But it is due to him to acknowledge that he does not claim everything; he will be content with the exclusive merit of the liberal measures relating to trade and commerce. Not desirous of violating his own principles by claiming a monopoly of fore-sight and wisdom, he kindly throws overboard to my honorable and learned friend [Sir J. Mackintosh] near him, the praise of South America. I should like to know whether, in some degree, this also is not his thunder. He thinks it right itself; but lest we should be too proud if he approved our conduct _in toto_, he thinks it wrong in point of time. I differ from him essentially; for if I pique myself on anything in this affair, it is the time. That at some time or other, States which had separated themselves from the mother country should or should not be admitted to the rank of independent nations, is a proposition to which no possible dissent could be given. The whole question was one of time and mode. There were two modes: one a reckless and headlong course by which we might have reached our object at once, but at the expense of drawing upon us consequences not lightly to be estimated; the other was more strictly guarded in point of principle, so that while we pursued our own interests, we took care to give no just cause of offense to other Powers. CESARE CANTÙ (1805-1895) Cesare Cantù, an Italian historian, was born at Brivio on the Adda, December 2d, 1805. The eldest of ten children, he belonged to an old though impoverished family. To obtain for him a gratuitous education his parents destined him for the priesthood. On the death of his father in 1827 he became the sole support of his mother, brothers, and sisters. In 1825 he had made his appearance as a writer with a poem entitled 'Algiso and the Lombard League.' His 'History of Como,' following in 1829, gave him a standing in the world of letters. Although not a member of the revolutionary society 'Young Italy,' he was the confidant of two of its leaders, Albera and Balzetti, a circumstance which led to his arrest in 1833. Seized by the Austrian officials in the midst of his lecture at the Lyceum in Milan, he was incarcerated in the prison in the Convent of Santa Margherita. Although deprived of books and pen, he beguiled the time by writing with a toothpick and candle-smoke on the back of a map and on scraps of paper, 'Margherita Pusteria,' with one exception the most popular historical novel in the Italian language. Liberated at the end of a year, but deprived of his professorship, he and his family would probably have starved had he not chanced to meet a publisher who wanted a history of the world. The result of this meeting was his 'Universal History' in thirty-five volumes (Turin, 1836 _et seq._), which has gone through forty editions and been translated into many languages. It brought the publisher a fortune and Cantù a modest independence.