It fortunately happens that the freedom of speech and writing prevalent in the United States are safety-valves for the popular steam, and that words are not always indicative of immediate or even of remote action. It would be difficult to estimate the nature of the influences which shall prevail when the American civil war is over. If the North succeeds in overcoming the South, no great danger of war with Great Britain or of invasion of Canada will exist. It will need every man of the Federal army to occupy the Southern States. If, on the other hand, the North should be obliged to abandon her project of forcing the carcase of the South back into the Union by the sword, she will suddenly find herself with a large army on her hands, with a ruined exchequer, and an immense fund of mortified ambition and angry passion to discount. It is possible that the sober and just-minded men who form a large part of American society may be able to avert a conflict, if the American soldiery and statesmen entertain the views attributed to them; but that is just the point on which no information exists. It is not easy to ascertain the actual weight of the classes who would naturally oppose the press and the populace in a crusade against Great Britain. My own experience, limited and imperfect as it is, leads me to think that there is in the States a very great number, if not an actual majority, of people whose views are not much influenced by violent journals or intemperate politicians, who rarely take part in public affairs, but exercise, nevertheless, their influence on those who do. There is not a community in the Northern States which does not contain a large proportion of educated, intelligent, and upright men, who shrink from participation in party struggles and intrigue; and I regret that they are not more largely known. Their existence is marked by no outward sign which foreign nations can recognise. It is on them, however, that the safety and reputation of the Federal Government depends; it will be on them that their country’s reliance must be placed when the legions return home.