Church are moving in the same direction, and give noble promise for the future.

The Papal Church is, as ever, the friend of political and ecclesiastical despotism, the bitter enemy of popular rights and free institutions; and France, in striving to become. the Imperial Head of the Latin race and Church, is the Leader of a new conspiracy against the peace of nations and the liberties of man.

These facts must all be considered in any attempt to form an opinion of the future of Europe and America. They show us the true reasons for the course which France and England have pursued since the beginning of the rebellion, they show why these Powers united for an attack on Russia, and that the same motives have shaped their policy towards both Russia and America; and in the light of these facts, we may turn to the misnamed neutrality of these Governments and read aright its meaning.

CHAPTER III.

THE NEUTRALITY ILLUSTRATED BY ACTS.

In referring to the conduct of France and England, no friend of his country or of his race, would dwell upon their unfriendly acts for the purpose of creating bitterness of feeling, or merely to keep alive the memories of wrong.

America desires only peace. She asks of Europe that she should be left in quietness to work out her own national destiny, and to manage her own affairs, as seems best to her, without interference from any. But the spirit which has been manifested by France and England, the evident and earnest desire that the Republic should be destroyed, the prompt and cheerful giving of sympathy and aid to our rebel enemies, these things should surely warn us to watch with jealous care their every movement, to study carefully the principles and objects of their policy, that they may have no chance hereafter to take us unawares.

While we rejoice at, and frankly and kindly accept for what it is worth, every friendly or forbearing act, which seems to indicate some change of temper or intention, we are bound by every consideration of prudence and national safety, to judge of the present by the past, and to expect that these nations hereafter will be guided as they have been thus far, not by any friendly feelings towards this Western Power, but by those very principles of policy which have controlled them since the beginning of our war.

Their plans are settled and far-reaching ones. They are not to be suddenly or lightly abandoned. The national

necessities of France and England, as their leaders view them, and the policy which they have jointly adopted for the control of Christendom, do not permit them to look quietly on while Russia and America are making such rapid progress.

Their alliance was framed in view of a real antagonism between their interests, and those of Russia and America; they have made the antagonism an actual one by a war with Russia, and their treatment of us; and this should be borne steadily in mind if we would understand the past, or be prepared for the future. The future will be peace, if we are strong enough to compel a peace, not otherwise.

It is important for Americans to remember that the course pursued by France and England was the result of previous consultation, and positive agreement between them. At the outset, they informed our Government that the two Powers would be perfectly united in their policy, whatever it might be, and in declaring this policy by acts, England took the lead.

Her first open and decided step then, was taken in accordance with the plan which the French and English rulers had decided upon beforehand, and with definite purposes in view. The very manner and time chosen, must have been fixed by a previous decision.

By formal Proclamation of the Queen, the Confederate rebels, in the very first hours of their insurrection, were declared to be rightful ocean belligerents before they had a single ship afloat, and when, even if they had ships, there was not a port on earth where they could send a prize for trial.

This Proclamation was issued when the British rulers knew that Mr. Adams, our newly appointed Minister, was at Liverpool, prepared to represent the cause of our Government, but with a haste which revealed clearly the hostile. intent, the design to prejudge and settle the whole matter against us, before we could be heard, and to grant the rebels privileges and a national standing, which no effort of ours could recall.

They had resolved, after consulting with France, to commit the English and French nation to a policy from which they could not retreat. It was essentially an unfriendly act. It was known to be so, it was intended to give aid and comfort to the traitors, to relieve them from the name and crime of treason and piracy, and to win for the rebellion the respect and sympathy of the world. In moral guilt, as a heartless, selfish violation of national friendship, this act was equal to an alliance with the rebels, and a declaration of war against the American Government, and every subsequent event has shown that it was designed to be war in disguise, war without risk to the two Allied Powers, but which brought destruction to our commerce, and ministered the strength of an alliance to our enemies.

No change in conduct, nor even friendship shown hereafter, can alter the character of this first unfriendly act. It is the one life fountain from which the rebellion has received vitality and power. France and England, with perfectly agreeing hostility, have employed the Confederates to use against us their powder, rifles, cannon, blockade runners, and war ships, and these have been employed to advance their designs against this Republic as really as if they had been covered by the French or English flags, and a majority of Englishmen and Frenchmen have rejoiced over every Rebel success as if it were a victory of their own, and so it really was. It is mockery of the most bitter kind, to remind us, as Englishmen have so often done, that they have furnished us also with munitions of war, and that as neutrals they sell alike to each belligerent. The wrong, flagrant and designed, lies in the previous act by which, for purposes of their own, and to our deep injury, they proclaimed our enemies to be lawful belligerents.

They found a company of rebels engaged in an insurrection against a lawful Government, in a treasonable conspiracy, and because they desired the overthrow of this Republic, and they saw the traitors could be used for this foul purpose, and because they were determined to give all possible aid to these rebel enemies, and could not assist them as traitors

and rebels, without disgrace, the French and English political magicians touched these rebels with the wand of royal proclamation, and lo! the conspirators were transformed into lawful and highly respectable belligerents, on equal footing with the lawful Government, and France and England were, of course, neutral powers, and with rights derived solely from their own proclamation, they proceeded to strengthen the rebels with all manner of moral and material support, because they had changed them from traitors to belligerents for this very purpose.

The two Powers are mentioned together as concerned in the Proclamation, because from the first they declared that they were perfectly united in their American policy.

Every subsequent act of these two Powers seems to have been conceived in the spirit of the Queen's Proclamation; there has not been a single instance, down to the seizing of the Rebel Rams, in which the English or French Government deigned to assume even the appearance of friendship. A cold, harsh, unfriendly temper, a spirit that sought occasion against us, watching for a cause of quarrel, was evident in all their intercourse. They did not attempt to conceal that they sympathized with the rebels, that they desired their success, and the overthrow of the Republic; they assumed constantly that the Union was destroyed already, and would never be restored, and their every act was intended, it would seem, to prove the assertion true.

And unless it was a part of the original plan to interfere by force, when the occasion should come, and crush us in our hour of peril and weakness, there seems no way to explain the conduct of England in the affair of the Trent. Unless British statesmen had then determined upon war, as a certain means of securing the independence of the South, and the destruction of our Government, what meaning can we attach to their acts? They knew perfectly well that the seizure of the Trent was not intended by our Government; they knew that not only did our officer act without orders, but that his act was repudiated by our authorities; they had official knowledge of all this, and yet they purposely with