“Allow me to express to you my most hearty thanks for your noble, and, as it seems to me, unanswerable, speech at New York. It is truly statesmanlike, and I regard it in that light as one that will last longer and have more effect than any delivered by any one in this country since the war began. It must have a wide influence in Europe. I thank you, therefore, most heartily for it. It will aid mightily public sentiment in England, and _tend_ to force the Government of that country, for consistency’s sake, at least, to deal more fairly.” Parker Pillsbury, the earnest Abolitionist, wrote from Concord, New Hampshire:-- “When a nation is expressing its admiring gratitude for your recent masterly oration on our Foreign Relations, what place or what need for my feeble utterance remains? And all the nations will thank you, as they shall read, in present and coming time, this chapter in the new political dispensation. It is a scripture for the ages.” Hon. Amasa Walker, formerly a Representative in Congress, a Vice-President of the American Peace Society, devoted to the cause of peace, and a writer on political economy and finance, wrote:-- “It is the grandest thing you have yet done, if I am qualified to judge. I think it cannot fail to exert a great influence at home and abroad. I am quite anxious to find out how it is received in England, and am much mistaken, if it does not produce a great impression. “The friends of our Government will be greatly delighted at it, our enemies greatly annoyed by it. “I have the impression that there is no speech of any American statesman, that has ever been printed, that will secure such a lasting reputation, and be so often referred to in the future, as this.” Hon. George R. Russell, of various experience, who had recently returned from Europe, wrote:-- “I have often thought of writing you about your speech on our Foreign Relations, which I read with much attention, and decided that it was the best that could be said. I met a friend of ours a few evenings since, and he told me that he had said to you that you made a great mistake in assailing England as you had done. I met him with the rejoinder, that you had hit the nail on the head, that the proofs of change we see daily are in consequence of your attacks, and that, instead of upbraiding you, we owed you our heartfelt thanks for the good you had done.” Brigadier-General Saxton, of the United States army, wrote from his station at Beaufort, South Carolina:--