Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[196] guns to reply to a courage so adventurous. The New York Times wrote in this strain: “There is no drawback to our jubilation. The universal Yankee nation is getting decidedly awake. As for Capt. Wilkes and his command, let the handsome thing be done. Consecrate another Fourth of July to him; load him down with services of plate, and swords of the cunningest and costliest art. Let us encourage the happy inspiration that achieved such a victory.”

But while the “universal Yankee nation” was thus astir, and in a rage of vanity, the South watched the progress of the Trent question with a keen and eager anxiety. It was naturally supposed, looking at the determination of England on the one side and the unbounded enthusiasm in the Northern States in maintaining their side of the question, that war would ensue between the parties. It was already imagined in the South that such a war would break the naval power of the North, distract her means, and easily confer independence on the Southern Confederacy. There were orators in Richmond who already declared that the key of the blockade had been lost in the trough of the Atlantic. If the North stood to the issue, the prospect was clear. Gov. Letcher of Virginia addressed a public meeting in Virginia, and, in characteristic language, declared that he prayed nightly that in this matter, “Lincoln's backbone might not give way.” The one condition of war between England and the North, was that the latter would keep its position, and sustain the high tone with which it had avowed the act of Capt. Wilkes.

But this condition was to fail suddenly, signally; and the whole world was to be amused by a diplomatic collapse, such as is scarcely to be found in the records of modern times. When the arrest of Messrs. Mason and Slidell was first made known at Washington, Secretary Seward had written to the Federal minister in London, advising him to decline any explanations, and suggesting that the grounds taken by the British Government should first be made known, and the argument commence with it.

But the British Government entered into no discussion; it disdained the argument of any law question in the matter; and with singular dignity made the naked and imperative demand for the surrender of the commissioners and their secretaries. Mr. Seward wrote back a letter, which must ever remain a curiosity in diplomacy. He volunteered the argument for the surrender of the parties; he promised that they should be “cheerfully” liberated; he declared that he did it in accordance with “the most cherished principles” of American statesmanship; but in the close of this remarkable letter he could not resist the last resort of demagogueism in mentioning the captured commissioners, who had for weeks been paraded as equal to the fruits of a victory in the field, as persons of no importance, and saying: “If the safety of this Union required the detention of the captured persons, it would be the right and duty of this Government to ”