those of Colfax or Conkling would do to us. Amongst men not in power at this period, the one, I own, that impressed me most was Caleb Cushing, known, and that not altogether favourably, to the English public as Attorney-General under President Pierce's administration, during the Frampton difficulty. From his connexion with the old Democratic party, and his reputed sympathy with the Secession leaders, he was out of favour with the country and the Government, and, above all, with his own State of Massachusetts, where a bitter personal prejudice exists against him. Having had the pleasure of meeting him frequently and intimately, I found him to be a man of extreme acuteness, and immense and varied reading, and, indeed, one of the pleasantest companions whom it has been my fortune to meet with in life. While the war lasts, he has little chance of re-entering public life. But I am much mistaken if a man of his power and ability does not, before long, play an important part in the politics of his country.

This record would be incomplete unless I were to say something of Mr. Sumner. He is too well known in Europe to need much description. Many of my readers are acquainted, doubtless, with that great, sturdy, English-looking figure, with the broad, massive forehead, over which the rich mass of nut-brown hair, streaked here and there with a line of grey, hangs loosely; with the deep blue eyes, and the strangely

winning smile, half bright, half full of sadness. He is a man whom you would notice amongst other men, and whom, not knowing, you would turn round to look at as he passed by you. Sitting in his place in the Senate, leaning backwards in his chair, with his head stooping slightly over that great, broad chest, and his hands resting upon his crossed legs, he looks, in dress, and attitude, and air, the very model of an English country gentleman. A child would ask him the time in the streets, and a woman would come to him unbidden for protection. You can read in that worn face of his-old before its time-the traces of a life-long struggle, of disappointment and hope deferred, of ceaseless obloquy and cruel wrong. Such a life-training as this is a bad one for any man, and it has left its brand on the senator for Massachusetts. There are wrongs which the best of men forgive without forgetting, and, since Brook's brutal assault upon him, those who know him best, say they can mark a change in Charles Sumner. He is more bitter in denunciation, less tolerant in opposition, just rather than merciful. Be it so. It is not with soft words or gentle answers that men fight as Sumner has fought against cruelty and wrong.

MR. RUSSELL AND MR. STANTON.

IT is one of the unfortunate elements in the relations between England and America that the Americans should combine such an almost morbid desire for English appreciation, with such a fatal ingenuity in offending English taste. There probably has been no action on the part of the American Government which created such disgust, and such reasonable disgust, throughout England, as the treatment of Mr. Russell. I am not going in any way to defend the conduct of the Washington Cabinet. I only wish to point out the facts which render the act less inexcusable than it may appear on this side the Atlantic. Let me say at starting, that I trust no word of mine will be understood as written in disparagement of Mr. Russell. It is superfluous to say that I have the highest admiration for his remarkable literary ability. To any one who knows him it is equally superfluous to add, that even a very slight acquaintance is sufficient to create a feeling towards him of genuine friendliness. My whole object

is to state what I believe to be the true state of the case. The actual circumstances of the refusal on the part of the Government at Washington to allow Mr. Russell to accompany the Army of the Potomac were given in his own correspondence. Nothing could be more accurate or temperate than his statement which he published in the Times. There are some points on which, I consider, he does more than justice to his adversaries. The fact of his approaching departure to join the expeditionary force was, as I can testify, a subject of common conversation in Washington society for days beforehand, and it is incredible to me that the Secretary of War should not have been aware of the fact, and that, therefore, the delay in informing Mr. Russell that he could not be allowed to prosecute his journey till he was actually on board the steamer, which was to convey him down the Potomac, should not have been purposely intended as a petty slight. There is also, to my mind, something inconceivably small in the excuse put forward by Mr. Stanton. The order which professed to exclude all newspaper correspondents whatever, was simply issued in order to exclude Mr. Russell, and as soon as this object was accomplished, was rescinded, as far as American correspondents were concerned. That this explanation of the Secretary of War's conduct is the correct one, was proved by a statement in the New York Tribune, of April 6th, which at that period was Mr. Stanton's especial organ:-"It turns out," the Tribune

wrote, "that the order from the War Department pro"hibiting all correspondents from accompanying the

66

army was framed merely for the purpose of excluding “Russell.... Secretary Stanton's order of prohibi"tion has been revoked." Finally, I consider that the commonest courtesy to a stranger and a gentleman, required that Mr. Russell's repeated personal and written requests for an interview should at least have been honoured with an immediate reply from the War Department.

On all these points I should, if I had been subjected to the same treatment, have spoken more bitterly than Mr. Russell did at the time, or has done since. But, in justice to the Government, it should be understood that the act was Mr. Stanton's individual one, not the collective one of the Cabinet. The most extraordinary feature about the American Government in foreign opinion is the utter absence of any solidarité between its component parts. It is possible, and, from what I learnt privately, I believe certain, that Mr. Stanton's decision to deny Mr. Russell the right of joining the army was not communicated to, and still less sanctioned by, any other member of the Ministry. I have reason to know that both the President and Mr. Seward expressed personal regret at the occurrence, though they admitted, reluctantly, that it was not a case in which they were justified in over-riding the judgment of their colleague. I know, too, that the influence of General McClellan,