第87章

And when this war has drained uncounted hundreds of millions more out of the United States exchequer, will they be richer or more inclined to pay debts, or less willing to evade them, or more popular with their creditors, or more likely to get money from men whom they deliberately announce that they will cheat? I have not followed the Herald on the "stone-ship" question--that great naval victory appears to me not less horrible and wicked than suicidal.

Block the harbors for ever; destroy the inlets of the commerce of the world; perish cities,--so that we may wreak an injury on them.

It is the talk of madmen, but not the less wicked.The act injures the whole Republic: but it is perpetrated.It is to deal harm to ages hence; but it is done.The Indians of old used to burn women and their unborn children.This stone-ship business is Indian warfare.And it is performed by men who tell us every week that they are at the head of civilization, and that the Old World is decrepit, and cruel, and barbarous as compared to theirs.

The same politicians who throttle commerce at its neck, and threaten to confiscate trust-money, say that when the war is over, and the South is subdued, then the turn of the old country will come, and a direful retribution shall be taken for our conduct.This has been the cry all through the war."We should have conquered the South,"says an American paper which I read this very day, "but for England." Was there ever such puling heard from men who have an army of a million, and who turn and revile a people who have stood as aloof from their contest as we have from the war of Troy? Or is it an outcry made with malice prepense? And is the song of the New York Times a variation of the Herald tune?--"The conduct of the British in folding their arms and taking no part in the fight, has been so base that it has caused the prolongation of the war, and occasioned a prodigious expense on our part.Therefore, as we have British property in our hands, we &c.&c." The lamb troubled the water dreadfully, and the wolf, in a righteous indignation, "confiscated" him.Of course we have heard that at an undisturbed time Great Britain would never have dared to press its claim for redress.Did the United States wait until we were at peace with France before they went to war with us last? Did Mr.Seward yield the claim which he confesses to be just, until he himself was menaced with war? How long were the Southern gentlemen kept in prison? What caused them to be set free? and did the Cabinet of Washington see its error before or after the demand for redress?

The captor was feasted at Boston, and the captives in prison hard by.If the wrong-doer was to be punished, it was Captain Wilkes who ought to have gone into limbo.At any rate, as "the Cabinet of Washington could not give its approbation to the commander of the 'San Jacinto,'" why were the men not sooner set free? To sit at the Tremont House, and hear the captain after dinner give his opinion on international law, would have been better sport for the prisoners than the grim salle-a-manger at Fort Warren.