There is scarcely anything which has more astonished me than the fact--that, for the last thirty-seven years, almost every Christian nation has shared the great fault of not caring much about what are called foreign matters, foreign policy. Precisely the great nations, England, France, America, which might have regulated the course of their governments for a very considerable period, abandoned almost entirely that part of their public concerns, which with great nations is the most important of all, because it regulates the position of the country in its great national capacity. The slightest internal interest was discussed publicly and regulated previously by the nation, before the government had to execute it; but, as to the most important interest--the national position of the country and its relations to the world, Secret Diplomacy, a fatality of mankind, stepped in, and the nations had to accept the consequences of what was already done, though they subsequently reproved it. In England, I four months ago, avowed that all the interior questions together cannot equal in importance the exterior; _there_ is summed up the future of Britain: and if the people of England do not cut short the secrecy of diplomacy--if it do not in time take this all absorbing interest into its own hands, as it is wont to do with every small home interest, it will have to meet immense danger very soon, as this danger has already seriously accumulated by former neglect. Here too, in the United States, there is no possible question equal in importance to foreign policy, and especially in regard to European matters. And I say that, if the United States do not in due time adopt such a course, as will prevent the Czar of Russia, and his despotic satellites, from believing that the United States give them entirely free field to regulate the condition of Europe, which cannot fail to react morally and materially on your condition, then indeed embarrassments, sufferings, and danger will accumulate in a very short time over you.