His appearance had deceived them, and they had answered him smilingly, but their faces fell when they heard the news, and as he drove from the house he waved the message at them and called back, "Oh, you rebels! Oh, you rebels!" Mr. Bright wrote on August 7th: "From the tone of the Southern papers and the spasms of the New York _Herald_ I gather that the struggle is approaching an end, and the conspirators are anxious to save slavery in the arrangements that may be made. On this point the great contest will now turn, and the statesmanship of your statesmen will be tried. I still have faith in the cause of freedom." It is more probable that Mr. Chase refers in the following letter to Mr. Bright's letter of February 27th than to the one just given: "WASHINGTON, _August 21, 1863_. "_My dear Sir_,--I thank you for sending me a copy of Mr. Bright's letter. It is marked by the comprehensive sagacity which distinguishes his statesmanship. "Have you read "Callirrhoe," a fanciful story of George Sand's, which has appeared in the late numbers of _Revue des Deux Mondes_? It is founded upon the idea of transmigration, and especially upon the notion that the souls of those who have lived in former times reappear with their characteristic traits in the persons of new generations. If I adopted this notion I might believe that Hampden and Sidney live again in Bright and Cobden. "A letter expressing the same general ideas as are contained in that addressed to you was lately sent by Mr. Bright to Mr. Aspinwall. This letter Mr. Aspinwall kindly enclosed to me, and I read it to the President. I had repeatedly said the same things to him, and was not sorry to have my representations unconsciously echoed by a liberal English statesman. The President said nothing, but I am sure he is more and more confirmed in the resolution to make the proclamation efficient as well after peace as during rebellion.