magistrate, and a Seward the chief minister—a system which has for years been the most corrupt ever known, and the inability of which to produce any kind of political merit is one of the wonders of the world. Mr Seward’s view, which he insists that foreign Governments should adopt, is that they must not admit the existence of any war at all; that Bull’s Run and Fredericksburg, and all the disasters of M‘Clellan and Pope, are the work of a small insurrectionary faction; that the inability of the Federalists to recover authority in the South does not at all affect the integrity of the Republic; and that the millions of men whom he so complacently describes as determined to restore the Union have been called to arms to quell a few “misguided fellow-citizens” who have taken the “bad resolution” of seceding from its authority. But neither great defeats, nor vast armaments, nor huge debt, nor impending dissolution, can divert Mr. Seward from his singular efforts to persuade foreign Governments, chiefly ours, to adopt his extraordinary fiction as their rule of action. If mere acquiescence in his view were all that he demanded, it might be no great matter; but he requires that we shall not merely admit the fictitious view, but proceed to found thereon the extraordinary measures which we shall presently find indicated in his correspondence. What the view itself is may be gathered from a few extracts. 19th June 1861:— “The United States are still solely and exclusively sovereign within the territories they have lawfully acquired and long possessed, as they have always been.... Great Britain, by virtue of these relations, is a stranger to parties and sections in this country, whether they are loyal to the United States or not; and Great Britain can neither rightfully qualify the sovereignty of the United States, nor concede nor recognise any rights or interests or power of any party, State, or section, in contravention to the unbroken sovereignty of the Federal Union.” 6th March 1862:— “If Great Britain should revoke her decree conceding belligerent rights to the insurgents to-day, this civil strife, which is the cause of all the derangement of those relations, and the only cause of all apprehended dangers of that kind, would end to-morrow. The United States have continually insisted that the disturbers of their peace are mere insurgents, not lawful belligerents. This Government neither can nor is likely to have occasion to change this position; but her Majesty can, and it would seem that she must, sooner or later desire to relinquish her position. It was a position taken in haste, and in anticipation of the probable success of the revolution. The failure of that revolution is sufficiently apparent. Why should not the position be relinquished, and the peace of our country thus be allowed to be restored?” 10th March 1862:—