I missed the last mail through stress of work, chiefly on my lecture, which I mentioned in my last. The applications for lectures were so numerous and urgent that I really felt that I ought not to leave the country without giving one at any rate, and all my friends said that the Music Hall at Boston was the place if I only spoke once. It is the largest room in New England, holds nearly three thousand people, is easy to speak in, though it has great deep galleries running round three sides, and in it all the big folk talk and lecture, Wendell Phillips and Sumner follow me, so you see the class of thing at once. Well, as I was in for it much against my will, I was determined to talk out with the whole Yankee nation the controversy which. I had been carrying on already with many of them in private. I was anxious not to leave them with any false impressions, and to let them see clearly that in our national differences I think that we have a very good case, and that even if I didn’t think so, I am too good a John Bull not to stand by my own country. Lowell agreed as to the title and object, but I think had serious misgivings as to how the affair might turn out. Mundella thought it very risky and so did most other folk. However, as you know, I don’t care a straw for applause, and do care about speaking my own mind, so whether it made me unpopular or not I determined to have my say. In order that I might say nothing on the spur of the moment, I wrote out the whole address carefully, and I am very glad I did, as the reporters all copied from my MS., and consequently I was thoroughly well reported. The _Tribune and Boston Advertiser_ printed it in full, and I will bring you home copies. I was a little nervous myself when I got to the hall. Two ex-Governors and the present Governor of the State were on the platform, the two Senators (Sumner and Wilson), Longfellow, Judge Hoare, Dana, Wendell Holmes, Wendell Phillips, Lowell, and, in short, pretty nearly all the Boston big wigs. The great organ played “God save the Queen” as I came in, and the audience, generally, I am told, a very undemonstrative one, cheered heartily. My nervousness, however, wore off at once, when I got on my legs. I found that my voice filled the hall easily, and so was at my ease and got through just within the hour, without once losing the attention of the audience for a minute. They were indeed wonderfully sympathetic and hearty, and gave me three rounds of cheers at the end, far more warmly than at the beginning. Every one came and said that it was a great success; that they had never heard our side fairly stated before; that this and that fact were quite new to them, etc. In fact, if I didn’t know how soon the reaction comes in such cases, I should think I had done some good work towards a better understanding between the nations, and, as it is, I am sure I have done no harm, and have at any rate made my own position perfectly clear, and