2. The British government were not averse to disunion from the outset, and seized every pretext of tariff, or of inaction respecting the rebellion, that it might quibble with the United States authority. 3. The tone of the press, ministry and people was early heard, and echoed by Mr. Dallas to our government. Mr. Seward therefore, at the outset, knew his position, and most opportunely and dignifiedly maintained a bearing all the more noble because it proceeded from a government which had taken arms against a sea of troubles. 4. The British government waited _only_ so long as international decency technically warranted before proclaiming an acknowledgment of _civil_ war in the United States, and accepting the government of Mr. Davis as an equal belligerent with that of Mr. Lincoln. This was a matured step, and a strong link in a chain of ultimate recognition. 5. The Crown ministers early sought and obtained an understanding with France for mutual action: an understanding palpably hostile to the United States and tantalizingly acknowledged by open diplomacy. 6. The British ministry construed strictly as against the Washington government, but liberally as toward that of Jeff Davis, in regard to all arising complications. 7. The British government palpably permitted purchases and shipments of contraband articles by Southern emissaries, but exercised the utmost vigilance when the United States agents entered the market for similar purposes. 8. The action of Lord Russell respecting the proposition to abolish privateering was covertly insulting. It asked to interpolate a new condition as between France and England of the one part and the United States of the other; and a condition conceived in a spirit of liberality toward Jeff Davisdom, and promulgated in a meddlesome mood toward the United States government. 9. The tone of Lord Lyons was a more permissible manifestation of British spleen than the higher functionaries at home displayed, yet none the more acrid. This appears in all his letters and dispatches respecting blockade, privateering, the arrest of spies, and the detention of British subjects, or the seizure of prizes. It is especially offensive in the letter to Mr. Seward which drew forth a diplomatic rebuke upon a dictation by English law authority regarding constitutional construction. 10. The correspondence of the State Department was conducted by Mr. Seward (as was well said by the N.Y. Evening Post, Dec. 21) with great skill and adroitness. It was also firm in the defence of our national honor and rights. His rhetoric was always measured by the dignified, tasteful, and cautious rules of international intercourse. Its entire tone in correspondence was earnest but restrained, and in style fully equaling his best, and most ornate efforts.