Supererogatory.
It is stated that Lord Lyons denies having had any correspondence with the Southern Confederacy!
We never knew of an act more thoroughly supererogatory.
Did anybody ever suspect his Lordship of having any such correspondence?
It was a very silly suspicion.
Lord Lyons long ago put himself by the side of Earl Russell, with reference to the
Confederacy.
This denial we conjecture is a mere trick, to remind the world — last the world forget — that Lord Lyons does not correspond with the
Confederacy!
It is quite agreeable to the
Yankees to be so informed, and
Russell and
Lyons have been making themselves very agreeable to those people for some time past.
Nothing could be more grateful, for instance, to his Lordship than to communicate to his friend
Seward the daring and desperate plot of a few Confederate soldiers to liberate the prisoners at
Johnston's Island, and no occasion at conciliation of the
Yankee public feeling has been lost by the
British minister.
He could not for a moment suppose that they would suspect one so loyal in his affectionate regard for them of coquetting or corresponding with their enemy.
The denial was only to propitiate them still further by a renewal of the expression of his determination not to recognize that enemy.
Lord Lyons need not hurt himself by his efforts to keep in the good graces of the
Yankees.
He and his superior of the Foreign office in
London have done that sufficiently by lowering the dignity of their own Government and making the
Lion crouch in meekness before the poor old
Engle.
Neither of them can, from their degradation at the footstool of
Lincoln, reflect upon the
Confederacy.
