nominally professing a desire to preserve the Union, took the most effectual means to destroy it by condemning the right of the President to punish its enemies. These resolutions having been sent to President Lincoln, he replied by a letter in which he discussed at length, and in a clear and forcible style, the constitutional provision for suspension of the writ, and its application to the circumstances then existing. Many such meetings were held, condemning the Emancipation Proclamation and the sentence of Vallandigham. Great complaint was made that the President did not act on his own responsibility in these arrests, but left them to the discretion of military commanders. In answer, the President issued a proclamation meeting the objections. At the next state election, Mr. Vallandigham was the Democratic candidate for Governor, but was defeated by a majority of 100,000. The year 1862 did not, any more than 1861, pass without foreign difficulties. Mr. Adams, the American minister in London, had remonstrated with the British Government to stop the fitting out of rebel privateers in English ports. These cruisers, chief among which were the _Alabama_, _Florida_, and _Georgia_, avoiding armed ships, devoted themselves to robbing and destroying defenceless merchantmen. The _Alabama_ was commanded by a Captain Semmes, who, while in the service of the United States, had written a book in which he vigorously attacked, as wicked and piratical, the system of privateering, being one of the first to oppose that which he afterwards practised. Three weeks before the “290,” afterwards the _Alabama_ escaped from the yard of the Messrs. Laird at Birkenhead (July, 1862), the British Government was notified of the character of the vessel, and warned that it would be held responsible for whatever damage it might inflict on American commerce. The _Alabama_, however, escaped, the result being incalculable mischief, which again bore evil fruit in later days. In the same year the Emperor of the French made an offer of mediation between the Federal and Confederate Governments, intimating that separation was “an extreme which could no longer be avoided.” The President, in an able reply (February 6th, 1863), pointed out the great recaptures of territory from the Confederates which had taken place--that what remained was held in close blockade, and very properly rejected the proposition that the United States should confer on terms of equality with armed rebels. He also showed that several of the states which had rebelled had already returned to the Union. This despatch put an end to all proposals of foreign intervention, and was of great use in clearly setting forth to the partisans of the Union the unflinching and determined character of their Government, and of the man who was its Executive head. CHAPTER X.