(14.) There is still another head of danger, in which all others culminate. I refer to intrusive mediation, or, it may be, recognition of the Slavemonger attempt as an independent nation,--for such movements have been made openly in Parliament and urged constantly by the British press, and, though not yet adopted by her Majesty’s Government, have never been repelled on principle, so that they constitute a perpetual cloud threatening to break. It is plain to all who have not forgotten history, that England never can be guilty of such recognition without unpardonable apostasy; nor can she intervene by way of mediation, except in the interests of Freedom. And yet such are the “elective affinities” newly born between England and Slavery, such is the wilful blindness with regard to our country, kindred to that which prevailed in the time of George Grenville and Lord North, that her Majesty’s Government, instead of repelling the proposition, simply adjourn it, adopting meanwhile the attitude of one watching to strike. The British Minister at Washington, of model prudence, whose individual desire for peace I cannot doubt, tells his Government, in a despatch found in the last Blue Book, that as yet he sees no sign of “a conjuncture at which foreign powers _may step in with propriety_ and effect to put a stop to the effusion of blood.”[45] Here is the plain assumption that such conjuncture may occur. For the present we are left free to wage the battle against Slavery without any such intervention in arrest of the national efforts. Such are some of the warnings which lower from the English sky arching the graves of Wilberforce and Clarkson, while sounding above these sacred resting-places are heard strange, un-English voices, crying out: “Come unto us, Rebel Slavemongers, whippers of women and sellers of children!--for you are the people of our choice, whom we welcome promptly to _ocean rights_, with Armstrong guns and _naval expeditions_ equipped in our ports, and on whom we lavish sympathy always and the prophecy of success; while for you who uphold the Republic and oppose Slavery we have hard words, criticism, rebuke, and the menace of war!” * * * * *