said respecting the Taylor administration:—­’Sir, whatever else may have been the errors or misfortunes of that administration, want of mutual confidence between the Secretary of State and his distinguished chief was not one of them.  They stood together firmly, undivided, and inseparable to the last. Storms of faction from within their own party and from without beset them, and combinations and coalitions in and out of Congress assailed them with a degree of violence that no other administration has ever encountered.  But they never yielded.’