In this way, after each defeat, or “reverse of our arms,” he presently consoles himself by extracting a precious jewel, in the shape of a moral, from the front of adversity, and transmitting it for the comfort of the American envoys. We all remember the achievement which first made Jackson famous, of turning suddenly on Banks at Winchester and driving him headlong over the Potomac, previous to joining in the general movement against M‘Clellan on the Chickahominy. Upon that event Mr Seward remarks to Mr Adams:— “The defeat of General Banks at Winchester yesterday, and his withdrawal across the Potomac, are just now the prominent incidents of the war. A careful consideration of the affair results in the satisfactory conclusion that the movement of the enemy _was one of merely energetic strategy_.” What this can possibly mean, or why it should be satisfactory to Mr Seward, or what satisfaction it could convey to Mr Adams, we are utterly at a loss to divine. Again, on July 7th, when M‘Clellan had been driven from the York to the James River, he tells Mr Adams that— “The efficiency of the army of the Union is improved.... If the representative parties had now to choose whether they would have the national army where it is and as it is, or back again where it was and as it was, it is not to be doubted that the insurgents would prefer to it the position and condition on the Pamunkey, and the friends of the Union the one now attained on the banks of the James.... The insurgents and the world abroad will see that the virtue of the people is adequate to the responsibilities which Providence has cast upon them.” July 12th, he states the cheering fact that a force is “under the command of Major-General Pope, who has achieved great successes in the Western States, and is esteemed an officer of great ability.” July 28th, he says: “Our assault upon Richmond is for the moment suspended. No great and striking movements or achievements are occurring, and the Government is rather preparing its energies for renewed operations than continuing to surprise the world with new and brilliant victories.” Thus much in the way of particular information, but the moral presently follows:— “It is not upon isolated events, much less upon transitory popular impulses, that Governments are expected to build their policies in regard to foreign countries. What I think is important, not less for foreign nations than for ourselves, is always to hold our civil war under contemplation, not merely as streams of unequal widths and intermitting currents, but as one continuous river, and so not to forget its source, its direction, and not only its immediate and local, but also its ultimate and universal, effects.” And before the reader can recover from this tremendous passage, it is followed up by another:—