Fortunately for the enlightenment of the somewhat prejudiced audience who listen to our American discussion, there appeared simultaneously with the publications of British prints the governmental volume of papers relating to foreign affairs which usually accompanies a President's Message. It is not commonly printed for many months after reception by Congress. But the sagacity of Mr. Seward caused its typographical preparation in advance of presidential use. It therefore becomes an antidote to the heated poison of the Palmerston or Derby prints, which emulate in seizing the last national outrage for party purposes. And its inspection enables the great public, after perusing what Secretary Seward has written during the past troublous half year, to acquire a calm reliance upon his skill in navigating our glorious ship of state over the more troublous waters of the next half year. The most cursory inspection of this volume must put to shame those Washington news-mongers, who from March to December pictured the Secretary as locked up in his office, in order to merely shun office-seekers, or as idling his time at reviews and sham-fights. The collection demonstrates, that his logic, persuasion, and rhetorical excellence have in diplomatic composition maintained their previous excellences in other public utterances; and that his physical capacity for labor, and his mental sympathy with any post of duty, have been as effective, surrounded by the dogs of war, as they were when tasked amid the peaceful herds of men. The maxim, _inter arma silent leges_, is suspended by the edicts of diplomacy! Mr. Seward entered the State Department March the fifth (according to reliable Washington gossip), before breakfast, and was instantly at work. He found upon his table, with the ink scarcely dry, the draft of a (February 28th) circular from his predecessor, Mr. Black (now U.S. Supreme Court reporter), addressed to all the ministers of the United States. That circular very briefly recited the leading facts of the disunion movement, and instructed the ministers to employ all means to prevent a recognition of the confederate States. The document in question is dated at the very time when President Lincoln was perfecting his inaugural; and why its imperative and necessary commands were delayed until that late hour, is something for Mr. Buchanan to explain in that volume of memoirs which he is said to be preparing at the falling House of Lancaster.