From The Spectator, 24 Jan. THE LETTER TO GENERAL FOREY.

healthy sameness in American tendencies which needs just such a check as the neighborhood of a great French colony, too strong THE letter addressed by the emperor to to be threatened, or filled with Americans, General Forey on the 3d of July, and pub- or openly attacked without risk, is pretty lished this week, is worth attention for one sure to afford. As a particular matter, Engreason alone. His majesty says, indeed, that land is not injured by any reasonable disthe Mexicans are to select their own form of position of Mexico. That country, whether government, but everybody knew that he a colony, or a dependency, or a protected would be sure in a correspondence almost State, will not increase the strength of France official to repeat that accustomed profession. more than India does ours; for France docs He directs his general also to frame a Pro- not gain like England by the power of mainvisional Government, but most people had taining a large army out of taxes not paid guessed the mode in which he would nullify by her own subjects. Her army is too the previous declaration. He expressed dis- great by far already. The distant possession tinctly his prejudice in favor of the monar-will, in peace, draw off surplus French enchical form, but that, as he himself observes, ergy, and in war very seriously diminish the is only a matter of course." The new offensive strength of her fleet. We have no point is the avowal of his ultimate and hith- particular reason to uphold the Monroe docerto half-hidden policy-his desire to extend trine, and if France likes fighting the United the principle of the balance of power to the States for "influence in the centre of AmerAmerican Continent. "It is not," he says ica," England may smilingly hear of strength openly, "the interest of Europe that the not wasted against herself. United States should seize possession of all the Mexican Gulf, dominate from thence the Antilles, as well as South America, and be the sole dispenser of the products of the New World." He has determined, therefore, to restore to the Latin race on the other side of the ocean its strength and prestige," to "establish the beneficent influence of France in the centre of America," and thus "to procure the materials indispensable for French industry." This is a distinct recognition at once of the necessity of a balance of power, and of an intention to establish French influence permanently on the American Continent. In other words, the letter acknowledges the commencement of an undertaking vast in its details, vaster in the utter dislocation it must produce in all American foreign policy, vastest of all in the ages of time over which, to be successful, it must be kept

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in action.

France will do well to ponder that letter, for it pledges her to a work compared with which the reconquest of Hindostan was a small affair; but there seems no reason why England should raise an active objection. As a general question, political uniformity is always an evil, as tending at once to despotism and to a stereotyped form of life, and the existence and activity of two races instead of one must be of future benefit to the great American Continent. There is an un

The objectionable point in the letter is its wonderful vagueness. Hitherto, nations have gone to war for some definite and appreciable cause, capable of being foreseen, or provided against, or removed; but the emperor goes to war for an idea so vast, and withal so transcendental, that diplomacy is at fault. If he may invade Mexico to create a balance of power in North America, why not Burmah to produce a balance of power in Asia, or Peru to restore the "prestige of the Latin race" on the South American Continent. There is in this letter a local excuse for any manner of expedition. Nothing can be more opposed to the prestige of the Latin race than the present condition of India, where the Anglo-Saxon not only threatens to be, but is, absolute lord. There is no balance of power in Australia; and if this despatch is moral, Napoleon may make a spring at the Gulf of Carpentaria to all know he will not do it, because there are the wars of the native tribes. We repress a certain number of ships in the Channel and of soldiers on shore; but the principles he avows in his letter would justify that and more. They would, in fact, cover an invasion, under any circumstances, anywhere, provided the Latin race gained and the Teutonic lost. Very pleasant all that for the Latins; but their rivals, though not bound to object in action, are not required, either to accept the new doctrine with more than a grave official equanimity.

From The Spectator, 24 Jan. MR. BERESFORD HOPE ON BELSHAZZAR AND SARDANAPALUS.

world. . . . We were all of us hero-worshippers; the names of those who had carried out any great cause were wound round our hearts; and he asserted that when the present age came to take up the bead-roll of its greatest men-those whose burning patriotism combined with calm statesmanship made them the fathers of a country struggling into new life-by the side of Cavour would blaze in history with an equal glory the name of Jefferson Davis-(cheers and dissent)—that man, of a British descent, of a British name, who spoke and wrote so nobly the British language. Heroes would go with heroes-Davis with Cavour, and Stonewall Jackson with Garibaldi.”

MR. BERESFORD HOPE seems eminently competent to his self-imposed duty of representing the Confederate States in England, nay, perhaps too much so for success. His literary susceptibility to the atmosphere in which he is now immersed is so delicate, that he identifies himself even too closely with his clients, and like the chameleon, he assumes the hue of the nutriment on which he feeds. This is unfortunate for his cause. An advocate's power of entering into the heart of his client's moral situation, should of course be great; but his power of stopping half-way, and resisting the influence of those unpleasant little characteristics which sometimes prejudice a jury, should be great also. The intellect and sympathies of the literary organization may easily be too highly receptive for the task of advocacy, and we fear this is the case with Mr. Beresford Hope. His Maidstone audience on Tuesday were evidently unprepared for the too successful dramatic effort of Mr. Hope's intellect. Some men, it has been said, when they write letters, cease to be themselves and become correspondents. Mr. Hope threw himself with such enthusiasm into his part that he ceased to be an Englishman and became a Confederate. There was all the stormy and lurid fire of the Richmond Whig itself in Mr. Hope's address. His panegyric on the South was pitched in a key which startled the common sense of Maidstone. Probably some of his hearers were strongly reminded, by the poetic oratory and the lyrical éloge of the South which it contained, of that noble Mississippian who has left one striking record of himself in the works of Mr. Dickens, Mr. Putnam Smif: "I am young and ardent, for there is a poetry in wildness, and every alligator basking in the slime is, in himself, an Epic self-contained." That Mr. Beresford Hope is young we are not confident, but genuine enthusiasm will sometimes relax the "binding crust of years," and he is certainly even more ardent in his praise of his young alligator than even Mr. Putnam Smif. Nor is his oratory much less chaste than that of this gentleman, though its choicest efforts are reserved for invective against the enemies of the South. A year ago, he said, when the hopes of the South were at their lowest ebb, he had predicted their success, and “at that time he felt that he was really a prophet," and now he has added to the foresight of the prophet the in- Mr. Hope seems, however, like his model, spiration of the bard. The cause of the the Richmond Whig, to be at present greatSlave States, he says, is "the cause of free- est in withering scorn. Only that, while his dom, the cause of English feeling, the cause model raves against those "painted mumof constitutional government all over themies, Palmerston and Russell," Mr. Hope

This is a very noble tribute to the man whose popularity began when he "stumped the State of Mississippi to persuade it to repudiate its debt, and whose last act has authorized a cold-blooded massacre of fellowcreatures guilty of no crime but a preference of liberty to slavery. But Mr. Hope is ardent; and he cannot see the difficulty which occurred to an English audience in showering all the civic virtues on the epic alligator with its dangerous jaws. He is carried up on the wings of his own metaphor into a rapture of new expectation. "The Confederate nation," he says, "has passed the Red Sea; in God's name let us give them a helping hand to reach the promised land." Well, no doubt, they have made an effective exodus of it across the Potomac, following to the letter, by the way, the injunction to despoil the Egyptians by their cunning; but Mr. Hope's poetical imagination scarcely does justice here to the shrewd motives of his modern Pharaoh-Moses. Moses, we thought, contrived the exodus in order to set free a nation of slaves, and availed himself of the sojourn in the desert to teach them a little moral law, as a good preliminary to independence. Was that precisely Mr. Davis's object in seceding? He appeared to us to have taken good care to explain why he bolted so suddenly across the Potomac namely, in order to do with his slaves more entirely as he pleased-in order to avoid teaching them anything at all, in order to drag them into the promised land of perfect bondage. Mr. Hope begs us, in God's name, to aid them; but the value of a promised land must depend after all on him who gives the promise, and the English people have a feeling that, in God's name, the longer this promised land remains a prospective gift, the better.

discharges similar batteries against poor Mr. | all about calling Mr. Lincoln publicly a bufLincoln. Like an artful orator he begins foon and an indecent talker, though there is gently, by showing from what a height of no English member of Parliament of whom, learning he looks down upon such a man as however true it might be, he would venture to Mr. Lincoln. A year ago Mr. Hope had ap- make the same assertion. He has no scruple plied a recondite classical term to Mr. Lin- about declaring the sin of quietly and consticoln's subordinates, of the very existence of tutionally accepting the result of a constituwhich Mr. Lincoln was probably ignorant: tional election to be "an offence of the blackest "Referring to his former lecture, Mr. Hope dye, which Heaven might pardon, but which remarked that he was, on that occasion, the was unforgivable on earth;" for that is only first to use the word pro-consul as applied to Yankee eloquence. But he does seriously the governors whom President Lincoln sent hesitate to speak of his having been in trade. to tyrannize over the temporarily won South- The last declamatory sentence appears to ern provinces. President Lincoln would not mean that Mr. Lincoln's offence is unforgivprobably ever have heard the word in his able by those who cannot forgive it a true, life; it had, however, frequently been used but not entirely original, remark. Earth, since in the public press. He (Mr. Hope) we suppose, must mean man; now, of existhad applied it to such men as General But- ing men, there are perhaps none, except the ler, and he thought there was something pro- Southerners and Mr. Beresford Hope, who phetic in his having singled him out as a type even imagine that Mr. Lincoln required forof the individuals to whom he had referred." giveness for taking the place offered him; This is the advantage of a thorough univer- and as an offence cannot be unforgivable sity training for a prophet. You can not which is not an offence at all, this noble reonly anticipate the future, but you have the mark appears to mean that to those who took pick of all the best words for describing it; offence, and who cannot forgive it, it is unand may even be able to call your adversary forgivable. But this, though a high range names he does not himself understand. It is of eloquence, is not the summit. Here at exceedingly creditable to Mr. Hope to have length we reach the crest of this sublime asmastered the word "pro-consul," and to have cent: "He must have seen, if he had any led the van of all the public writers of Eng-perception, that he was rushing into an office land in the use of that felicitous expression. which he could only fill to the mischief of But though we are partly prepared by this his country. Among the names of rulers prelude for the great crash of triumphant oratory which follows it, he introduces it by a little bit of modest apology: "Mr. Hope then proceeded to refer to the manner in which he had been criticized for having in his former lecture applied to President Lincoln the term 'rail-splitter, bargee, and attorney.' He considered that President Lincoln's antecedents and his subsequent proceedings had justified this plain language. The selection of such a man as ruler of thirty millions of people was as hideous a spectacle as history presented. As a former member of Congress he had acquired a distinguished character as a standing buffoon, and a reciter of indecent stories to the House, when he could get a few members together to listen to him. He had just a sufficient glimmering of public matters to make his acceptance of the presidency an offence of the blackest dye -an offence which Heaven might pardon, but which was unforgivable on earth."

Mr. Hope evidently has the true Yankee impression that to call a man what he is-if that should happen to indicate a position not very high in the social scale-is the most terrible of insults. The only misgiving indicated in this grand piece of invective is, whether that "plain language" of "railsplitter, bargee, and attorney" were really quite justified. Mr. Hope has no scruple at

whom history had branded with infamy, were those of sovereigns who, in great crises, were their country's foes-Sardanapalus, Belshazzar, Rehoboam, the descendants of Charlemagne. And yet these men were put into the positions they held without their own personal fault-they merely found themselves where their fathers were before them. But what could be said of one who had not this excuse, but who, like President Lincoln, allowed himself to be made the tool for the ruin of his country?" University culture this, on a scale of almost unprecedented magnificence! Above Sardanapalus and the blazing pile of his self-immolated riches-above Belshazzar at his midnight revels-above the imbecile successors of Charlemagne, Mr. Lincoln is set up as the apex of regnant infamy. Mr. Hope, the prophet, will himself act by him the part of Daniel, and interpret the handwriting on the wall. This Mr. Hope does, and prophesies not only a division of the kingdom, but a division by seven; and then he passes to a poetical description of the beneficent institutions of the South. Having exaggerated rough breeding into the blackest of crimes, he naturally softens the blackest of political crimes into unfortunate social accidents, and enumerates with generous enthusiasm, though in a style not up to the "Belshazzar" pitch, the number of nom

inal rights which negroes have in the Slave |ity impartially against either belligerent. States, if only they had any power of enforc- If they only mean that it is the moral duty ing them. of the neutral, "Historicus" does not deny But for this softening and toning depart-it. If they mean that the neutral is bound ment of oratorical skill Mr. Beresford Hope to make good to the belligerent the damis a little out of training, in consequence of age he may have sustained, the London his too close familiarity with the "broad Reviewer does not sustain them. Let M. brush and dirty colors" of the Western Hautefeuille and Sir Robert undertake the School of Art. From the Belshazzar sum- guardianship of their own reputations. But mit his oration gradually slopes away into we cannot think that the principles applian ineffectual murmur of apology, until it cable to the subject were ever really in doubt, goes out with just one sudden spark of the and for this simple reason, that it is entirely higher fervor in that noble passage about the in the option of the neutral whether he will Red Sea and the Promised Land. As Mr. stand on his neutral rights or not. He Beresford Hope is, we believe, anxious to may even go to the length of granting the get into Parliament, we would recommend troops of a belligerent a passage over his terhim not to cultivate exclusively that flamboy-ritory. "It is no ground of complaint," ant style of oratory which would recommend says the Chancellor Kent, "against the inhim for a seat in the assemblies of Washing- termediate neutral state if it grants a passage ton or Richmond.

treating the neutral as a foe. What will be on which day the Alabama went, without pasufficient to justify such a conviction? pers, for a trial trip, from which she never Alas! there is no answer to be given. It returned. The excuse tendered by Lord is commonly the result of a series of inci- Russell is the sudden illness of the queen's dents, each, perhaps, of small importance in advocate, which is good, of course, for what itself, but impressing the mind, as drops of it is worth; but Lord Russell might surely water impress a rock, by taking up the work have got himself informed as to the law bejust where it has been left by their immedi- tween the 22d of June and the 23d of July. ate antecedents. The number of these petty Nor can we expect that Americans will conincidents, the time necessary to produce sent to dissever altogether the conduct of estrangement between nations, will vary ac- our citizens from that of the Government. cording to the state of the popular feeling The Liverpool collector clearly was as blind at the moment, and we must expect that it as ever he could be, and care was taken that will arrive soonest in those nations which, | Captain Butcher should have timely warning perhaps, have the least right to entertain it. as soon as he was in danger. When EngNo one is so touchy about a trifling infrac- lishmen, in answer to Mr. Seward's comtion of his own rights as the man who habit-plaints of the hostility of British subjects, ually takes trifling liberties with the rights point to the impartiality of the Government of others. If this be one of the foibles of which, on the whole, they have a right to the Americans, and indeed of the Anglo-do-they ought to remember that Lord Saxon race, we should be the more careful Clarendon in 1853 addressed precisely the to give no reasonable ground of suspicion; same complaints to the Cabinet at Washand (it may well be our misfortune) ground ington. Yet, whatever soreness we may for suspicion, we think, the known facts justly feel as to the bias of Americans in faabout the building of the Alabama have certainly given.

vor of France during the Revolutionary War and of Russia more recently, their Mr. Adams originally applied to Lord government at least was strictly impartial. Russell respecting the Alabama on the 23d In 1793, Mr. Jefferson, then Seeretary of of June. This application seems to have State, used the strongest language to Citibeen supported by evidence which has not zen Genet, who had made use of the Ameras yet been published. Mr. Collier, Q.C., ican ports as the Confederates have used advised on the 16th July that "the evi- Liverpool. "It would have been proper redence was almost conclusive" that the vessel spect to the authority of this country," he was being fitted out by the Messrs. Laird as wrote, " had that been consulted before these a privateer for the use of the Confederate armaments were undertaken." Has Mr. JefGovernment. On the 22nd of July the ferson Davis consulted ours? President Government instructed the collector of cus- Washington even indicted a Yankee named toms not to exercise the powers conferred Henfield for enlisting in one of Citizen Geon him by the act. In the absence of the net's vessels. But the dislike to England, evidence, we can, of course, pronounce no and republican feeling for the new Republic opinion. As the case stands at present, it of France, was too strong for him, and the is Mr. Collier versus the law-advisers of the jury would not convict; yet the unpopularcrown, and every one must decide which is ity of his policy did not prevent him from the higher authority for himself. The ar- demanding Genet's recall. All we ask now gument which has been put forth, that it is that our Government should make our must have been known that the vessel was neutrality equally clear, in spite of the fact not intended for commerce by her build, is that our territorial and commercial aristocnot to the point. Any government in Europe racy hate a democratic form of society even may have war vessels built in English dock- more than slavery, and equality more than yards. What it was necessary to prove was, injustice. We are far from saying that the that this war vessel was building for the Con- Government will not do so. We believe federates. On the same 22d of July Mr. that they will be able to show that they have Adams was able to place in Lord Russell's done so. But let it not be forgotten that we. hands an affidavit, made by William Pass-are still without the least evidence whether more, an English seaman, who swore that they have done so or not.

Captain Butcher, of the Alabama, had actu- It is certain that orders were expedited to ally engaged him "to fight for the Southern seize the Alabama if she entered any British Government." After this, one would have port-as she sailed-without papers. It is thought there ought to have been no further said that Lord Russell has peremptorily exdelay. The Government, after a month's cluded her from every British port now that discussion, ought to have known what evi- she is commissioned. Other satisfaction we dence would justify them in acting. They can hardly give, for our policy of refusing were not, however, ready to act till the 29th to admit the prizes of either belligerent into