C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[578] make those duties easy and successful. Mr. Motley's successor will find his mission wonderfully facilitated by the firmness and discretion that have presided over the conduct of American affairs in this country during too brief a term, too suddenly and unaccountably concluded.

The London press had not the key to this extraordinary transaction. It knew not the potency of the Santo Domingo spell; nor its strange influence over the Secretary, even breeding insensibility to instinctive amenities, and awakening peculiar unfriendliness to Mr. Motley, so amply certified afterward in an official document under his own hand—all of which burst forth with more than the tropical luxuriance of the much-coveted island.

I cannot disguise the sorrow with which I offer this explanation. In self-defence, and for the sake of truth, do I now speak. I have cultivated forbearance, and hoped from the bottom of my heart that I might do so to the end. But beyond the call of the public press has been the defiant challenge of Senators, and also the consideration sometimes presented by friends, that my silence might be misinterpreted. Tardily and most reluctantly I make this record, believing it more a duty to the Senate than to myself, but a plain duty to be performed in all simplicity without reserve. Having nothing to conceal, and willing always to be judged by the truth, I court the fullest inquiry, and shrink from no conclusion founded on an accurate knowledge of the case.

If this narration enables any one to see in clearer light the injustice done to Mr. Motley, then have I performed a further duty too long postponed; nor will it be doubted by any honest nature, that since the assault of the Secretary, he was entitled to that vindication which is found in a statement of facts within my own knowledge. Anything short of this would be a license to the Secretary in his new style of State paper, which, for the sake of the public service and of good-will among men, must be required to stand alone, in the isolation which becomes its abnormal character. Plainly without precedent in the past, it must be without chance of repetition in the future.

Here I stop. My present duty is performed when I set forth the simple facts, exhibiting those personal relations which have been drawn in question, without touching the questions of principle behind.