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after their return, both of whom would have been glad to go further in making new and better rules, if it could have been done without putting the whole work in danger.
Sir Stafford wrote: ‘Though I should individually have preferred a broader measure, I am not dissatisfied with what we have got. The matter cannot rest where it is, and we shall see by and by a development of our principles in the direction of a further improvement and ascertainment of the rules of international law.’
Earl de Grey wrote from
London, June 17:—
The day may come when your views as to the immunity of private property at sea will prevail; but at present they would meet with much opposition on both sides of the Atlantic, and I am glad therefore that you did not press the insertion of the amendment in the treaty. . . . I found that people here fully believed in the accuracy of the sham report of your speech,1 but I have, I think, dispelled the illusion and placed your position on the question in its true light.
It has been a great satisfaction to me and to my colleagues that you were able to give your vote in favor of our work.
Again, August 4, after recurring to the pleasant evenings passed at the senator's house, ‘with all their attractive memories of art and literature,’
De Grey, now
Marquis of
Ripon, wrote:—
The result of our labors there may not have been perfect, or rather, I should say, were not perfect (for what work of man can be?); but it was a result worth attaining.
And if it left something undone in the direction to which you point, it does not follow that through your effort and that of those who think with you on these questions the two nations may not advance yet farther, hand in hand.
in the path upon which they have entered, of limiting and restricting the evils of war by the application of improved principles of international law.
Sumner lingered in
Washington (the Senate adjourning May 27) till the second week of August.
He passed his time in studies, relieving them by afternoon drives, during which
George William Curtis, then in
Washington as chairman of the civil service commission, was often his companion, and they ended the day by dining at the senator's house.
Mr. Curtis was a stanch supporter of the
President, though not agreeing with his
San Domingo scheme.
He wrote from
Ashfield, Mass., July 28: ‘My summer days in
Washington were a delightful episode in my life.
Our long talks, our drives, our dinners, our ’
