That step unfortunately remained without results. The society which had its seat at New York, comprehending that its existence would be unnatural and its position false so long as the government refused to sign the convention, finished by dissolving towards the end of 1872. Since then, the International Committee, which would not despair of success, made upon its part several new attempts, which invariably met with absolute non-attention. Happily the history of the Red Cross was there to prove that the most tenacious resistance is not indefinite, and that sooner or later the sentiments of the most recalcitrant governments are modified under the control of circumstances. How many we have seen who at first believed their adhesion useless, or even dangerous, and who have been led to repentance on the occurrence of wars in which their armies were to be, or had been, engaged, because they comprehended at that moment only to what point their fears were chimerical or their indifference injurious to those depending upon them for protection. In the United States time has done its work as elsewhere, though peace has long reigned there. The change of sentiment which has been produced in regard to the Red Cross has revealed itself recently on the sixth of December, 1881, in the message of President Arthur at the opening of the fourth session of the Forty-seventh Congress. We read there the following paragraph: "At its last extra session the Senate demanded the text of the Geneva Convention for aiding the wounded in time of war. I hope that this fact proves the interest which the Senate feels in this question, and that there will result from it, the adhesion of the United States to this humane and commendable treaty." It seems, then, that we touch the port; the matter is seriously considered, and it will be with lively satisfaction that we shall register the result which has been so long the end of our desires. We will not terminate these retrospective considerations, without telling what we know of the causes which have recently led to decisive steps in the question. It is, above all, to a woman that this result is owing, and the name of that woman is not unknown to our readers. We spoke to them several years ago of Miss Clara Barton, one of the heroines of the American war, where she reproduced the charitable exploits of Miss Nightingale; she was honored at the conclusion of the war with a national recompense.[A] [A] This statement is not exact; indeed, it does some injustice as well to Miss Barton as to the American Congress, and was doubtless derived from misstatements promulgated in the United States, the result of a general misunderstanding of the facts, and an error, of course, unknown to a foreign writer. Precisely what the Thirty-seventh Congress did was to pass the following joint resolution of both houses, and in accordance with the same to pay over to Miss Barton the sum mentioned in it for the uses and purposes therein set forth: