are with all your boasting,” is what we say.  “You were going to whip all creation the other day; and it has come to this!  Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better.  Pray remember that, if ever you find yourselves on your legs again.”  That little advice about the two dogs is very well, and was not altogether inapplicable.  But this is not the time in which it should be given.  Putting aside slight asperities, we will all own that the people of the States have been and are our friends, and that as friends we cannot spare them.  For one Englishman who brings home to his own heart a feeling of cordiality for France—­a belief in the affection of our French alliance—­there are ten who do so with reference to the States.  Now, in these days of their trouble, I think that we might have borne with them more tenderly.

And how was it possible that they should have avoided this war?  I will not now go into the cause of it, or discuss the course which it has taken, but will simply take up the fact of the rebellion.  The South rebelled against the North; and such being the case, was it possible that the North should yield without a war?  It may very likely be well that Hungary should be severed from Austria, or Poland from Russia, or Venice from Austria.  Taking Englishmen in a lump, they think that such separation would be well.  The subject people do not speak the language of those that govern them or enjoy kindred interests.  But yet when military efforts are made by those who govern Hungary, Poland, and Venice to prevent such separation, we do not say that Russia and Austria are fools.  We are not surprised that they should take up arms against the rebels, but would be very much surprised indeed if they did not do so.  We know that nothing but weakness would prevent their doing so.  But if Austria and Russia insist on tying to themselves a people who do not speak their language or live in accordance with their habits, and are not considered unreasonable in so insisting, how much more thoroughly would they carry with them the sympathy of their neighbors in preventing any secession by integral parts of their own nationalities!  Would England let Ireland walk off by herself, if she wished it?  In 1843 she did wish it.  Three-fourths of the Irish population would have voted for such a separation; but England would have prevented such a secession vi et armis, had Ireland driven her to the necessity of such prevention.

I will put it to any reader of history whether, since government commenced, it has not been regarded as the first duty of government to prevent a separation of the territories governed; and whether, also, it has not been regarded as a point of honor with all nationalities to preserve uninjured each its own greatness and its own power?  I trust that I may not be thought to argue that all governments, or even all nationalities, should succeed in such endeavors.  Few kings have fallen, in my day, in whose fate I