“I cannot forbear expressing my satisfaction in reading your speech in the Senate on the Trent affair. It seems to me to place the matter on the true ground; and if the English Government do not find, when they come to look coolly at the matter, that in taking Mason and Slidell they have caught two Tartars, I shall be greatly mistaken. I think, moreover, you have spoken the sober, sound thought of the country; and while they are indignant at the inconsistent annoyance of the ministry and the press of England, they feel that the course taken is not only the wise and expedient one, but, on the whole, the most consistent.” Hon. John H. Clifford, former Attorney-General of Massachusetts, and Governor, wrote from Boston:-- “I have read with unqualified approval and satisfaction your admirable exposition of the interesting questions of public law in your recent speech, growing out of the arrest and rendition of the ‘two old men’ taken from the Trent. I trust its treatment of the doctrine of Maritime Rights will command on the other side of the water the respect to which it is so justly entitled, and of which its reception by the best minds at home gives a hopeful assurance.” Hon. John C. Gray, a venerable and accomplished citizen, wrote from Boston:-- “I return you my acknowledgments for your speech on the Mason and Slidell affair. The more I have examined the law,--and I regret that I did not do it earlier,--the more I am satisfied that our civilians here were mistaken in their first impressions.” Hon. George S. Hale, lawyer, wrote from Boston:-- “Permit me to congratulate you on your late speech in the Senate. I am not unfamiliar with your speeches, and feel great pleasure in saying that none has ever, in my opinion, so strengthened your position as a statesman; none has been more happy, more effective, or more generally satisfactory to your constituents. “Without calling up any of those questions upon which many of them have differed from you, you have done much to contribute to public peace, and aided well, under peculiarly difficult circumstances, in placing the country in an honorable position before the world.” Hon. Charles P. Huntington, late Judge of the Superior Court for Suffolk County, wrote:-- “I have read your speech on the Trent affair with more satisfaction than anything that has yet been uttered on the subject, and as placing the merits of the question on the most satisfactory and statesmanlike ground.” Rev. Theodore D. Woolsey, the excellent President of Yale College, and author of a work on International Law, wrote from New Haven:--