This has been a mistake. No doubt, as we have seen, errors and misdeeds enough must be charged to the administration. All the actors were vessels of clay, like the rest of us. But in reality the least creditable phase of our proceedings was the conduct of the opposition. XXXV THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE WAR 1846-1848 At the time our difficulties with Mexico approached their climax, the popularity and prestige of the United States abroad were not the highest possible. England, our gentle mother, showed a particular want of regard for us.[35.1] Herself recently weaned from slavery, she viewed with a convert's intolerance our adhering to that institution. Having just cured her most outrageous electoral abuses, she enjoyed hearing the London _Times_ describe our government as "a polity corrupted in all its channels with the foulest venality." Ever scrupulous and self-denying when a question of gaining territory was concerned, she felt shocked by American "rapacity"; and the _Times_, while infinitely proud that England's banner waved in every quarter of the globe, ridiculed American "imperial pretensions" as echoed and re-echoed "in a nasal jargon, compounded at once of bad grammar and worse principle."[35.3] [THE UNITED STATES CRITICIZED ABROAD} The disposition of certain states to repudiate bonds held in Great Britain, and their tardiness in paying interest, excited all the righteous indignation of the creditor. The descriptions of this country put forth by honored guests like Dickens and Mrs. Trollope, who made themselves merry and popular at our expense, furnished excuses for countless jibes; and in September, 1845, the _Times_ discovered "great danger" that the nightmare of an old English writer would come true in the United States: "No arts, no letters, no society, and, what is worst of all, continual feare and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."[35.3] If one aspect of our civilization appeared more laughable than all the rest, it was the military side. The title of General, observed the _Times_, was "legitimately common to the greater part of the respectable male population," and _Britannia_ outdid this excellent jest by telling of "majors who serve out beer, and colonels who rub down the heels of one's horse." Literary men were angered by our failure to amend the copyright law as they desired; and our pronounced republicanism, trumpeted by Polk in his annual Message of 1845, irritated almost everybody. The plain intimation of the same Message that European monarchies were not expected to interfere in America seemed even worse; and the President was represented as meaning that we intended to get Mexico into a dark alley alone, and rob her. The annexation of Texas, which England had exerted all her diplomatic strength to prevent, could not be forgiven, and the Oregon difficulty threatened war.[35.3]