This message was duly reported to the President. How the Czar kept his promise came out in an interview which he granted in 1879 to Wharton Barker, for many years Russian financial agent in America. He said to Barker: "In the autumn of 1862 France and England proposed to Russia in formal (but not in official) way, the joint recognition by European nations of the independence of the Confederate States. My immediate answer was:'I will not cooperate in such action, and I will not acquiesce; but, on the contrary, I shall accept recognition of the independence of the Confederate States as a _casus belli_ for Russia, and that the governments of France and England may understand that this is no idle threat, I will send a Pacific fleet to San Francisco and an Atlantic fleet to New York.' Sealed orders were given to both admirals. My fleets arrived at the American ports, there was no recognition of the independence of the Confederate States by England and France, the American rebellion was put down and the great American republic continues. All this I did because of love for my own dear Russia. I acted thus because I understood that Russia would have a more serious task to perform if the American republic, with advanced industrial development, was broken up and England left in control of most branches of modern industrial development." It was England's warm resentment of Russia's attitude that prompted the cartoon under consideration. Even more pronounced in its mocking cynicism was _Punch's_ cartoon for November 7, 1863. The tacit alliance between Russia and the United States still grated upon English sensibilities, and the artist provoked the multitude to laughter by depicting the President as Mephistopheles saluting the Russian bear. Hard things in plenty were said of Lincoln, both at home and abroad, but this is the only instance in which he was portrayed in Satan's livery. British malice could go no further than this. [Illustration: 025] |Plate Number Twenty-five--This cartoon, "Drawing Things to a Head," published in _Harper's Weekly_, on November 28, 1863, shows how the friendship of Russia was regarded in the loyal States. Lincoln, ensconced in a snug apothecary shop, watched from the opposite side of the street by John Bull and Napoleon, is made to say to Secretary Seward, who is presented as an errand boy with a basket of Russian salve on his arm: "Mild applications of Russian salve for our friends over the way, and heavy doses and plenty of it for our Southern patient." [Illustration: 026]