Future volumes of these documents will probably reveal Mr Seward as still assuring his correspondents that the end of the rebellion is at hand; that foreign Governments will soon see dire reason to repent their hostility; that the Union is growing stronger with every “reverse of our arms;” that discord and desertion and corruption are only “fresh developments of patriotism;” and that the flooding of the lands on the Mississippi, far from being an act of barbarous vindictiveness, will be as beneficent in its consequences as the overflowing of the Nile. We shall probably see, too, that American envoys, addressing themselves, not to Mr Seward, but to the masses behind him, his masters and theirs, are still denouncing our perfidious aristocracy and jealous monarchy. Is it a comedy or a tragedy that these men are acting? If unconscious absurdity and ludicrous unfitness for the conduct of grave affairs were all the elements of the exhibition, we might well afford to laugh; but, unfortunately, the grotesque display has its terrible side, and incapacity and conceit only increase the tremendous power of mischief wielded by the principal characters in the burlesque. Meanwhile the course of foreign Governments is not likely to be materially affected by the lucubrations of the American Secretary of State; and, amidst the strange displays of weakness made by the North, not the least strange will be the futility of its diplomacy. THE BUDGET. The soundness of the position taken up by the Opposition last year in regard to the national finances, has this year been fully established by the admissions and procedure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It may seem remarkable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should preface his financial statement by referring to a resolution of the House, which was adopted at the instance of the Opposition,—that he should avowedly base his present Budget upon that resolution. But Mr Gladstone is a Minister of consummate Parliamentary tact, who avails himself of every plea which best serves his purpose for the time; and, as we shall see in the sequel, he had a special reason for thus seeking to cover with the authority of Parliament a Budget which is not quite so accordant with the resolution of the House as he desires it to be thought. The resolution, which was adopted at the instance of the Opposition, and upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer professedly bases his present Budget, insisted upon the necessity of reducing the national expenditure. It was urged upon the Government that the financial administration of the three previous years had been such as to trench deeply upon the extraordinary resources of the country, and that, while ostensibly adding to the military strength of the country, we were really diminishing our power by exhausting the sources by which the expenses of war and national defence could be sustained. It was pointed