26

HOW I FIRST WROTE OF ENGLAND.

multiply forever my resources of happiness. I felt this when I looked for the first time on the frowning rock of Gibraltar; the sun-clad mountains of Grenada; the tideless bosom of the Mediterranean; the mosaic shores of Italy; the dome of St. Peter's; the frost-work of the Duomo of Milan; so felt I when first standing on the fields of Montenotte and of Marengo.

I

X.

WAS very young when I went to England. The first man I ever saw in my life who was famishing with hunger, I saw in London. The first female I ever looked on in the streets, whose raiment could not cover her form, was in London. The first structure raised by the hand of man that overwhelmed me, was Westminster Abbey. The first prison that made me shudder as I gazed on it, was Newgate. The first throne I ever saw was the throne of the then youthful and still beloved Victoria. These things struck me deeply; I felt deeply; I saw clearly. I described with earnestness and honesty what I saw -from the palace, with all its splendors, to the underground homes of the heathen in the collieries-from the dizziest heights to the lowest depths, I scoured through England for myself. I saw with my own eyes. I turned England inside out and upside down straight before the eyes of Englishmen themselves; and, forsooth, because I showed them what they never had seen before, and told them what they did not know, they said it was all made up. Well it was made up of facts. My statements have stood the test of twenty-four years, and all my pictures of the vice, the degradation, the sufferings, the sottishness, the heathenism of the masses of the British people, have been outdone since, by Reports made to the British Parliament on the horrors of the Collieries, the barbarities practiced in the Workhouses, the worse than slave toil of the Factories, the plethora of the Prelacy, the spiritual as well as the physical poverty of their flocks, the ignorance of the great herd of England's home subjects, and, in a single word, the accursed system of govern

MY ENGLISH TEACHERS AND DEFENDERS.

27

ment and society which is made for the express purpose of dressing one Englishman in gold and sending him to the House of Lords, and another Englishman in rags and sending him to the workhouse.

In some departments, my teachers then and my defenders since, have been the first men of Great Britain. Brougham, in his better days, before he began to drivel; Carlyle, in his better days, before he began to scold and drivel; Cobden, then glowing in, and since passed from the furnace, one of the greatest and most admired of the men of our times; Bright, the great Quaker man of State; Mill, the public economist of the world; Goldwin Smith, of Oxford; Daniel O'Connell, the Irish liberator; Dickens, who had partly before, and who has entirely since, torn off the garb of hypocrisy under which the British aristocracy had enwrapped itself in the dreadful work of embruting and enslaving the largest portion of the people; Thackeray, who shows the honeycomb system of villainy, fraud, dissipation and rottenness on which the aristocratic structure of England stands: so, if my work was the work of a boy, I am not utterly ashamed to own it as a man; for unworthy as it may have been of the favor it received, it was written in an honest and truthful spirit, and for the good of mankind.

I

XI.

HAVE given pretty liberal space to the course of the Government and the press of England towards us during our civil war.

England is responsible for the losses occasioned by the "Alabama," First, not because of the violation of any act of Parliament which could neither increase nor diminish her responsibilities, but because upon the principles of international law, which she has no right to modify by any statute, she neglected, after due notice from our Government, to arrest the departure of the "Alabama."

Second. Because her own revenue officers at Liverpool were

28

PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S VIEWS.

fully apprised of the intended departure of the "Alabama," and knowingly assisted in her leaving port as a Confederate cruiser.

Third. Because after England, by the order of arrest, had acknowledged that the departure of the "Alabama" for such a purpose was contrary to law, neglected to send British cruisers to seize her.

Fourth. Because she sent no notice to any of her colonial ports to seize the " Alabama."

Fifth. Because the "Alabama" was received into British colonial ports after her departure, in violation of law, and instead of being seized by the Colonial authorities, she received the hospitalities of a national vessel.*

* As these proof sheets are leaving my hands, the first Annual Message of President Johnson is received. His language on this subject is clear and unequivocal :-" Our domestic contest, now happily ended, has left some traces in our relations with one at least of the great maritime powers. The formal accordance of belligerent rights to the insurgent States was unprecedented, and has not been justified by the issue. But in the systems of neutrality pursued by the powers which made that concession there was a marked difference. The materials of war for the insurgent States were furnished, in a great measure, from the workshops of Great Britain, and British ships, manned by British subjects, and prepared for receiving British armaments, sailed from the ports of Great Britain to make war on American commerce, under the shelter of a commission from the insurgent States. These ships, having once escaped from British ports, ever afterwards entered them in every part of the world, to refit, and so to renew their depredations. The consequences of this conduct were most disastrous to the States then in rebellion, increasing their desolation and misery by the prolongation of our civil contest. It had, moreover, the effect, to a great extent, to drive the American flag from the sea, and to transfer much of our shipping and our commerce to the very Power whose subjects had created the necessity for such a change. These events took place before I was called to the administration of the Government. The sincere desire for peace by which I am animated, led me to approve the proposal, already made, to submit the questions which had thus arisen between the countries to arbitration. These questions are of such moment that they must have commanded the attention of the Great Powers, and are so interwoven with the peace and interests of every one of them as to have insured an impartial decision. I regret to inform you that Great Britain declined the arbitrament, but, on the other hand, invited us to the formation of a joint commission to settle mutual claims between the two

NAPOLEON'S POLICY IN MEXICO.

29

This expresses the convictions and the feelings of the American people, and further than this I have no desire to go.

I

XII.

HAVE spoken of the policy of Palmerston and Napoleon concerning this country, for they had to be considered together. That policy was early matured, and it was afterwards clearly developed. It has ceased to be even a matter of curi osity to get at the secret history of the conferences and intrigues of these subtle statesmen at the commencement, and during the continuance, of the rebellion. Events have withdrawn the veil from the innermost penetralia of every cabinet in Europe, as far as we are concerned. The first object of Napoleon was to imperialize the governments of all the Latin nations in the Western hemispherc. His plan embraced the overthrow of the Mexican Republic, and placing an emperor on the throne-the annexation of the Central American Statesthe intervention of Spain for the subversion of all the Republics of South America, and the establishment of a vast empire,

countries, from which those for the depredations before mentioned should be excluded. The proposition, in that very unsatisfactory form, has been declined. "The United States did not present the subject as an impeachment of the good faith of a power which was professing the most friendly dispositions, but as involving questions of public law, of which the settlement is essential to the peace of nations; and, though pecuniary reparation to their injured citizens would have followed incidentally on a decision against Great Britain, such compensation was not their primary object. They had a higher motive, and it was in the interests of peace and justice to establish important principles of international law. The correspondence will be placed before you.

'The ground on which the British Minister rests his justification is, substantially, that the municipal law of a nation, and the domestic interpretations of that law, are the measure of its duty as a neutral; and I feel bound to declare my opinion, before you and before the world, that that justification cannot be sustained before the tribunal of nations. At the same time I do not advise to any present attempt at redress by acts of legislation. For the future, friendship between the two countries must rest on the basis of mutual justice."

30

IMPERIALIZING THE LATIN NATIONS.

which would blot out every republic in the New World except our own, (which was to be broken up,) and thus make Imperialism the Law of Government for the entire Latin race of the West.

Under treaties with England and Spain, Louis Napoleon went to Mexico with the most solemn pledges not to interfere with her government, but to unite with Spain and England in demanding security for certain English, French and Spanish claims from the Mexican Republic.

When, in violation of that treaty, he announced his determination to overthrow the Republic of Mexico, the troops of Spain and England at once withdrew from the conflict, and returned home.

When the French troops were being more than decimated by yellow fever at Vera Cruz, Louis Napoleon was permitted to remove them to a high and healthy position on the way to Mexico, and thus saved his army from destruction, with a most solemn pledge, that if such a movement were permitted by Mexico, he would take no advantage of this position to assail that government. This engagement he most certainly violated, by moving from this interior position so evidently secured to overthrow that republic.

The movement was exclusively in hostility to the United States, to the republican system of the world, and to make. monarchy or imperialism universal. It was not a mere movement against Mexico, for in his published letter on that subject, when he thought our rebellion would succeed, he announced his purpose to be to establish the equilibrium of the Latin race on this continent. By the Latin race he meant the whole American continent, from Texas and California to Cape Horn in other words, he desired to monarchize or imperialize that whole region. In the meantime he was under secret confidential arrangements with the so-called Confederate government for moral aid and support. Whilst we were engaged in civil war, he made three desperate efforts to render the rebellion successful, by three separate attempts to induce the British govern