Lord Palmerston Lord John He is now professedly a Conservative, but is believed to be willing to support any measures, however sweeping and democratical, if by so doing he could gratify his ambition — which is for office and power. He was the great thorn in the side of the last Sir R. Peel, and was never so much at home as when he could find a flaw in that distinguished statesman's political acts. He is an able debater and a finished orator, and in his speeches wrings applause even from his political opponents. Cast your eyes to the opposite side of the House, and take a good view of that venerable man, full of years, just rising from his seat. See how erect he stands; he is above seventy years of age, and yet he does not seem to be forty. That is Lord Palmerston. Next to Joseph Hume, he is the oldest member in the House. He has been longer in office than any other living man. All parties have, by turns, claimed him, and he has belonged to all kinds of administration, Tory, Conservative, Whig, and Coalition. He is a ready debater, and he is a general favorite as a speaker, for his wit and adroitness, but little trusted by any party as a statesman. His talents have secured him office, and he is useful as a minister and dangerous as an opponent. Ah! we shall now have a speech. See that little man rising from his seat; look at his thin black hair, how it seems to stand up; hear that weak but distinct voice. Oh, how he repeats the ends of his sentences! It is Lord John Russell, the leader of the present administration. He is now asking for three million pounds sterling to carry on the war. He is a terse and perspicuous speaker, but avoids prolixity. He is much respected on both sides of the House. Though favorable to reform measures generally, he is nevertheless an upholder of aristocracy, and stands at the head and firmly by his order. He is brother to the present duke of Bedford, and has twice been premier; and, though on the sunny side of sixty, he has been in office, at different times, more than thirty years. He is a constitutional Whig and conservative reformer. See how earnestly he speaks, and keeps his eyes on Disraeli! He is afraid of the Jew! Now he scratches the bald place on his head, and then opens that huge roll of paper and looks over towards Lord Palmerston. . . All eyes are turned towards the seat of the chancellor of the Gladstone exchequer a pause of a moment's duration, and the orator of again the House rises to his feet. Those who have been reading the Times lay it down; all whispering stops, and the attention of the members is directed to Gladstone as he begins. Disraeli rests his chin upon his hat, which lies upon his knee: he too is chained to his seat by the fascinating eloquence of the man of letters. Thunders of applause follow, in which all join but the Jew. Disraeli changes his position on his seat, first one leg crossed and then the other, but he never smiles while his opponent is speaking. He sits like one of those marble figures in the British Museum. Disraeli has furnished more fun for Punch than any other man in the empire. When it was resolved to have a portrait of the late Sir R. Peel painted for the government, Mr. Gladstone ordered it to be taken from one that appeared in Punch during the lifetime of that great statesman. This was indeed a compliment to that sheet of fun. But now look at the chancellor of the exchequer. He is in the midst of his masterly speech, and silence reigns throughout the House. His words of learned length and thundering sound And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew II. ENGLAND AND THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA The following speech by John Bright, delivered at a public dinner at Rochdale, in the midst of the cottonmanufacturing country, was of great influence in keeping some degree of friendship between England and America during the early period of the Civil War. In these times in which we live, by the influence of the tele- 439. Speech of graph and the steamboat and the railroad, and the multiplica- John Bright (December 4, tion of newspapers, we seem continually to stand as on the top 1861) The Crimean War The Sepoy rebellion Italian War of an exceeding high mountain, from which we behold all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them - unhappily, also, not only their glory, but their follies and their crimes and their calamities. Seven years ago our eyes were turned with anxious expectation to a remote corner of Europe, where five nations were contending in bloody strife for an object which possibly hardly one of them comprehended, and, if they did comprehend it, which all sensible men amongst them must have known to be absolutely impracticable. Four years ago we were looking still further to the east, where there was a gigantic revolt in a great dependency of the British crown, arising mainly from gross neglect, and from the incapacity of England, up to that moment, to govern the country which it had known how to The Franco- conquer. Two years ago we looked south, to the plains of Lombardy, and saw a great strife there, in which every man of England took a strong interest; and we have welcomed, as the results of that strife, the addition of a great kingdom to The Civil War the list of European states. Now our eyes are turned in a contrary direction and we look to the west. There we see a struggle in progress of the very highest interest to England and to humanity at large. We see there a nation which I shall call the transatlantic English nation the inheritor and partaker of all the historic glories of this country. We see it torn with intestine broils and suffering from calamities from which for more than a century past, in fact, for more than two centuries past, this country has been exempt. That struggle is of especial interest to us. We remember the description which one of our great poets gives of Rome, "Lone mother of dead empires." in America Acknowledged hostility to the North But England is the living mother of great nations on the American and on the Australian continents, which promise to endow the world with all her knowledge and all her civilization, and with even something more than the freedom she herself enjoys. . . . Now I am obliged to say, and I say it with the utmost pain, that if we have not done things which are plainly hostile to the North, and if we have not expressed affection for slavery and, outwardly and openly, hatred for the Union, I say that there has not been that friendly and cordial neutrality which, if I had been a citizen of the United States, I should have expected; and I say further, that, if there has existed considerable irritation at that, it must be taken as a measure of the high appreciation which the people of those states place upon the opinion of the people of England. If I had been addressing this audience ten days ago, so far as I know, I should have said just what I have said now; and although, by an untoward event, circumstances are somewhat, even considerably, altered, yet I have thought it desirable to make this statement, with a view, so far as I am able to do it, to improve the opinion of England and to assuage feelings of irritation in America, if there be any, so that no further difficulties may arise in the progress of this unhappy strife. and Slidell But there has occurred an event which was announced to Seizure of us only a week ago, which is one of great importance, and it Messrs. Mason may be one of some peril. It is asserted that what is called “international law" has been broken by the seizure of the Southern commissioners on board an English trading steamer by a steamer of war of the United States. Now what is international law? You have heard that the opinions of the law officers of the crown are in favor of this view of the case that the law has been broken. I am not at all going to say that it has not. It would be imprudent in me to set my opinion on a legal question which I have only partially examined, against their opinion on the same question, which I presume they have carefully examined. But this I say, that international law is not to be found in an act of parliament; it is not in so many clauses. You know that it is difficult to find the law. I can ask the mayor, or any magistrate around me, whether it is not very difficult to find the law, even when you have found the act of parliament and found the clause. But when you have found no act of parliament, and no clause, you may imagine that the case is still more difficult. Now maritime law, or international law, consists of opinions The uncerand precedents for the most part, and it is very unsettled. tainty of interThe opinions are the opinions of men of different countries, national law E given at different times; and the precedents are not always like each other. The law is very unsettled, and, for the most part, I believe it to be exceedingly bad. In past times, as you know from the histories you read, this country has been a fighting country; we have been belligerents, we have carried maritime law by our own powerful hand to a pitch that has been very oppressive to foreign and especially to neutral nations. Well, now, for the first time, unhappily, almost for the first time in our history for the last two hundred years, we are not belligerents but neutrals; and we are disposed to take, perhaps, rather a different view of maritime and international law. Now the act which has been committed by the American steamer, in my opinion, whether it was legal or not, was both impolitic and bad. That is my opinion. I think it may turn out, almost certainly, that, so far as the taking of those men from that ship was concerned, it was an act wholly unknown to, and unauthorized by, the American government. And if the American government believe, on the opinion of their law officers, that the act is illegal, I have no doubt they will make fitting reparation; for there is no government in the world that has so strenuously insisted upon modifications of international law, and been so anxious to be guided always by the most moderate and merciful interpretation of that law. Now our great advisers of the Times newspaper have been persuading people that this is merely one of a series of acts which denote the determination of the Washington government to pick a quarrel with the people of England. Did you ever know anybody who was not very nearly dead drunk, who, having as much upon his hands as he could manage, would offer to fight everybody about him? Do you believe that the United States government, presided over by President Lincoln, so constitutional in all his acts, so moderate as he has been— representing at this moment that great party in the United States, happily now in the ascendency, which has always been especially in favour of peace, and especially friendly to England - do you believe that such a government, having now upon its hands an insurrection of the most formidable character in the South, would invite the armies and the fleets of England to |