The Government of the
State of Massachusetts is the most contemptible Government in the whole world, except the
Government of
Great Britain (as the latter is at present administered). Both of these concurs are coming money out of Southern blood, and both are, therefore, desirous to have the war continued
ad infinitum. Both are equally determined not to expose their subjects to personal danger, and both resort to expedients peculiarly characteristic to avoid the necessity.
Great Britain takes every opportunity to proclaim that she is neutral, while she is constantly rendering to our enemy the most effective assistance and inflicting upon us the most intolerable wrong.
Thus she keeps her own carcass out of danger.
Massachusetts cannot go exactly so far as this.
This war is her war. It is a per job, by which she hopes to buy her way to heaven, and make a huge sum besides, in the way of business.
But she
must furnish her
quota of men; and she has found out a way to do it. "The solid men of
Boston," in days gone by, made fortunes by kidnapping negroes on the coast of
Africa and selling them to the farmers and planters of
Virginia and the Carolinas.
The descendants of these same "solid men of
Boston" make up their
quota, in part, by kidnapping the descendants of these same kidnapped Africans, and putting them forward to be slaughtered at the rate of 10,000 a day. Thus
Massachusetts manifests a zeal to keep up the slaughter, and to keep out of the danger, fully as earnest, and quite as commendable, as
Great Britain, when she supplies the
Yankees with forty thousand recruits per annum, and
hopes, through her foreign secretary, that the war may only end with the complete overthrow of slavery, or, in other words, with the extermination of the white inhabitants of these
Confederate States.
Both these traffickers in blood are singularly religious, and both convinced that the book called the New Testament is obsolete, and has been superseded by a new revelation, which teaches that the old difficulty about serving God and Mammon is an absurdity.
Their new religion is much more convenient, and therefore, of course, much more popular.
It teaches that it is very well to serve God, provided "it will pay; "otherwise, the service of Mammon is preferable.
The determination of the "solid men" to carry on their "big job" as long as "it will pay" has of late been made plain in a very peculiar way; and the determination of
Great Britain to afford all facilities for keeping up the flame, and not suffering it to expire for want of fuel, has likewise been shown.
Massachusetts, it seems, cannot kidnap negroes enough to exempt
all the "solid men, " and the "solid men" cannot go to the war without running the risk of getting shot.
Fortunately, an expedient presents itself which solves the difficulty without exposing the "solid men." One
Mr. Julian Allen, who, it seems, is a Pole, although he spells his name with an unusually small stock of consonants for one of his race, renowned alike for martial prowess and the unpronounceable character of those
indicia by which men are accustomed to reveal their nominative case, has undertaken to furnish them with recruits from
Holland,
Belgium, and the rest of
Europe generally, upon speculation.
Of course there is no want of a British ship to bring over these interesting strangers, and it might be dangerous to trust the cargo to any other than an intensely neutral bottom.
Semmes, it is true, is shipless at the present moment, but
Wood is abroad, and Yankeedom has lately heard from him in a way not at all calculated to allay any fears that she may be liable to entertain.
Allen's menagerie, if entrusted to a Yankee ship, might be brought to grief some fine morning, and its cargo of brutes sent to kingdom come on very short notice.
But a
British vessel is neutral--
perfectly neutral--
extremely neutral — amazingly neutral — a
perfect model of neutrality.
Lord Palmerston says so.
Lord John Russell says so. The
Queen says so. The London
Times says so. It must be so.
England itself is certainly the most neutral nation in the world, and Lord Palmerston is the most neutral man in
England, except
Lord John Russell, who is the very pink of neutrality.
They will be safe on board of an English vessel, of course; and so on board of an English vessel, they are put at
Antwerp to the number of three hundred and fifty, and in the course, of time are duly landed at
Deer island, in the harbor of
Boston.
On the passage they were drilled every day by another Pole, who, having been exiled from his own country, probably thought it would be a relief to his feelings to visit upon others what he had endured himself; as the fox who had his tail cut off by a steel-trap became exceedingly anxious that his whole race should appear in uniform, and, in a council of the tribe, recommended a general suppression of the caudal appendage.
The whole affair, it seems, was a "
speculation." The New York
Evening Post says "nobody not interested was wiser, while three individuals were much richer, and four hundred men were credited to
Boston."--The authorities of the countries to which these men belong did not, it seems, take any steps to prevent this atrocious evasion of all neutrality, but rather encouraged it than otherwise.
All praise to this glorious Confederacy!
It has withstood, and is still withstanding, the combined strength of all
Europe in addition to that of the
Yankees and its own negroes.
There never was such a struggle, so gloriously unequal in point of numbers, so gloriously triumphant wherever prowess could be expected to prevail against odds, so calm in its conduct, so resolute in its resistance, so defiant in its mood, so uncomplaining in its sufferings.
Talk of all the wars and revolutions and successful resistances that have ever been recorded!
We have read of them all, and none deserve to be mentioned on the same day with this struggle.
Such will be the verdict of posterity, when time shall have mellowed events which are now of late occurrence and invested them with the halo which never rests upon glorious deeds until we recede a certain distance from them.