With indefensible exaggeration, it was changed by the British nation, backed by the British Government, into a casus belli,—as if an unauthorized incident, obviously involving no question of self-defence, could justify war between two civilized nations. And yet, in the face of positive declaration from the United States, communicated by our minister at London, that it was an accident, the British Government made preparations to take part with Rebel Slavery, and fitly began such an ignoble proceeding by keeping back from the British people the official despatch of 30th November, 1861, where our Government, after announcing that Captain Wilkes had acted “without any instructions,” expresses a “trust that the British Government would consider the subject in a friendly temper,” and promises “the best disposition” on our part.[7] It is painful to recall this exhibition. But it belongs to history, and we cannot forget the lesson it teaches.

(3.) This tendency to espouse the side of Slavery appears in small things as well as great, becoming more marked in proportion to the inconsistency involved. Thus, where two British subjects, “suspected” of participation in the Rebellion, were detained in a military prison without the benefit of Habeas Corpus, the British minister at Washington was directed to complain of their detention as inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, of which this intermeddling power assumed to be “expounder”; and the case was accordingly presented on this ground.[8] But the British Cabinet, with instinct to mix in our war, if only by diplomatic notes, seemed to have forgotten the British Constitution, under which, in 1848, with consent of all the party leaders, Brougham and Lansdowne, Peel and Disraeli, Habeas Corpus was suspended in Ireland, and the Government authorized to apprehend and detain “such persons as they shall suspect.” The bill sanctioning this exercise of power went through all its stages in the House of Commons on one day, and the next day went through all its stages in the House of Lords without a dissenting vote. It is hard to believe that Lord Russell, who complains of our detention of “suspected” persons as inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, was the minister who introduced this bill, and on that occasion used these words: “I believe in my conscience that this measure is calculated to prevent insurrection, to preserve internal peace, to preserve the unity of this empire, and to secure the throne of these realms and the free institutions of this country.”[9]

(4.) The complaint about Habeas Corpus was hardly answered, when another was solemnly presented, founded on the legitimate effort to complete the blockade of Charleston, by sinking at the mouth of its harbor ships laden with stone, usually known as “the stone blockade.” Did anybody find fault with the Russians for sinking their men-of-war in the harbor of Sebastopol? Nor is the allegation of permanent damage to the harbor tenable in the present advanced state of engineering science. A London journal, not inferior to any other in character and ability, has recently recognized the normal character of such a proceeding by mentioning it as a possible defence for Calcutta against naval force, saying: “The ascent of the river without pilots is impossible; for the Government can alter all the channels in a night by merely sinking a couple of loaded schooners.”[10] In common times her Majesty’s Government would shrink from such intermeddling. It could not forget that history, early and late, and especially English history, abounds in similar incidents: that, as long ago as 1436, at the siege of Calais by the Duke of Burgundy, and also in 1628, at the memorable siege of Rochelle by Cardinal Richelieu, ships laden with stone were sunk in the harbor; that, during the war of the Revolution, in 1779, six vessels were sunk by the British commander in the Savannah River, not far from this very Charleston, as a protection against the approach of the French naval forces; that, in 1804, under direction of the British Admiralty, there was an attempt, notorious from contemporary jest,[11] to choke the entrance into the harbor of Boulogne by sinking stone vessels; and that, in 1809, the same blockade of another port was recommended to the Admiralty by no less a person than Lord Dundonald, saying: “Ships filled with stones would ruin forever the anchorage of Aix, and some old vessels of the line well loaded would be excellent for the purpose.”[12] This complaint by the British Cabinet becomes doubly strange, when it is considered that one of the most conspicuous treaties of modern history contains solemn exactions from France by England herself, that the harbor of Dunkirk, whose prosperity was regarded with jealousy, should be permanently “filled up,” so that it could no longer furnish those hospitalities to commerce for which it was famous. This was the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713. The Triple Alliance, four years later, compelled France to stipulate again that nothing should be omitted “which Great Britain could think necessary for the entire destruction of the harbor”; and the latter power was authorized to send commissioners as “ocular witnesses of the execution of the treaty.” These humiliating provisions were renewed in successive treaties down to the Peace of Versailles, in 1783, when the immunity of that harbor was recognized with American Independence. And yet it is Great Britain, thus persistent in closing ports and rivers, that now interferes to warn us against a stone blockade in a war to put down Rebel Slavery.

(5.) The same propensity and the same inconsistency appear in another instance, where an eminent peer, once Foreign Secretary, did not hesitate, from his place in Parliament, to charge the United States with making medicines and surgical instruments contraband, “contrary to all the common laws of war, contrary to all precedent, not excluding the most ignorant and barbarous ages.”[13] Thus exclaims the noble Lord. Now I have nothing to say of the propriety of making these things contraband. My simple object is to exhibit the spirit against which we are to guard. It is difficult to understand how such a display could be made in face of the historic fact, exposed in the satire of Peter Plymley, that Parliament, in 1808, by large majorities, prohibited the exportation of Peruvian bark into any territory occupied by France, and that this