of the emissaries that the trouble lay.  According to law, the vessel, if carrying contraband of war, is liable to seizure.  But if this assumed contraband be men, these may not be guilty, and are entitled to a trial.  Still, as the law—­or want of law—­stands, the seizure of the vessel is the requisite step, the minor issue being practically regarded as the major; an anomaly not less striking than that which still prevails in certain courts, where, to recover damages for seduction, the defendant can only be mulcted in a penalty for the loss of time caused to his victim.  It was not possible for Captain WILKES to seize the vessel, Great Britain declined to waive her claim to the execution of every jot and tittle of the letter of the law, and consequently the ‘contrabands’ were surrendered.

The absurdity of involving two great nations in a war, on account of a legal paradox of this nature, requires no comment.  The dry comment of General SCOTT, that the ‘wrong’ would have been none had it only been greater, recalls the absurd line in the old play:—­

  ‘My wound is great because it is so small;’

and the supplement,—­

  ’Then ’twould be greater were it none at
  all.’

But, absurd or not, the law must be followed.  Great nations must settle their disputes by the law, even as individuals do, and there is no shame in submitting to it, for submission to the constituted authorities is the highest proof of honor and of civilization.  And if England chooses to strain the law to its utmost tension, to thereby push her neutrality to the very verge of sympathy with our rebels, and manifest, by a peremptory and discourteous exercise of her rights, total want of sympathy with our efforts to suppress rebellion,—­why, we must bear it.

And here, leaving the letter of the law, we may appropriately say a few words of the animus which has inspired the ‘influential classes’ in England as regards this country, during our struggle with the South.  We are assured that the mass of the English people sympathize with us, and we are glad to hear it,—­just as we are to know that Ireland is friendly in her disposition.  But we can not refrain—­and we do it with no view to words which may stir up ill-feeling—­from commenting, in sorrow rather than anger, on the fact that such a majority of journalists, capitalists, yes, and the mass of inhabitants of English cities, have so unblushingly, for the mere sake of money, turned their backs on those principles of freedom of which they boasted for so many years, flouting us the while for being behind them in the race of philanthropy!  It is pitiful and painful to see pride brought so low.  We of the Federal Union are striving, heart and soul, to uphold our government—­a government which has been a great blessing to England and to the world.  Who shall say what revolutions, what tremendous disasters, would not have overtaken Great Britain had it not