themselves the triple essence of worst enmity,--treason, conspiracy, and rebellion; and they bore a professed ambassadorial character, which, as he supposed, according to high British authority, rendered them liable to be stopped, while, as American citizens, they were liable to seizure by the National Government in strict conformity with long continued British practice. If, in the ardor of an honest nature, Captain Wilkes erred, he might well say,-- “Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man. The expedition of my violent love Outran the pauser reason.… … Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make his love known?” If this transaction be regarded exclusively in the light of British precedents, if we follow the seeming authority of the British Admiralty, speaking by its greatest voice, and especially if we accept the oft repeated example of British cruisers, upheld by the British Government against the oft repeated protests of the United States, we find little difficulty in vindicating it. The act becomes questionable only when brought to the touchstone of those liberal principles which from the earliest times the American Government has openly avowed and sought to advance, and other European nations have accepted with regard to the sea. Great Britain cannot complain, except by adopting those identical principles; and should we undertake to vindicate the act, it can be only by repudiating those identical principles. Our two cases will be reversed. In the struggle between Laertes and Hamlet, the combatants exchanged rapiers, so that Hamlet was armed with the rapier of Laertes, and Laertes with the rapier of Hamlet. And now, on this sensitive question, a similar exchange occurs. Great Britain is armed with American principles, while to us are left only those British pretensions which throughout our history have been constantly, deliberately, and solemnly rejected. Earl Russell, in his despatch to Lord Lyons, communicated to Mr. Seward, contents himself by saying that “it appears that certain individuals have been forcibly taken from on board a British vessel, the ship of a neutral power, _while such vessel was pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage_,--an act of violence which was an affront to the British flag, and a violation of International Law.”[33] Here is positive assertion that the ship, notoriously having on board the Rebel emissaries, was pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage; but there is no specification of the precise ground on which the act is regarded as a violation of International Law. Of course, it is not an affront; for an accident can never be an affront to an individual or to a nation.