[89] The Earl of Leicester, father of Sidney, in an anxious letter, August 30, 1660, writes his son: "It is said that the University of Copenhagen brought their Album unto you, desiring you to write something therein, and that your did _scribere in Albo_ these words [setting forth the verses], and put your name to it"; and then he adds, "This cannot but be publicly known, if it be true.... Either you must live in exile or very privately here, and perhaps not safely." The restoration of Charles the Second had just taken place. (Meadley, Memoirs of Algernon Sidney, pp. 84, 323-325.) Lord Molesworth, in a work which first appeared in 1694, mentions the verses as written by Sidney in "the Book of Mottoes in the King's Library," and then tells the story, that the French Ambassador, who did not know a word of Latin, on learning their meaning, tore them from the book, as a libel on the French government, and its influence in Denmark. (Molesworth, Account of Denmark, Preface.) The inference from this narrative would seem to be that the verses were by Sidney himself. With singular unanimity, the Legislature of Massachusetts has expressed an earnest desire for the establishment of a High Court of Nations to adjudge international controversies, and thus supersede the Arbitrament of War. It would be an act of moral dignity consistent with these professions, and becoming the character it vaunts before the world, if it abandoned the bellicose escutcheon,--at least, that _Algerine_ emblem, fit only for corsairs, if not also the Latin motto with its menace of the sword. If a Latin substitute for the latter be needed, it might be those words of Virgil, "_Pacisque_ imponere morem,"[90] or that sentence of noble truth from Cicero, "Sine SUMMA JUSTITIA rempublicam geri nullo modo posse":[91] the first a homage to Peace, and the second a consecration to Justice. Where such a spirit prevailed, there would be little occasion to consider the question of War Preparations. [90] Æneid, VI. 852. [91] De Republica, Lib. II. cap. 43.