British Commons become the supple tools, the obsequious minions, the obedient parasites, to do the bidding of a foreign master, and tremble when his envoy should stamp his foot and wave the imperial banner in the halls of Parliament. From whom was this message, and to whom? Was it to the England of Trafalgar and the Nile? Was it to the descendants of the men who conquered at Agincourt and Cressy, and changed for ages at Waterloo the destiny of the world? Why, Nelson would speak from his monument, and the Iron Duke from his equestrian statue, and forbid the degradation of their country. But there stood the Confederate messenger, delivering the mandate of a foreign power to the House of Commons, describing England as a crawling reptile, exalting the Government he professed to represent, as controlling the Continent, and fearing lest the Imperial Eagle alone should swoop down upon his prey. And such language, such sentiments! Was I in Billingsgate, that ancient and illustrious institution, so near the House of Parliament? Why, the whole code of morals and of international law was repudiated in a sentence, and our demagogues distanced in the race. Did the envoy echo the voice of his master, when he announced that the American Union must be dissolved by foreign intervention, because, if reunited, it would be too strong, and bully the world--therefore France and England combined must strike us when we were supposed to be weak and divided. It is not the author of such atrocious and dastard sentiments that would lead the banner of France or of England anywhere except to humiliation and disgrace. 'Non talis auxilii, nec defensoribus ipsis.' No, when England seeks leaders, it will not be the sycophants of power, those who worship alternately democracy and autocracy, who slaver over despotism one day with their venom, and the next with their still more loathsome adulation.