BETTER THAN AN IMPERTINENT ONE.

597

Far better is it to have no treaty than an unjust or impertinent one. Time and its ameliorating influences. will soon produce a sounder sentiment; and the United States may well afford to abide that improved state of feeling and opinions which must certainly come; and, when it comes, cannot fail to insure justice and a proper reparation for the great national wrong and individual loss.

A practical test of the nature, depth, and extent of this national grievance may be exemplified to Englishmen, by a few hypothetical illustrations.

England has numerous colonial and insular possessions in other countries and climes; all of them doubtless dear, and supposed to be valuable to the parent country. These were acquired, in different ways, at remote or recent periods of her history; the acquisition of many was by settlement, of others by cession and capture, and a few by transfer. But, however acquired, Great Britain would be quite reluctant to part with all or any of them, upon compulsion; as it would not only impair her integrity as a kingdom, but dwarf the power of patronage and curtail her commercial resources.

Should an attempt to effect a political separation be made, in any of the possessions, by rebels or by revo

minister may resemble Franklin and the elder Adams in republican simplicity and homespun plainness of dress, the better. This he can afford to do, if he will only completely master all the details and duties incident to his difficult position.

It is expected that he will be truly and intensely American in all his tastes and tendencies; and in his official intercourse, firm, frank, fair, prudent, and courteous. He ought, in addition, to comprehend thoroughly the public law, applicable to neutral or belligerent rights and duties.

Thus prepared in advance, he will in no stage be dependent upon others' legal aid, but solely influenced by official dispatches proceeding from the State Department.

598 EFFECT OF UNNEUTRAL INTERVENTION ILLUSTRATED

lution, would the court or cabinet at London repose quietly at such an outbreak, or look on with calm indifference at any unneutral or fraudulent intervention by other states, to promote the rebellion?

If the inhabitants of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, or Bermuda, and the Bahamas, acquired by settlement, revolt and aspire to independence, would England be unconcerned if Louis Napoleon were to pronounce the war, on the part of England, to be a war for empire and not for the preservation of her integrity?

If Jamaica, Ceylon, Mauritius, St. Lucia, Trinidad, or Demarara, acquired by capture, were to be similarly afflicted, and their inhabitants should raise an insurrection, get possession of the public property, expel or take captive the royal soldiers, would England view with composure the premature recognition of the natives as belligerents by other neutral nations, thus conceding to their commissioned cruisers the right of refuge, shelter, and asylum in neutral ports?

If Australia, acquired by settlement, and with a population of some 150,000, should break loose from British authority, overcome the royal forces, and undertake to establish by war and violence a separate independent state, would it be precisely in keeping with good faith, according to British notions, for Russia to hastily declare a strict and impartial neutrality, and then disregard that declaration ?

Suppose that Ireland were to raise the standard of rebellion, to liberate their native island from British thralldom; and, thereupon the United States should recognize that people as belligerents, permit or not prevent the raising of armies and equipment of fleets; and

BY REFERENCE TO BRITISH POSSESSIONS.

599

then connive at the escape, from neutral ports, of armed cruisers to prey upon British commerce; would it be deemed quite consistent with that strictest impartiality which Victoria proclaimed, and undoubtedly meant to observe with good faith, but the observance of which the Premier Palmerston did not permit; or, possibly, the premature decease of Prince Albert disqualified the bereaved and disconsolate Queen from keeping? or rather, would not England regard it rather as an indication of a tacit alliance to aid rebels in the work of disintegration or destruction? If so, would ministers exceed the rule of moderation, in denouncing such acts as outrages?

The Canadas, with an annual excess of expenses over income of £243,392 in 1865, is too costly to be coveted by any one, or retained and kept, except by England. There they remain perfectly secure from all danger, except such as their neighbors readily helped them to suppress during the Fenian raids.

The concession of belligerent rights to rebels elevates them, practically, in the view of international law, to the rank and respectability of independent states; accords to them the recognized rights of maritime warfare upon the ocean; extends to them the privileges of shelter, refuge, and asylum on land; exonerates them from the imputation, and purges their acts of the taint, offense, or crime of piracy; empowers them to trade in neutral ports for materials or ships of war; and, unless prohibited by the standing municipal law, or special interdictions imposed by some sovereign authority, contingently authorizes rebels not only to buy and build, man and equip, cruisers in neutral ports, but also to dispatch such cruisers on their hostile mission from neu

600 CONCESSION OF BELLIGERENCY GAVE RANK TO REBELS.

tral ports, against the mercantile marine of a friendly nation at peace with the neutral world.

In case of intervention, therefore, no state, like England, with a naval force provided, and the means at hand to employ it, could long repose without resenting such unneutral intervention. If, indeed, these possessions, like Canada, were substantially of no pecuniary value; and so dismemberment should be deemed a matter of small concern; the state might not be tenacious of her territorial integrity, and would gradually become indifferent to political or national disintegration. Such, however, is not the lesson to be learned from the English character. If any grievance be inflicted upon England, her practice has been, to resent it. If, on the other hand, England should inflict a grievance upon another independent state, her policy is, not to relent. Right or wrong, therefore, neither her past practice nor her former policy will conduce to any relaxation of that stubborn tenacity, with which Englishmen are reputed to cling to a position, in which, by chance or design, they may happen to be placed.

Her conceded possessions are of some political, if not pecuniary use to her: since they serve to enable the home government to provide employment or sinecures for the many scions of an almost effete or moribund aristocracy, or places for educating, in the routine of office, other young Englishmen of known ability and promise.

Therefore, all her possessions in America, the East and West Indies, Africa, the Mediterranean, or elsewhere, may be deemed of such value, that none of them would be permitted to be wrested from her without a struggle; and however small the island, or inconsiderable

NO BRITISH POSSESSIONS PARTED WITH UNRESISTINGLY. 601

the population, whether the possession may have been acquired by settlement, cession, conquest, or transfer, the whole naval force of England's 57 liners, 45 frigates, 62 screw and paddle sloops, and various armorclad and other ships, even to the extent of all her 474 public ships, would be ordered to rendezvous for its protection.

For instance, St. Helena is the half-way stopping place to India; and was the grave, as it had been the prison of Napoleon Buonaparte, the greatest man Europe has known in modern days, if not in all time. That island in 1673 was ceded to and has since been held by England, for worthy or unworthy uses and purposes, without challenge or controversy. Suppose the present French Emperor should covet that island, either to complete the Napoleonic record, or to vindicate the truth of history, or for other personal, political or social considerations; and should contrive to start and afterward connive at the continuance of an insular insurrection; thereupon, declare France neutral, and the insurgents belligerents; and then let loose from neutral France, ships and cruisers, in the name of the insular insurgents, to prey upon British commerce: would England deem it quite kind and just in France, her present ally though her former foe, thus to precipitate the partial destruction, if not total annihilation, of the merchant marine of Great Britain, before her whole 474 public ships were permitted to afford suitable protection?

These hypotheses may be significant, and possibly instructive. What has been, may again occur. History often repeats itself: and England even may be admonished, without offense, to learn from the past that, in