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HWIifili»<i»i"i ' "•" 
 
TO JAMES €. VAN DIKE, Esq. 
 
 Attorney for^he United States, for the Eastern District of 
 
 Pennsylfania. 
 
 Sir— 
 
 I have read, with some disgust, aud infinite amosemont, 
 the droll proceedings, which, under your auspices, have disfigured 
 the United States District Court at Philadelphia for some months 
 past. As you and your precious witnesses have thought proper to 
 mix my name up with those proceedings, without the slightoit regard 
 to truth or decency, I mean to summon you before another tribu- 
 nal, where your official garb will invest you with no advantage — 
 where your spies and pouce runners are powerless for evil — ^where 
 scou&drels cannot fabricate with impunity, or the mob render it 
 hazardous to attempt a bold and honest defence. 
 
 Before the civilized world, the centres of which are London and 
 Paris, and not Philadelphu., whatever yon may think, I venture to 
 summon you. Mr. District Attorney Van Dike : before the states- 
 men, jurists,'and humorists, whose decisions form the public law of 
 the universe, and whose delicate satire even " a Philadelphia Law- 
 yer" may be made to feel. 
 
 Tou have ridden, for some months, on the top of your com- 
 mission : while professing to vindicate l&w, you have been the mere 
 tool of the Executive : standing forward as the optensible prose- 
 cutor of parties whom ^ou had arrested, you have, acting upon 
 their fears or their cupidity, endeavored to slander, if you could not 
 convict, gentlemen who were not formally before ue Court. I 
 have reekd the records of criminal procedure in many countries, and 
 except at that period described by Curran, when, in Lreland, 
 wretches were "thrown into prison to rot," before they were 
 ''dug up to be witnesses," I cannot recall to mind any parallel 
 case to set beside those which I am about to describe. 
 
 Some four or five months ago, your myrmidons walked into my 
 Hotel in New York, arrested and carried to Philadelphia a young 
 G^ill^en named Bucknall, whose only offence was, that he was 
 temportHly in my service ; occasionally paid money, delivered a few 
 letters and parcels, and &ncied that he was doing various lawful 
 acts m a country professing to be free. 
 
 Mr. Bucknall was held to bail. He was browbeaten and bullied. 
 Matter dangerous to the State, or rather to the United States, was 
 sought to be extracted from him. He knew more thhn any other 
 of uie persons yon have paraded of my acts and proceedings. He 
 told all he knew. He was kept for weeks dancing attendance on 
 
2 
 
 your Court. It was hoped that starvation would break his spirit, 
 and apprehension beguile him into falsehood. As the man preserved 
 his integrity, and could not be Vandiked, he was at last fully ac- 
 ({uittcd, Judge Kane deciding, at the time, two very important 
 points : 
 
 1st. — That any man might lawfully pay the passes of persons 
 going voluntarily and peacefully out of the United States, even 
 tliough such persons actually intended to enlist, when they got into 
 Nova-Scotia ; and, 
 
 2nd. — That the Printed Handbills, issued by the Provincial 
 Secretary, Mr. Wilkins, in Nova- Scotia, that officer had a right to 
 publish, and I, or Mr. Bucknall, or any body else, to circulate in 
 the United States. <♦ 
 
 These two points having been foPiially decided by Judge Kane 
 in May last, what becomes of all the charges that you and your 
 precious auxiliaries, Hertz and Strobel, have since endeavoured to 
 trump up against Mr. Crampton, Sir Gaspard LcMarchant, and 
 myself 7 Admitting every word that you have uttered, jointly and 
 severally, to be true (and I know a great deal of your evidence to 
 be false), neither of those Gentlemen ever appear to have contem- 
 plated, or perpetrated, any more daring infraction of your neu- 
 trality laws than that charged upon Mr. Bucknall, and ruled by 
 your own Judge to be no infraction at all. 
 
 If this decision be valid and binding, what becomes of all the 
 trumpery case subsequently got up by Hertz and Strobel 1 If it 
 be not, aro your Laws to be a snare, and your Judicial Decisions a 
 delusion 1 Is a Secretary of State to demand the recal of a 
 Minister for doing what a Judge, two months before, decides that ho 
 has a right to do / 
 
 But, let me return, for a moment, to the case of Mr. Bucknall. 
 That Gentlemen, seized and treated as a criminal, dragged to 
 Philadelphia, compelled to find bail, and waste Ujo months of life, 
 was found innocent and discharged. What redress had ho 7 None 
 whatever. In any other country he might at least have brought 
 an action for ^alse imprisonment, or have horsewhipped a-n Attorney 
 General who bod giossly mistaken the Law, but in Philadelphia, 
 where even the C'own in the Circus was compelled to apologize for 
 a joke.upon the Russian Bear, either of those pastimes would have 
 been attended with too much hazard. 
 
 In this case, Mr. Attorney Van Dike, you acted in ignorance of 
 the Law — committed an outrage on the securities of social life — 
 injured an innocent man, and never, to this hour, so far as I can 
 ascertain, have made the slightest apology or reparation. In the 
 o])scure region where you " fret and strut," you may do such 
 thinj^s v.ith impunity : but if you do, you must expect at least to 
 be laugliod at, when summoned before that higher tribunal, at which, 
 fur your oyix-'cial benefit, I intend to practice 
 
I come now to the case of your friend Hertz. I have read the 
 woarisomo columns of worthless testimony with which it is encum- 
 l)orcd, including tho Confession of tho precious rascal himself; and 
 I do not hesitate to say, from my own knowledge of tho man, and 
 from the internal evidence of complicity in his perjuries whicli 
 your Speech displays, that I believe, from first to last, he has 
 been a mere tool, acting under your surveillance, and doing tho 
 dirty work of tho Russian if not of tho American Government. 
 
 Iho character of Hertz I shall depict by and bye. Let me first 
 show tho animus which inspires Mr. District Attorney Van Dike. 
 
 In your address to the jury wo find you disguising the causes of 
 the war — saying nothing of the invasion of tlio Principalities — of 
 tho massacre at Sinopo, and attributing hostilities to "an attack 
 on tho part of the Allies producing those misfortunes to the British 
 Government, which they have endeavored to retrieve by a violation 
 of the laws of this country." 
 
 "Those misfortunes !" Tho glorious battles of Alma, Bala- 
 clava, and Inkcrman, Mr. Attorney, which even a Russianized 
 republican might admit to have been achievements as worthy of 
 commemoration, as are those village skirmishes which the whole of 
 the " free and equal," slaves, foreigners, and freemen, say grace 
 over every Fourth of July. 
 
 Again you say, " I have said that tho war in the Crimea was 
 conducted by tho British, French, and other nations, as Allies, 
 against tho single power of Russia. I have said that the conse- 
 quences of that war had been disasti'ous to the besieging parties, 
 and that tho signs of tho times indicated a still more humiliating 
 fate. The Russian Fortifications have not, and, I believe, 
 
 WILL NOT BE TAKEN." 
 
 Here we have the very inmost soul of Mr. Attorney Van Dike 
 embodied in these few lines, " The wish was father to the thought." 
 With a jury before him, and a rabble behind, who read nothing but 
 tho Philadelphia papers, ho believed that he could safely misrepre- 
 sent the causes of the war — disguise the fact that the Russian ships 
 had been driven off tho ocean — that the Russians had lost two men 
 to our one, and hazard a prediction, that should by and bye entitle 
 him to rank beside Joe Smith in the long line of Prophets produced 
 by the new world. 
 
 Having proved that you are a very bad Lawyer, by the case of 
 Mr. Bucknall, I now intend to prove you a very bad Prophet. — 
 On tho 21st of September you predicted " disaster to the besieg- 
 ing parties" — a " still more humiliating fate" to England than 
 that which you had previously described. I would have given a 
 trifle to have seen you, standing on tiptoe and winning the smile ot 
 the Court, the approval of tho jury, and the applause of the audi- 
 ence, all thoroughly Russian to the backbone, by proclaiming that 
 the strongholds of despotism, which the free and equal admire so 
 
 • 
 
1* 
 
 much, could 'not be taken." That you exhibited "all the con- 
 tortions of the Sybil" I have not a doubt, but it is fortunate for 
 the cause of freedom that you lacked " the inspiration." 
 
 Thirteen days before you uttered this mendacious speech Sebas- 
 topol had fallen — the allied flags at the very moment of its utter- 
 ance waved over the smokine ruins — ^your friends, the Russians, in 
 deep "humiliation," had ned over the Harbor, where lay en- 
 gulphed more men of war, destroyed in a single year, than your 
 Ureat Republic ever owned. 
 
 Seven days after your elaborate attempt to damage my charac- 
 ter, I landed in my own Province, and heard the first glad shout of 
 joy and triumph at the victory, which has since rolled over every 
 Town and City and Hamlet of British America. How many shouts 
 have we heard from across the border? Where are the Anglo- 
 Srxons of Pennsylvania l Who saw them toss up their hats '.' 
 Ty'here the Celts of New York, for whose independence the French 
 shed their blood in the times of old ? God help the " Red, White, 
 and Blue" if its defenders had no better backers than Uiose for 
 whom their forefathers fought. But let that pass, I must come 
 back to that precious embodiment of the national senthientj Mr. 
 Attorney Van Dike. 
 
 Having shown you to be a poor Lawyer and a worse Prophet, 
 I think I shall have very little trouble in convicting you of an 
 utter want of voracity. Ihave already shown you misrepresenting 
 the causes of the war, and hazarding absurd predictions. Let me 
 take a. single vain glorious boast as a specimen of your general 
 authenticity : 
 
 " In this free and Republican Country, the homo ordained by . 
 Providence for the oppressed of all nations." 
 
 This is vour inaccurate description of the United States. .Now 
 I freely admit that the Continent of America was made by Provi- 
 dence : its vast proportions — its noble rivers — its exhaustless ferti- 
 lity, were given to the human race by the Creator, if man would per- 
 mit his fellow-man to enjoy in peace the mercies intended for us all ; 
 but I think that it would be hard to implicate Providence in the bar- 
 barous institutions and politics by which that portion of its surface 
 that you most admire is at this time strangely disfigured. 
 
 I refer you to your countrywoman, Mrs. Btowe, for an account 
 of the securities and delights which await the African races within 
 your " free and Republican Country." You consider it a crime 
 Ibr a Novascotian to pay the passage of a German from Philadel- 
 ))Iiia to Halifax, and then to find him honorable employment in Her 
 Majesty's service ; yet you think it no crime when a British born 
 subject of the Queen of England, if he happens to be black, is seized 
 in a Republican Port and thrown into prison, until the departure 
 of the vessel in which he ventures to take a peep at your refuge 
 
6 
 
 for the oppressed — your " free and Republican Country." When 
 you can snow that a single American citizen, or any foreigner, en- 
 titled to the protection of your laws, has been seized by force and 
 imprisoned in a British Port, you will indeed have a grievance. — 
 While your own country is disgraced by practices so barbarous, so 
 utterly subversive of all national rights and of all commercial inter- 
 course, pray do not make our gorges rise with your eternal brag- 
 ging about humanity and freedom. 
 
 What was the condition of the foreign popjlation, as they are 
 called, with whose allegiance I am accused of tampering, last 
 Spring ? Thousands of those men were sweeping the streets of 
 the Atlantic Cities — living in soup kitchens, or were supported by 
 public charity. Their gaunt frames and haggard faces were every- 
 where grouped around the wharves and thoroughfares. They had 
 lost, in the preceding winter, from sheer distress, nearly as many 
 as the British army lost from the same causM in the Crimea. 
 What shall I say of the mortality of the preceding Summer 1 
 Who shall describe the horrors of Charleston, of Chicago, of New 
 Orleans, of Mobile ? Is it not notorious that more Irishmen have 
 died in a single summer in one city of your paradise of fools than 
 have fallen in the four great battles of the Crimea since the war 
 began t 
 
 I did not attempt to recruit the dead, whatever I may have done 
 to rescue the liting from starvation — but of this I am quite assur- 
 ed, that you, and such as you, would rather that every foreigner 
 in your country should grace the dead cart or sweep the streets, 
 than wear the uniform of a nation of which you are too meanly 
 jealous ever to harbour a generous impression. 
 
 But, let me enquire whether there was any thing in the social 
 immunities, or political standing, of these poor foreigners, to render 
 it so unhallowed a pursuit to tempt them into the British Army 7 
 How stood the Irish Catholic, for instance? He had done his best, 
 God knows, to conciliate the Van Dikes and other early squatters 
 upon the great plantation. He had befouled the nest in which he 
 was fledged sufficiently to ensure him a welcome in that to which 
 he flew. He had howled at the Saxon till ho was hoarse, and, fol- 
 lowing one fool or charlatan after another^ had ended by getting 
 the Saxons in the New World rather more unanimous in the work 
 of tyranny and oppression than they had been in the old. When 
 I entered the United States laat spring the Know Nothing organi- 
 zation was spreading from State to State. The Irish Catholics 
 were proscribed everywhere. Their religion was condemned bpr 
 the public sentiment from Maine to South Carolina — their politi- 
 cal privileges were being rapidly curtailed by legislation — their 
 Chapels and Convents had been burnt — their Priests insulted — 
 their volunteer companies disbanded ; and scarcely a nighty passed 
 without some bloody encounter, in which, however Paddy might lay 
 
 . 4 
 
6 
 
 ill 
 
 It' 
 
 
 ftl)Out him with his shilollah, or doal death for death with more 
 fatjil weapons, ho was in tlio end beaten down by sheer force oi' 
 numbers or force of law, and made to feel that Iiis Brother Jona- 
 than waj at least (|uito as bad as his Brother John iiull — and that 
 in leaving green Erin for vour " free and Republican Country," 
 ho had but got out of the frying pan into the fire. 
 
 English and Scotchmen wore rather bettor treated. They were 
 only accustomed to hear the civilization of Russia preferred to their 
 own every day of tho week, and to have their Country and their 
 Institutions formally abused every Fourth of July. Otherwise they 
 were not badly off, and yet worse than they thought, because they 
 were under tho impression that thev might go and fight tho battles 
 of their country, if so disposed, without tho risk of imprisonment 
 for harboring so felonious a design. Poor follows, they arc unde- 
 ceived. They have now discovered, that while an American Minis- 
 ter can stir up tho subjects of a Foreign State to which ho is accre- 
 dited to mutiny and civil war, a British Minbter daro not pay tho 
 passage of a poor Englishman, who desires to loavo tho United 
 States in peace, to sustain abroad tho honor of tho Flag under 
 which ho was bom at homo. 
 
 How was it with tho Germans ? Hated only a little less than 
 tho Irish. Wherever they were but a handful they were tolerated, 
 — where tb*^y were a minority, thoy were voted down and despised. 
 Where thoy dared to assert an equality, thoy had 4a fight for their 
 lives and their votes. Tho battlo that lasted for three days in tho 
 streets of Cincinnatti, between tho Germans and Native Ameri- 
 cans, waa only the outburst of that smouldering rivalry and hatred 
 which existed last Spring, and yot exists, wherever tho Germans, 
 who have fled to this refuge for "the oppressed of all Nations," 
 daro to act as though their souls, their swords, or their votes were 
 their own. 
 
 Poles, Hungarians, and Italians, wore harbored it is true. But, 
 when these men wore fighting for freedom in their native lands — 
 many of them for " Republican Institutions," what sympathy or 
 aid did they ever receive from the Van Dikes and other Republi- 
 cans of the West 7 Did you draw a sword or fire a shot in their 
 defence 1 ■ Not one. But when their nationalities wore trodden 
 -^own by the iron heel of tho oppressor — when their hopes of liberty 
 were crushed — when they sought, in expatriation, a refuge for 
 their families, they fondly believed that when the hour arrived for 
 a possible combination against tho Despot and tho spoiler, if they 
 had not the sympathy and tho aid of tho pretenders to freedom to 
 whom they had fled for refuge, at least they would bo per- 
 mitted to return to Europe, and fight under the banner of the Allies 
 for the positions which they had lost. When they discovered that 
 Republican America was thoroughly Russian — that tho Republi- 
 cans of tho West only cherished sympathy for tho Despot of tho 
 
North, and that to leave the United States with the " intent" to 
 avongo their national wrongs, and display their love of liberty, was 
 a crimo, they must indeed have felt most keenly " the slings and 
 arrows of outrageous fortune." The Frenchman must have deeply 
 pondered the huge proportions of trans-atlantic in ratitudo. " Our 
 ileots and armies," ho would probably say, ** fought to establish 
 the indcpondenco of this country, and now, when the fleets and 
 armies of France aro fighting for the independence of nations simi- 
 larly oppressed, I am forbidden to draw my sword for my own 
 country, by tho very people for whoso freedom the blood and trea- 
 sure of Franco were profusely shed." 
 
 To ascertain tho temper and feelings of this foreign population I 
 was sent into tho United States last Spring. My mission was honor- 
 able as it was lawful. I discharged its delicate duties with duo re- 
 spect for your laws. Surrounded, as I soon was, by Russian spies 
 and Police-runners — by zealous District Attornies and their unscru- 
 pulous Agents — by mean wretches, ready to profit by serving or 
 selling those who employed them, I traversed your country and 
 walked your streets, for two months. Had you ventured to arrest 
 me, I should have defended myself openly in your Courts. I 
 never did an act, wrote a line, or uttered a sentiment, which I can- 
 not now defend before all the world. Thousands of Foreigners 
 would have flocked to tho Standard of England had they have 
 been pcrmittcjd peacefully to leave tho Country. Tho Neutrality 
 Laws, fairly administered, would have interposed no obstacle. Tho 
 real obstacles to bo encountered wero tho Russian feeling of tho 
 country — the jealous hatred of England — tho daring violations of 
 iiU law, of common decency and hospitality — tho complications 
 created by scoundrels, suborned and employed by such zealous par- 
 tizans as Mr. Attorney Van Dike. 
 
 Having surveyed tho whole field — studied tho aspects of society 
 and weighed tho bearings of the Neutrality Laws, I returned to my 
 own country, not concious of having given offence, and quite pre- 
 pared to defend myself against all the Lawyers in Philadelphia. If 
 I have not commenced the good work before, it is because I havo 
 been absent in Europe since the 8th of June. That I shall do it 
 to your entire satisfaction I havo not a doubt, but as I havo no 
 dcsiro that this letter should grow to tho length of a President's 
 Message, I must for tho present subscribe myself, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 JOSEPH HOWE. 
 
 tho