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ONE HUNDRED YEARS OE PEACE

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FACSIMILE OF THE SIGNATURES TO THE TREATY OP
GHENT

ONE HUNDRED YEARS
OF PEACE

BY
HENRY CABOT LODGE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1913
All rights reserved

Copyright, 1912,
By the OUTLOOK COMPANY.
Copyright, 1913,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and clectrotyped. Published September, 1913. Reprinted
December, 1913.

Cb?,-'^'

J. 8. Cushing Co. —Berwick «fc Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PEEFATOEY NOTE
This sketch of the relations between the United
States and Great Britain during the century which
has elapsed since the War of 1812 appeared first in
the "Outlook." To the publishers of the "Out
look " I wish to express my thanks for their kind
permission to reprint here the two original articles
revised, corrected, and much enlarged.

LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS
Facsimile op the Signatures to the Treaty op
Ghent ........ Frontispiece
FACING PAGK
"What? You young Yankee-Noodle, strike your own
father?"  24
John Quincy Adams  36
Robert Southey, Charles Dickens, and Sidney Smith 44
James Bryce, William Makepeace Thackeray, and
Washington Irving  58
Woodcutter's Cabin on the Mississippi ... 62
The Solemnity op Justice  64
Daniel Webster  74
Lord Ashburton  78
Rear-Admiral Charles Wilkes, U. S. N. . . . 90
Lord Palmerston  96
Abraham Lincoln  100
Lord John Russell  108
Charles Francis Adams  110
"The Land op Liberty"  120
The Champion Masher of the Universe . . . 130

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
The last war between Great Britain and
the United States began in June, 1812.
There has been no war between the two
countries since the treaty of Ghent was
signed on Christmas eve in 1814. Strictly
speaking, the absence of war constitutes
peace, and therefore we may describe these
hundred years just passed as a century of
peace between the United States and Great
Britain. But in the larger and better sense
of the word it must be confessed that the
relations between the two countries during
that period have been at times anything
but peaceful, and often far from friendly./
Indeed, there have been some perilous
moments when war has seemed very im
minent. To describe this period therefore
as one of unbroken good will merely be
cause there was no actual fighting would
be wholly misleading. If a review, how-

2 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
ever brief, of the relations between Great
Britain and the United States since 1812 is
to possess any value, it can only be through
showing how, by slow steps, with giany
interruptions and much bitterness on both
sides, we have nevertheless finally attained
to the genuine friendship in which all sen
sible men of both countries rejoice to-day.
This fortunate condition has been reached
'Hr^J pft^^ mqriy years of storm and stress,
which it seems to posterity, always blessed
with that unerring wisdom which comes after
the event, might have been easily avoided.
To understand the present situation
aright, to comprehend the meaning and
effects of the war of 1812 and of the ninety-
eight years of peace which have followed
its conclusion, it is necessary to begin with
the separation of the two countries by the
Treaty of Paris in 1782, when the connec
tion between England and the United States
ceased to be that of mother country and
colonies and became the more distant rela
tion which exists between two independent

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 3
nations. Just now there appears to be a
tendency among Englishmen to regard that
separation of the eighteenth century as a
small matter, especially so far as their own
country is concerned, a view which, how
ever comfortable, is hardly sustained by
history, and we may well pause a moment
at the outset to consider just what the war
resulting in the treaties of Paris meant, for
on that decisive event rests ultimately all
that has since come to pass.
As an illustration of the attitude of mind
to which I have referred, let me take the
recent case of a well-known writer and very
popular novelist. Some years ago Mr. H.
G. Wells came to this country, and on his
return to England, like many of his country
men, he wrote a book about the United
States. Unlike many of his couritrymen,
however, he wrote a very pleasant and
friendly book, enlivened by some character
istic remarks in favor of socialism and of
converting the Niagara Falls into horse
power. He made, however, one comment

4 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
which struck me at the time, and which, I
think, has been made since by others of his
countrymen. This comment was in connec
tion with his visit to Boston, as I remember,
and criticised us good-naturedly for the
extreme care with which we marked all spots
connected with the Revolution, and for the
apparent importance which we attached to
that event. Mr. Wells, unlike Sir George
Trevelyan, the most brilKant of living Eng
lish historians, seemed to think that this
American feeling about the Eevolution
which resulted in the independence of the
United States was provincial, if not paro
chial. In view of the sound system of Brit
ish education, which has a great deal to say
about English victories, great and small, and
is curiously reticent as to Enghsh defeats,
it is perhaps not surprising that the impor
tance attached to the incidents of the Amer
ican Eevolution in this country should
surprise the average traveller from Great
Britain. But, putting aside the partiality
which Americans feel toward the Eevolution,

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 5
owing to the fact that they were victorious,
and the lack of interest with which the
British regard it, possibly because they were
defeated, it is perhaps not amiss to point
out that the war for American independence
really was an event of high importance, and
was so considered then, as it has been ever
since, by dispassionate persons.
The revolt of the American Colonies in
1776 agitated the world of that day far
beyond the parish limits of the United States.
It divided parties and overthrew Ministries
in England. It involved France and Spain
in war with Great Britain, and created the
armed neutrality of the northern Powers,
events which are rarely caused by trifling
or provincial struggles. But the American
Eevolution had results even more momen
tous than these. It broke the British
Empire for the first, and, so far, for the
only time. It took from England her
greatest and most valuable possession.
With the American Colonies she lost a
population equal to about a fifth of the

6 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
inhabitants of Great Britain at that period,
as weU as the ownership of the best part of
a great continent. The independence of the
Colonies was the foundation of the United
States, and, whether one approves of the
United States or not, there can be no ques
tion, I think, that they constitute to-day a
large and important fact in the existing
world. It was an Englishman, I beheve,
who said that, after all, England's most con
siderable achievement was the United States.
Finally, and this is something which I feel
it would hardly be possible to describe as
parochial, modern democracy began with
the American Eevolution. Carlyle, who
had more imagination as well as more humor
than the average British commentator, either
upon America or upon things in general,
turns aside from a letter of Friedrich to
D'Alembert which happened to be dated
December 16, 1773, in order to give an
account, a quite inimitable account, of the
Boston Tea Party which occurred on that
day. He did so because, to use his own

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 7
words : " The case is well known and still
memorable to mankind." It did not seem
to him parochial, but on the contrary an
event charged with meaning. With his
penetrating and ynde ranging glance, at
past and future alike, Carlyle had already
in one oft quoted sentence set forth what
the American Eevolution really meant when
he wrote the history of that greater Eevolu
tion wliich came to pass a few years later
on the other side of the English Channel.
Here is what he says : " Borne over the
Atlantic, to the closing ear of Louis, King
by the Grace of God, what sounds are these ;
muffled, ominous, new in our centuries?
Boston Harbor is black with unexpected
Tea; behold a Pennsylvania Congress
gather; and ere long, on Bunker Hill, De
mocracy announcing, in rifle volleys death-
winged, under Star Banner, to the tune
of Yankee-doodle-do, that she is born and,
whirlwind-like, will envelop the whole
world ! "
Another great writer of that generation,

8 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
a friend of Carlyle, read the same prophecy
in the revolt of the Colonies. With the
insight of the poet, Emerson declared that
the shot which the embattled farmers fired
at Concord Bridge was heard " round the
world," which, although expressed in verse,
told the exact truth. At that bridge, in
that little New England village, the first
drum-beat of democracy broke upon the
troubled air, and there the march began.
The same drum-beat was heard soon after
wards in France, where several things
happened which no one probably would
regard as provincial, and which caused
some stir at the time. Looking over
the world to-day, it may be fairly said
that no greater event could be commemo
rated than the first uprising of democracy
which later swept over the Governments of
the nineteenth century, and which is still
pressing onward, crossing even now iuto
the confines of Asia.
Yet, very characteristically, this American
Eevolution, which Mr. Wells smiles at

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 9
gently as a little provincial incident, but
which seems not to have been without its
effect on the history of civilized man, turned
on a question of law. That two great
branches of the same people, speaking the
same language, holding the same beliefs,
and cherishing the same institutions, should
go to war about a question of legal right in
the imposition of taxes is indeed very typical
of the race and breed. It is also one reason
why the war of the Eevolution, as a whole,
was sullied by few acts of cruelty or ferocity,
for, as Macaulay pointed out long ago, the
character of a civil war is very largely
determined by the amount of oppression
wliich one side has suffered at the hands of
the other. The government of the English
colonies in America had been, on the whole,
easy and liberal. Sir Eobert Walpole, with
his favorite motto of " Quieta non movere,"
with his wise indifference which aUowed the
dust to gather upon American despatches,
and the elder Pitt, who had the faculty of
arousing the enthusiasm of the colonists by

10 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
appealing to their patriotic impulses and by
treating them as friends and equals, had
made the bonds between the mother country
and her American children very strong.
But a dull and narrow-minded King, served
by ministers of slight capacity or of judi
ciously pliant natures, soon undid the work
of the two great statesmen and forced on
the war which had in it at that moment
nothing of the inevitable. The Eevolution
thus generated was fought out through
seven long years, and the Colonies won.
There was, of course, bitterness of feehng
on both sides, but none which could not
have been quickly and easily overcome, if
right methods had been pursued. ''The
Americans, it is true, did not carry out the
treaty properly in regard to the loyalists,
and the British, on their side, failed to
observe it in regard to the relinquishment
of the western posts which were an absolute
threat not only to the expansion but to the
very existence of the United States. One of
the greatest achievements of Washington's

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 11
administration was the Jay treaty, and to
make this settlement with England he sac
rificed the French alliance, but he removed
forever the western menace and cleared the
frontiers of the United States from a danger
which in time of war might have proved
fatal. The French Eevolution, which de
stroyed the American alliance, divided public
opinion in the United States, as it did in
England, and the immediate result was
virtual, although not declared, war with
France, a situation that gave England an
opportunity to bind her former colonies
closely to her, which unfortunately did not
seem to English statesmen a thing worth
doing. That the people of England generally
should think little and know less about
their former colonies during the closing
years of the eighteenth century is not sur
prising. It was the period of the French
Eevolution, and that terrible convulsion,
which brought the genius of Burke to the
confines of madness, unsettled many lesser

12 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
minds, and through the passions of fear
and anger seized public attention with such
an absorbing and relentless grasp that, natu
rally, no room was left for thought concerning
three millions of English speaking people who
had just set up a national govemment on the
other side of the Atlantic. But it is strange
that English ministers, statesmen charged
with the responsibility of government in
a time crowded with perils of every kind,
should not have paid some attention to
the United States. They were involved
in a desperate war with France. Their
success at sea had been brilliant, but their
mihtary failures had been little short of
appalling. They were pouring out millions
of pounds to pay for coalitions which one
after the other went to pieces in defeat.
Their subsidies were almost as completely
wasted as the huge sums of money which
went to the Chouans of Brittany, to the
wretched following of the Comte d'Artois in
London, or to the conspirators who were
tryiag to assassinate the First Consul in

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 13
Paris. Their allies on the Continent were
breaking down as the century ended, and
isolation stared them in the face. One
would have imagined that under such
circumstances they would have looked in
every corner of the globe for new friends
and new sources of strength. In the
United States were three millions of people,
active, enterprising, pushing their vessels
into every sea. These people were very
largely of their own race and despite the
recent war were still bound to them not
only by community of language and of
political belief but by the still stronger ties
of long existing habits of trade, of com
mercial intercourse, and of thought and
manners. It is true that they grudgingly
drove a hard bargain with the United
States in the Jay treaty. But that was
all. They were content to avoid war
with their former colonies, and then they
turned their backs to them, even when
the policy of France was forcing the
Americans into their arms. It seems a

14 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
strange blindness on the part of ministers
of a great country at such a time as that,
filled as it was with war and confusion,
with crumbling governments and falling
dynasties. No great efiort was required,
had they wished to inform themselves as
to the United States and to leam that it
would be profitable to tum them from
quondam enemies into useful friends and
aUies. It was not difficult to acquire
knowledge of the United States. In 1794,
for instance, Mr. Thomas Cooper, an Eng
lishman who had emigrated to America,
published in the form of letters to a friend
a book entitled " Some Information Ee-
spectiag America." The volume did not
belie its title. It was full of valuable infor
mation, and on page 52 occurs this passage :
" There is httle fault to find with the
government of America, either in principle
or in practice : we have very few taxes
to pay, and those are of acknowledged
necessity, and moderate in amount : we
have no animosities about rehgion ; it is

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 15
a subject about which no questions are
asked: we have few respecting political
men or political measures : the present
irritation of men's minds in Great Britain,
and the discordant state of society on
political accounts, is not known here. The
govemment is the government OF the
people, and FOE, the people. There are
no tythes nor game laws: and the excise
laws upon spirits only, and similar to the
British only in name."
It is interesting to note that this little
known writer described the character of
the government of the United States in
the exact words of two of the three defi
nitions used by Lincoln in his famous
Speech at Gettysburg. But in this con
nection Thomas Cooper's book is of im
portance as showing that it was not
difiicult for Englishmen, had they so desired,
to obtain information about the United
States. If the book ever came under the
eyes of any of them, it seems as if the
inference would have been drawn that a

16 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
people of whom such things could be
written deserved, in that great crisis of
westem civilization, both examiuation and
consideration. But there were other facts of public no
toriety not concealed in the books of travel
lers which must also have been known to
the British ministers, but which went by
them apparently unheeded. They knew
that the American states, shaken and broken
by seven years of civil war, after five years
of a weak central government, ever grow
ing more impotent and imbecile, had come
together and formed a Federal constitution.
It was a constitution of an unusual charac
ter. There was nothing hke it just then
extant among men. A century later a
great English statesman and prime minister
was to speak of it as the most remarkable
instrument of govemment ever struck ofi"
by a single body of men at one time, and Mr.
Gladstone was confirmed in this view by
Lord Acton, who wrote in his " History of
Freedom " :

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 17
" American independence was the begin
ning of a new era, not merely as a revival
of the Eevolution, but because no other
revolution ever proceeded from so slight a
cause or was ever conducted with so much
moderation. The European monarchies
supported it. The greatest statesmen in
England averred that it was just. It estab
lished a pure democracy, but it was democ
racy in its highest perfection, armed and
vigilant, less against aristocracy and mon
archy than against its own weakness and
excess. Whilst England was admired for
the safeguards with which, in the course of
many centuries, it had fortified liberty
against the power of the crown, America
appeared still more worthy of admiration
for the safeguards which, in the deliberations
of a single memorable year, it had set up
against the power of its own sovereign peo
ple. It resembled no other known democ
racy, for it respected freedom, authority, and
law. It resembled no other constitution, for
it was contained in half a dozen intelligible

18 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
articles. Ancient Europe opened its mind to
two new ideas — that revolution with very
little provocation may be just, and that
democracy in very large dimensions may be
safe." To criticise Pitt and his colleagues
because they did not look at the constitu
tion of the United States then just born into
the world with the eyes of posterity or with
the insight and comprehension of the great
est historical scholar in England a century
afterwards would of course be most unjust.
Yet it would seem not unreasonable to ex
pect from responsible and able ministers,
certainly from a man of such commanding
intellect as the younger Pitt, some slight
perception of the meaning of the American
Eevolution and of the remarkable qualities
of the constitution of the United States
pointed out with such terseness and force
by Lord Acton. Had they given any at
tention to the subject, they must have seen
that in this new constitution and its first ten
amendments were embodied all those great

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 19
principles of individual rights and ordered
liberty for which Englishmen had fought for
centuries. They must have perceived with
but trifling intellectual effort that this new
government was organized and marching
forwards, that the Americans had provided
for the payment of all public debts with
scrupulous honesty, that their revenue
was growing, and that the administration of
Washington, of whom they had certainly
heard, was strong and courageous and had
not hesitated to resist revolutionary France
or to assert complete neutrality. If they
had considered these facts, one would have
supposed that in their own condition, en
gaged as they were in a desperate war, they
would haved^ecided that tTie~friendship of
this neWTraticSgjas worth consideration and
cultivation. But the thought apparently
never occurred to them, and they^assed the
United States by as unworthy of attention
and deserving only of contemptuous and ig-
nor ant^i n rl i ffp.renca. Then came the great
struggle with Napoleon, and again England

20 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
might easily have made her former colonies
her close friends and allies. This policy in
deed was so obvious that it is hard to under
stand why even Enghsh ministers failed to
adopt it. Jefferson, with aU his eulogy of
France and denunciation of England for polit
ical purposes, was more than ready to unite
with her against Napoleon if England
would only have allowed him to do so, but
after the death of the younger Pitt and the
dissolution of the Ministry of " All the
Talents," the English Government fell once
more into the hands of very inferior men.
Ministers of the caliber of Perceval, Castle
reagh, and Lord Liverpool, united with ex
treme Tories like Lord Eldon, whose ability
was crippled by their blind prejudices, were
utterly unable to see the value of friendship
with the United States and preferred to treat
their former colonists with a comfortable
contempt. The one very clever man not in
opposition in those days was Canning, and
he did more than any one else, perhaps, by
his unfortunate attitude to drive the United

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 21
States away from England. It was he who
said that the navy of the United States con
sisted of " a few fir frigates with a bit of
bunting at the top." For the sake of this
not very humorous alliteration he paid rather
heavily in the loss of a good many English
frigates at a later day. Disraeli says in
" Sybil " that from the death of the younger
Pitt to 1825 " the political history of England
is a history of great events and little men,"
a description of the period as terse as it was
truthful, if we except the Duke of Welling
ton. The combination was not beneficial to
England and was unfortunate for her rela
tions with the United States.
It is not pleasant to Americans to recall
the years which preceded our second war
with England. There was no indignity, no
humiliation, no outrage, that England on
the one side and Napoleon on the other
did not inflict upon the United States.
Our Government submitted and yielded
and made sacrifices which it is now difficult
to contemplate with calmness, until at last

22 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
a party arose composed of young men
who were profoundly convinced that any
thing was better than such conditions, and
that if we were to enjoy a national exist
ence worth having we must fight. They
did not care very much with whom we
fought, but they were determined to fight
some one in order to vindicate the right
of the United States to live as a nation
without dishonor. The unscrupulous dex
terity of Napoleon and the marvellous stu
pidity of England resulted in our fighting
England instead of France, and thus we
came to the war of 1812.
We had no army and a very small navy.
The pohtical group which had forced war
upon us, although right in their reasons
for going to war, were utterly wrong in
the ignorant boasts with which they pro-
clauned our readiness for battle. Wholly
unprepared, we suffered many defeats on
the Canadian frontier, which were redeemed
only by the two battles of Lundy's Lane
and Chippewa. Upon the seas and lakes

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 23
we had almost unbroken victory, and,
finally at New Orleans, after peace had
really been made, but before it was known,
Jackson defeated the veterans of WeUing-
ton's Peninsula campaigns with a thorough
ness and a severity which were so marked
that the battle is hardly alluded to in
British histories, and must therefore be
relegated to the provincial class of histori
cal events. Thus the war came to an end
before it had lasted three years, and when
the Treaty of Ghent was signed that instru
ment did not in plain words dispose of a
single one of the questions which had made
the war unavoidable and upon which the
United States had fought. Yet, none the
less, the war had settled all those questions.
Never again did England attempt to stop
an American man-of-war or an American
merchantman on the high seas and take
seamen, whom she claimed as deserters,
from their decks. Never again did she at
tempt to interfere with American commerce.
Whatever losses the United States might

24 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
have sufiiered in the war, however much
her pride might have been wounded by the
destruction of the Capitol at Washington,
the real victory was with the Americans.
They had fought, and they had gained
what they fought for. They sacrificed
nothing — not an inch of territory — by so
doing. The only losses sufiiered by the
United States were in men and money,
and by those losses we had put an end
forever to the humiliating treatment which
had been meted out to us during the
first decade of the century. As the years
passed by, all this became apparent, and
it is now perfectly plain that the war of
1812 achieved the result for which it was
fought, by establishing the position of the
United States as an independent nation
and restoring the national self-respect.
Although the treaty of Ghent did not
show it, we have but to look behind the
curtain which the hand of time has drawn
aside in order to learn that the men of that
day in England recognized what had hap-

what? you young YANKEE-NOODLE, STRIKE YOUH OWN
father? "

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 25
pened, although they might not admit it
to themselves, much less to the public.
They confessed the truth in many ways,
none the less clearly because the confession
was indirect.
Take, for example, this letter from Mr.
James, the naval historian, to Mr. Canning :
Me. W. James to Mr. Canning
" Peeet Vale, Neae Sydenham, Kent : Jany. 9, 1827.
" The menacing tone of the American
President's message is now the prevail
ing topic of conversation, more especially
among the mercantile men in whose com
pany I daily travel to and from town.
One says ' We had better cede a point or
two rather than go to War with the
United States.' 'Yes,' says another, 'for
we shall get nothing but hard knocks
there.' ' True,' adds a third, ' and what is
worse than aU, our seamen are half afraid
to meet the Americans at sea.' Unfor
tunately this depression of feeling, this
cowed spirit, prevails very generally over

26 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
the community, even among persons well
informed on other subjects, and who, were
a British seaman to be named with a
Frenchman or Spaniard, would scoff at the
comparison." ^
The words of Mr James show the effect
upon the public mind in England of the
American naval victories, which so pro
foundly interested Napoleon. They pene
trated so deeply that they actually reached
the intelligence of the Liverpools and the
Castlereaghs. Even they felt the meaning
to England's prestige as a naval power of
losing eleven out of thirteen single ship
actions and two flotilla engagements on the
Great Lakes, Their alarm can be meas
ured by the honors they conferred on Cap
tain Broke, who commanded the Shannon
when she defeated the Chesapeake — higher
honors than Nelson received for his briUiant
service in the battle of Cape St. Vincent.
Nor was this all. Despite their contempt
' " Canning Correspondence." Edited by E. J. Stapleton.
Vol. II, p. 3i0.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 27
for the Americans and their loud assertions
of satisfaction with their successes, as the
war drew to its close the ministers be
came so uneasy that they proposed to
send Wellington to America to command
their armies on the very scene of the
victories which they so loudly proclaimed.
The Duke's letters in regard to this pro
posal are most instructive, and reveal the
real results of the war, for Wellington was
never the victim of illusions. He had in
high degree the great faculty of looking
facts in the face.
On the 9th of November, 1814, he wrote
from Paris to Lord Liverpool as follows :
" I have already told you and Lord
Bathurst that I feel no objection to going
to America, though I don't promise to
myself much success there. I believe there
are troops enough there for the defence of
Canada forever, and even for the accom
plishment of any reasonable offensive plan
that could be formed from the Canadian
frontier. I am quite sure that all the

28 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
American armies of which I have ever
read would not beat out of a field of battle
the troops that went from Bordeaux last
summer, if common precautions and care
were taken of them.
" That which appears to me to be want
ing in America is not a General, or General
officers and troops, but a naval superiority
on the Lakes. Till that superiority is ac
quired, it is impossible, according to my
notion, to maintain an army in such a
situation as to keep the enemy out of the
whole frontier, much less to make any
conquest from the enemy, which, with
those superior means, might, with reason
able hopes of success, be undertaken. I
may be wrong in this opinion, but I think
the whole history of the war proves its
truth; and I suspect that you wiU find
that Prevost will justify his misfortunes,
which, by the by, I am quite certain are
not what the Americans represented them
to be, by stating that the navy were de
feated, and even if he had taken Fort

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 29
Mason he must have retired. The ques
tion is, whether we can acquire this naval
superiority on the Lakes. If we can't, I
shall do you but little good in America;
and I shall go there only to prove the truth
of Prevost's defence, and to sign a peace
which might as well be signed now. There
will always, however, remain this advan
tage, that the confidence which I have ac
quired wiU reconcUe both the army and
people in England to terms of which they
would not now approve.
"In regard to your present negotia
tions, I confess that I think you have no
right from the state of the war to de
mand any concession of territory from
America. Considering everything, it is my
opinion that the war has been a most
successful one, and highly honorable to
the British arms; but from particular cir
cumstances, such as the want of the naval
superiority on the Lakes, you have not
been able to carry it into the enemy's
territory, notwithstanding your mUitary

30 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
success, and now undoubted mihtary su
periority, and have not even cleared your
own territory of the enemy on the point
of attack. You cannot, then, on any prin
ciple of equality in negotiation, claim a
cession of territory excepting in exchange
for other advantages which you have in
your power.
" I put out of the question the possession
taken by Sir John Sherbrooke between the
Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Bay. It is
evidently only temporary, and tiU a larger
force will drive away the few companies he
has left there ; and an officer might as weU
claim the sovereignty of the ground on
which his piquets stand, or over which his
patrols pass.
" Then if this reasoning be true, why
stipulate for the uti possidetis? You can
get no territory ; indeed the state of your
mihtary operations, however creditable, does
not entitle you to demand any ; and you
only afford the Americans a popular and
creditable ground which, I believe, their

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 31
Government are looking for, not to break
off the negotiations, but to avoid to make
peace. If you had territory, as I hope you
soon will have New Orleans, I should prefer
to insist upon the cession of that province
as a separate article than upon the uti pos
sidetis as a principle of negotiation.
And again, on November 18, 1814, he
wrote to Lord Liverpool :
" I have already told you that I have no
objection to going to America, and I will go
whenever I may be ordered. But does it
not occur to your Lordship that, by appoint
ing me to go to America at this moment,
you give ground for belief all over Europe
that your affairs there are in a much worse
situation than they really are 1 And wUl
not my nomination at this moment be a
triumph to the Americans and their friends
here and elsewhere "? It will give satisfac
tion, and that only momentary, in England ;
and it may have the effect of raising hopes
and expectations there which, we know, can
not be realized."

32 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
Despite the " mihtary successes," Welling
ton did not think that England could make

any demand for territory or compensation,
which shows that the " successes " had been
as barren as they were trivial. The invin
cible troops from Bordeaux were badly
beaten by Jackson, and Pakenham, one of
Wellington's favorite generals, was kiUed,
so that he did not capture New Orleans, as
the Duke had anticipated.
The result was a treaty of peace that on
its face only brought peace, which the Duke
evidently thought was all England could
expect. The pity of it all was that there need
not have been any war between England
and the United States in 1812, if England
had only seen fit to make the United States
a friend instead of a foe. But England did
not so wiU, and the war at least taught her
that the United States could no longer be
bullied and outraged with impunity. Thus
the war of 1812 brought, after all, a peace
worth having, and laid the foundations for
that larger peace which has lasted for a

)

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 33
hundred years. During that time, through
many vicissitudes, the relations of the two
countries have so improved that we are now
'warranted in believing, what all reflecting
men earnestly hope, that another war be
tween England and the United States has
become an impossibUity.
These larger results of the war, so plainly
to be seen now, were not of course immedi
ately apparent. The old attitude was stiU
too fixed, the old habits stUl too strong, to
be abandoned in a moment. We made a
brief treaty of commerce and navigation with
England in June, 1815, six months after the
conclusion of the treaty of Ghent, but this
second treaty disposed of none of the out
standing questions as to which the treaty
of Ghent had been silent, and some of these
thus passed over were of a nature which
imperatively required settlement. A British
officer, unconscious apparently that a war
had been fought, even undertook to search
some of our vessels upon the Great Lakes,
a little eccentricity which was not repeated.

34 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
Despite the agreement of the Ghent treaty,
England held on to Astoria and the posts in
the extreme Northwest, and, what was stiU
worse, she also attempted to take the ground
that our fishing rights, deterniined by the
treaty of 1783, had been extinguished by
the war. Acting on this opinion, British
cruisers seized American fishing vessels, and
the condition of affairs on the coasts of
Nova Scotia, Canada, and Newfoundland
became serious in the extreme. Mr, Adams,
then Minister of the United States in Lon
don, brought these questions to the atten
tion of Lord Castlereagh, urging upon him
the necessity of further treaties to settle
these disputes, to extend the commercial
convention of 1815, and to make some
agreement in regard to the slaves who had
been carried off after the conclusion of the
war, as well as with reference to the disputed
northwestern boundary. His discussions
with Lord Castlereagh, which are detailed
at length in his diary, were fruitless, and the
British Cabinet dechned at that time to

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 35
enter upon further negotiations. It may be
inferred that although somewhat disturbed
by the events of the war of 1812 they still
did not think it worth while to take any
steps toward improving their relations with
the American people.
Soon after these conferences with Lord
Castlereagh Mr. Adams returned to the
United States in order to take his place in
President Monroe's Cabinet on the 4th of
March, 1817, and Mr. Eush succeeded him
as Minister at London. Once more an
effort to come to a further agreement on
some, at least, of the outstanding questions
was made, and Mr. Eush was instructed
that if England would assent to a confer
ence, Mr. Gallatin, who was our Minister at
Paris, would be joined with him in the
negotiations. Then it was that the effects
of the war began to be really apparent.
The exasperation caused by the seizure of
our fishing vessels and by the refusal to
carry out the provisions of the treaty of
Ghent on the northwest coast made it evi-

36 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
dent that if something was not done the two
countries would again be involved in hostil
ities. This danger, which would have made
no impression upon the minds of British
ministers ten years earher, was now effective,
and England's action showed that when it
came to the point she was no longer ready
to go to extremes. The Ministry changed
its attitude and assented to a new negotia
tion. The result was the treaty of 1818,
by which England admitted in principle the
American contention that the fishing rights
conceded in 1783 were final in their nature
and could not be abrogated by war. Mr,
Eush and Mr. Gallatin, moreover, succeeded
in obtaining larger concessions in this respect
than their instructions called for, and the
Anierican fishing rights within the three-
mile limit, and also the right to dry and
cure on the coast, were recognized as to cer
tain portions of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia,
and Canada. The treaty also disposed of
the boundary from the Lake of the Woods
to the Eocky Mountains, whUe from the

JOHN" QUINCY ADAMS
(From the portrait by Copley)

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 37
mountains westward to the ocean the country
was left open to the occupation of the sub
jects and citizens of both Powers for a term
of^ ten years. The commercial convention
was extended, and provision was made for
the settlement of American claims on account
of the slaves, who had been carried away,
by referring the whole matter to the decision
of some friendly sovereign. Nothing was
said about the subject of seamen's rights,
which had been so largely the cause of the
war. The treaty of 1818 was as silent on
this topic as the treaty of Ghent, but this
question had in reality been settled by the
war itself, for England, having found that
the theme was one upon which the United
States was always ready to fight, quietly
allowed her claims in this direction to die
away. Four years after the treatyj)f 1818, and in
accordance with the fifth article, the question
of compensation for^ayes or other proj)erty
carried away after the war was referred to
the Emperor of Eussia, as arbitrator, and

38 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
the Emperor's award decided that the United
States was entitled to just indemnification
for all such private property taken by the
British forces, and more especiaUy for aU
such slaves as were carried away from the
places and territories for the restitution of
which the treaty stipulated. The adoption
of the treaty of 1818 was also the signal for
the restoration to the United States of Astoria
and the other points on the coast of the ex
treme Northwest. In this way the treaty
of 1818, and the award of the Emperor of
Eussia, which grew out of it, brought the re
lations of the two countries into a better con
dition than they had enjoyed since the close
of the American Eevolution, and these trea
ties may be said to have constituted the first
step toward the improvement of those rela
tions which were destined to grow better, al
though with many checks and hindrances,
for one hundred years to come.
The two countries were also drawn nearer
together by holding the same attitude in re
gard to the revolting colonies of Spain in

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 39
South America, and by their common dislike
and distrust of the principles of the Holy
Alliance. When Canning broke away from
the somewhat musty Toryism which thought
everything was to go on just as of old, and
as if the French Eevolution had never hap
pened, he not only powerfully aided the
South American republics, but he greatly
strengthened the position of the United
States. Canning did not at all approve
the extended form which his policy took on
in the Monroe Doctrine, but his work could
not be undone, and a common sympathy
and a common policy in the South American
struggle for freedom drew Great Britain and
the United States closely together in the
eyes of the world, and, also, although to a
less degree, in their own estimation.
After the award of the Emperor in regard
to indemnity for the slaves carried off by the
British forces in the war of 1812, there was,
with the exception of the conventions of
1827, renewing and extending the treaty of
1818 and providing for an arbitration of the

40 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
disputed northeastern boundary, no interna
tional transaction involving serious differ
ences, and no treaty between the two Gov
ernments of Great Britain and the United
States, for twenty years. The marked effect,
which the war_of_1812, as I have pointed
out, had produced upon the attitude of Eng
land toward the United States was, however,
very largely confined to the intercourse of
the two Govarnments, That intercourse
had become what, in diplomatic parlance, is
termed "correct," and the old tone, so famU
iar in British despatches before the war of
1812, when the Ministry treated the United
States as if it were a collection of African
tribes and therefore not entitled to the ordi
nary good manners of intemational relations,
whoUy disappeared. Officially we had
forced our way into the family of nations,
and had secured the customary courtesies
which international intercourse demands.
Yet this improvement, which was of the first
importance, ^id not go very far toward alter
ing the feeling which existed among the

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 41
peoples of the two countries toward each
other. Our relations with Great Britain
after the treaty of 1818 entered upon an
other phase quite outside the scope of gov
ernmental action, which in its result did more
lasting harm to the cause of genuine friend
ship between the two nations than all the
best efforts of diplomatists or public men on
either side could remedy or undo.
Prior to the war of 1812 many books and
much writing in reviews and newspapers ap
peared in England which treated of the
United States in the most unfavorable man
ner, and in a spirit which at times might
fairly be called malignant. This systeniatic_
defanriation was carried on so generally and
so persistently that it gave rise to a fixed
belief-in the United States not only that it
was part of a deliberate plan, but that some
of the writers, Uke Moore, Ashe, and Parkin
son, were actuaUy in the pay of the British
Government, and that they wrote for the
purpose of inflaming EngUsh hostUity tow
ard everything American, and of preventing

42 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
emigration to England's former colonies.
During those early years of the century the
people of the United States seem to have
had the good sense to treat these criticisms
with indifference ; and when the controversy
between the countries culminated in war,
printed attacks fell, in the presence of real
fighting, unnoticed from the press. After
the war, however, and after the settlement
of the commercial relations of the two coun
tries by the treaty of_ 1818, the habit of de-
preciatingandj-ibelling the United States,
either iu books or in more ephemeral pubh-
cations, entered upon a new phase. Any
one who will take the trouble to examine
what was written in England about the
United States during the period from 1820
to 1850 wiU find it difficult to avoid the be
lief that the assaults upon the American
people were systematic in their nature.
Those who are curious in such matters can
find an excellent summary in Mr. McMas-
ter's history, where the English comments
upon the United States from 1820 to 1840

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 43
are vividly described. It seems almost in
credible that such things could have been said
and written by one ostensibly friendly people
about another people who spoke the same
language and inherited the same political
traditions. There were, without doubt,
many things in the United States of that
day which were open to just and severe crit
icism. No successful defence, for example,
could be entered before the tribunal of the
civilized world in behalf of negro slavery.
But the English critics did not confine them
selves to that which was deserving of criti
cism. Everything in the United States was
to them anathema. The great reviews gave

many pages to depicting what the United
States was as they beheld and interpreted it.
Eobert Southey in the " Quarterly," and Syd
ney Smith in the "Edinburgh," were only two
of the most distinguished among the many
writers great and small who devoted them
selves not merely to criticising but to slander
ing the United States. They were not
ashamed to effect their purpose by telling

44 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
the most absolute falsehoods, and the lengths
to which they went seem now well-nigh
incredible. The men of America were said
to be " turbulent citizens, abandoned Chris
tians, inconstant husbands, unnatural fathers,
and treacherous friends." The men who
had whipped English vessels in eleven single
ship fights out of thirteen were accused
of having run away shamefiiUy when they
could not fight to advantage. As they
generaUy fought to advantage at sea, they
had not often run away. " In the Southern
parts of the Union," says another cahn
thinker and judicious critic, " the rites of
our holy faith are almost never practised;
one-third of the people have no church at
all. The religious principle is gaining
ground in the northern parts of the Union.
It is becoming fashionable among the better
orders of society to go to church." It is
interesting to consider this picture of church-
going becoming fashionable among the
descendants of the Puritans, but the writers
had forgotten, probably, that New England

HOBEBT SOUTHEY

CHARLES DICKENS

SYDNEY SMITH

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 45
was settled when it was a wUderness by
people who went there, as Carlyle puts it,
because they wanted to hear a sermon
preached in their own way. " The supreme
feUcity of a true-bom American is inaction
of body and inanity of mind," is another
description of the people of the United
States, and the reproach of inactivity is one
of the most comic ever addressed to Ameri
cans even at that time. Then, of course,
the British critics had a great deal to say
about our total lack of literature and the
entire absence among us of any men of dis
tinction. Franklin, we were informed, had
elicited some useful discoveries, but that
was because he had lived in England for
some time. It might be suggested that
there were many other persons dwelling in
England whose residence in that favored
island had failed to make them capable of
eliciting Franklin's useful discoveries. It
was also predicted that he would not be
remembered for fifty years. Prophecies of
fame are always perUous, and it is to be

46 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
feared that Franklin is a good deal better
remembered to-day than Sydney Smith or
Southey — the most considerable of our
critics in those days — and more read, too,
if we may judge from the fact that every
civilized nation not long since sent eminent
representatives to Philadelphia to celebrate
the two hundredth anniversary of his birth,
a ceremony which seems to have been
omitted in the case of Southey and Sydney
Smith when a century had elapsed after
their coming into the world. Eobert Fulton,
it was asserted, stole his invention from see
ing the sailing ships which ran on the Clyde
with steam-power in 1787, although no
mention is made elsewhere of the persons
who performed that feat, which does not
seem to have travelled beyond the Clyde,
and which is just as veracious as the state
ment, also made at that time, that Fulton
was born in Paisley in Scotland, when in
reahty he had the misfortune to be bom in
Pennsylvania. It is pleasant to think and it is only fair to

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 47
remember that at the very time when this
raUing against Americans was at its height,
a man of genius, one of the great minds of
England in those days, saw the injustice and
folly of all this abuse and could speak of the
American people not only temperately but
kindly, Coleridge in his familiar talk refers
to the United States and its people in this
way: " I deeply regret the anti-American arti
cles of some of the leading reviews. The
Americans^regardjwl]^ is said of them in
England a thousandjtimes more than they
do anything said of them in any other
country. The Americans are excessively
pleased with any kind or favourable ex
pressions, and never forgive or forget
any slight or abuse. It would be better
for them if they were a trifle thicker-
skinned." . . .
" The last American war was to us only
something to talk or read about ; but to
the Americans it was the cause of misery
in their own homes." . . .

48 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
" I, for one, do not call the sod under my
feet my country. But language, religion,
laws, government, blood, — identity of these
makes men of one country," ^
And again on April 10, 1833, he said:
"The possible destiny of the United
States of America, — as a nation of a hun
dred millions of freemen, — stretching from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, living under the
laws of Alfred, and speaking the language
of Shakespeare and Milton, is an august
conception. Why should we not wish to
see it realized? America would then be
England viewed through a solar microscope:
Great Britain in a state of glorious magni
fication! How deeply to be lamented is
the spirit of hostility and sneering which
some of the popular books of travels have
shown in treating of the Americans ! They
hate us, no doubt, just as brothers hate ;
but they respect the opinion of an English
man concerning themselves ten times as
much as that of a native of any other coun-
> Table Talk, May 28, 1830, " The Americans."

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 49
try on earth. A very Uttle humouring
of their prejudices, and some courtesy of
language and demeanour on the part of
EngUshmen, would work wonders, even
as it is, with the pubUc mind of the
Americans." . . .
"Captain Basil Hall's book is certainly
very entertaining and instructive but, in my
judgment, his sentiments upon many pouits,
and more especially his mode of expression,
are unwise and uncharitable. After all, are
not most of the things shown up with so
much bittemess by him merely national
foibles, parallels to which every people has
and must of necessity have 1 " ^
One feels disposed to say to-day that the
slander and vilification by Sydney Smith
and Southey, and by the pack of unknown
writers who followed their example, are more
than compensated by the kind, wise words
of Coleridge, especially as Coleridge is still
read and remembered, while the others,
with the exception of Sydney Smith, are
»" Table Talk."

50 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
quite forgotten and their books and articles
are to the world at large as unknown as ff
they had never existed. But at the time
the words of those who defamed were
printed and read, whUe Coleridge's talk was
still unpubhshed.
These few passages which I have quoted
from the Eeviews give, however, a very faint
impression of Enghsh criticism upon America
at that time, although such stuff is hardly
to be dignified by the name of criticism. It
was in reality childish and rather ignorant
abuse. But now, contrary to what had
happened in the earlier years, the Ameri
cans, unfortunately, were roused into tak
ing it up and making elaborate replies.
They had not much difficulty in con
troverting the false statements and misrep
resentations so freely made, but they did
not stop there. They naturaUy availed
themselves of the tu quoque argument, and
it was not at all difficult in the history
of England to find facts which, with ap
propriate twists and bendings, made the

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 51
English people appear in a very unenviable
Ught. This warfare of books and magazine arti
cles continued and was much emphasized
and embittered when it was waged on a large
scale by popular writers like Mrs. TroUope
and Captain Hall. Everything else, how
ever, sank into insignificance compared to
the effect of one book, much more temperate
than any of the others, but written by a
great genius who saw fit later to sharpen
what he had said in a book of travels by
carrying his animosity into the realms of
fiction. Charles Dickens came to the United
States in 1841. He was received with an
outburst of affectionate and admiring en
thusiasm which has rarely been seen any
where in the case of a man of letters. He
went home and wrote a book about us
caUed " American Notes," and then he im
mortalized certain types of American char
acter in "Martin Chuzzlewit." He said a
great deal that was very true and entirely
deserved. The characters of the novel

52 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
were unfortunately in many respects only
too real, and, deeply angered as we were
at the time, it may be safely said that
Elijah Pogram and Jefferson Brick and
Hannibal ChoUop, General Choke and Mrs,
Hominy have an immortality more assured
among the American people than anywhere
else, for the anger has long since died away,
while the truth of the satire and the comi-
cahty of those beings created by the magic
touch of genius stiU remain. But at the
time the resentment was intense. How in
tense the feeling was we can see from the
following entry made by Emerson in his
journal on November 25 (1842).
"Yesterday I read Dickens' 'American
Notes,' It answers its end very well,
which plainly was to make a readable book,
nothing more. Truth is not his object
for a single instant, but merely to make
good points in a hvely sequence, and he
proceeds very well. As an account of
America it is not to be considered for a
moment : it is too short, and too narrow,

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 53
too superficial, and too ignorant, too slight,
and too fabulous, and the man totally un
equal to the work. A very Uvely rattle on
that nuisance, a sea voyage, is the first
chapter ; and a pretty fair example of the
historical truth of the whole book. We can
hear throughout every page the dialogue
between the author and his publisher, —
' Mr. Dickens, the book must be entertain
ing — that is the essential point. Truth 1
Damn truth ! I tell you, it must be enter
taining.' As a picture of American man
ners nothing could be falser. No such con
versations ever occur in this country in
real life, as he relates. He has picked up
and noted with eagerness each odd local
phrase that he met with, and, when he had
a story to relate, has joined them together,
so that the result is the broadest caricature;
and the scene might as truly have been laid
in Wales or in England as in the States.
Monstrous exaggeration is an easy secret of
romance. But Americans who, like some
of us Massachusetts people, are not fond

54 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
of spitting, will go from Maine to New
Orleans, and meet no more annoyances than
we should in Britain or France, So with
'yes,' so with 'fixings,' so with soap and
towels ; and all the other trivialities which
this trifler detected in traveUing over haff
the world. The book makes but a poor
apology for its author, who certainly ap
pears in no dignified or enviable position," ^
Emerson was not only a great man and
a man of genius but he had one of the cool
est, calmest, and best-balanced minds con
ceivable. Yet he could write in this fashion
of the "American Notes." If Emerson felt
in this way, and of course there is much truth
in what he says, we can imagine the feelings
of the average American about Dickens at
that moment. Whether what was said in
the " Notes " or in " Martin Chuzzlewit " at a
later day was just or unjust, true or untrue,
there was a widespread feeling in the United
States that, whoever else might find fault
with and ridicule us, Charles Dickens, after
> Emerson's Journals, 1841-1844, pp. 312-313.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 65
the reception which had been given him,
was debarred by every rule of loyalty and
good manners from doing so. That this
feeling was natural and that the rule was
one which could be both accepted and ob
served was made visible to all men not long
after the visit of Dickens.
A few years later another great English
novelist came to the United States; came
twice, in fact, and deUvered lectures. No
doubt, with his keen and penetrating obser
vation, he perceived many things which
lent themselves to criticism, to ridicule, and
to satire, of which no living writer was more
capable than he. He was by temperament
very sensitive to just those shortcomings
which are common and repeUent in a crude
and unformed society. He was urged in
every way and tempted with the promise of
great profits to write a book about America,
but he declined. He had been cordially re
ceived in the United States; he had Uved
in our houses ; he had accepted our hospi-
taUty ; only kindness had been shown him.

56 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
Others might write what they pleased about
America, but he would not. Let me recall
what he himself said in a "Eoundabout"
paper :
" Yonder drawing was made in a country
where there was such hospitality, friendship,
kindness, shown to the humble designer that
his eyes do not care to look for faults or his
pen to note them, , , . How hospitable
they were, those Southern men! In the
North itself the welcome was not kinder, as
I, who had eaten Northern and Southem
salt, can testify ! "
How kind and generous it all is, and how
pleasant it is now, to every one who loves
the memory of the genius that created Becky
Sharp and drew the character of Colonel
Newcome, to know that he was, above aU
things, loyal and true. We had on our own
side, too, a distinguished man of letters
whose conception of his duty toward the
two nations who read his books was to cher
ish friendship and kindhness and not to seek
for faults and embitter feehngs. Let me de-

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 57
scribe him in Thackeray's words, for they
both thought alike in this great matter which
involves nothing less than good-wUl among
men: "Two men, famous, admired, beloved,
have just left us, the Goldsmith and Gibbon
of our time, , , . One was the first Ambas
sador whom the New World of Letters sent
to the Old. He was born almost with the
republic ; the pater patriae had laid his hand
on the child's head. He bore Washington's
name ; he came amongst us bringing the
kindest sympathy, the most artless, smiling
good-will. His new country (which some
people here might be disposed to regard
rather superciliously) could send us, as he
showed in his own person, a gentleman who,
though himself born in no very high sphere,
was most finished, polished, easy, witty,
quiet ; and, socially, the equal of the most
refined Europeans. If Irving's welcome in
England was a kind one, was it not also
gratefally remembered % If he ate our salt,
did he not pay us with a thankful heart ?

58 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
Who can calculate the amount of friendliness
and good feeling for our country which this
writer's generous and untiring regard for us
disseminated in his own 1 His books are
read by millions of his countrymen ; whom
he has taught to love England, and why to
love her. It would have been easy to speak
otherwise than he did; to inflame national
rancors, Avhich, at the time when he first be
came known as a public writer, war had just
renewed ; to cry down the old civilization at
the expense of the new ; to point out our
faults, arrogance, shortcomings, and give the
republic to infer how much she was the
parent state's superior. There are writers
enough in the United States, honest and
otherwise, to preach that kind of doctrine.
But the good Irving, the peaceful, the
friendly, had no place for bitterness in his
heart, and no scheme but kindness,"
Unfortunately, the example of Irving and
Thackeray had but few imitators. Every
thing which these two said and wrote or
omitted to say and write was forgotten in

JAMES BRYCE

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

WASHINGTON IRVING

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 59
the clash of men who took a precisely op
posite course, to the great detriment of aU
concerned, and the bitterness was concen
trated around the "American Notes" and
their author, whom the American people
had loved and honored and taken to their
hearts. It was this feeling that the man
whom they had admired and cheered and
feasted had been disloyal which made Dick
ens's criticism and ridicule rankle more than
that of all others. But if we leave the per
sonal equation aside, Dickens was only the
culmination of the general commentary which
England then made and apparently thought
it well to make upon the United States.
Both people spoke and read the same lan
guage. In those days they were still closely
akin. We read English books, copied
English fashions, and looked up to English
standards in society and in literature, and
therefore all that was said in England of the
kind which has just been indicated went
home and made Americans very angry and
very sore. We were a new people, or rather

60 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
we were the offspring of an old people settled
in a new country, and we were young, very
self-conscious, very sensitive, and we felt at
tacks which would be no more noticed to-day
than the rattle of a dead autumn leaf flutter
ing before the wind. We replied to the
criticisms in a savage and intemperate man
ner. Sometimes we wounded ; generaUy
we produced no effect. What we felt
most was the injustice of painting everything
black. As I have already said, there was
a great deal in America to be criticised.
Dickens's wrath about copyright, for in
stance, was wholly justifiable. Our own
hterary possessions were still meagre, and
so we stood like highwaymen along the
roadside of literature and robbed the
passers-by, the very men who "helped
us to enjoy life or taught us to endure it,"
To plunder others in this fashion was not
only indefensible but most dishonest. The
default on the State bonds, especially
upon those of Pennsylvania, which edged
the blade of Sydney Smith, who was

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 61
a personal loser, was likewise indefensible,
and was also utterly discreditable. To the
great reproach of slavery there was, of
course, no reply, no excuse to be made.
But these dark spots were not the whole
picture, and yet by gross misrepresentation,
and even by actual falsehood, the effort was
made to prove that everything was black.
For instance, in " Martin Chuzzlewit " the
impression is sedulously and strongly given
that the entire United States west of the
AUeghanies is one huge swamp breathing
forth fever and ague. One has but to look
at the illustrations of Mrs. TroUope's book
to see the country Dickens described,
and it would almost seem as if the Ameri
can chapters in " Martin Chuzzlewit " were
written "up" to Mrs. TroUope's pictures.
No doubt such ugly and unwholesome spots
existed then, and exist now, but as a de
scription of so large a country as the United
States it was not strictly accurate. Yet
this was the prevailing tone. Everything
was bad — land, people, institutions. The

62 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
result naturally was that the just criticism
had no effect and was merely lost in the
cloud of invective and abuse. Many of the
deficiencies were those which time alone
could supply, but this was not stated any
more than it was admitted that there was
also in America much that was good and
not a httle that was great. In the days
when we were still colonies Edmund Burke
and the elder Pitt pictured the people of
America and what they had achieved in
language to which Parliament listened then,
and which the world has heeded ever since.
In the first half of the nineteenth century the
American people were engaged in the con
quest of a continent ; they were bringing a
wilderness within the grasp of civihzed man,
and at the same time they were making a
great experiment in government, and had
established religious freedom and individ
ual liberty on a scale never known before.
Their political example had affected the en
tire Western world, and this was really the
underlying reason for the attacks upon them.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 63
because their success alarmed the ruUng
classes of England and of Europe, which
were likewise the vocal classes, in command
of the press and the platform. None the
less, these endeavors and achievements in
that great new world were quite as worthy
of note as our crude manners, our rough
ways on the Westem frontier, our lack of
the luxuries of wealth, and of the many
other lesser things in which we fell short of
the European standards. But the good was
never noticed and the bad was exaggerated
beyond the bounds of truth. With the ex
ception of what Dickens and Sydney Smith
wrote, everything then said and written about
the United States and its people is quite
forgotten, except by the historian, and is
as dead to the world as the nun who has
taken the black veil. But looking back
over that time, the period of the English
commentators on America, one can see
very plainly now the infinite mischief
which was done. In point of taste and
good feeling there is little to choose

64 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
between the Enghsh attacks upon the
United States and those of Americans
upon England, although we had the great
disadvantage of feeling much more keenly
about it than our adversaries. Yet England
herself was sensitive enough when Emerson
and Hawthorne, two really great writers,
ventured, in the most perfectly proper and
temperate way, to point out that in certain
respects the English people were, after all,
merely human, Emerson and Hawthorne,
of course, are still read and remembered,
quite as much if not so widely as Dickens,
but they do not come within the class
that I have been trying to describe.
They were later, and their tone was
larger and more modern, their criticism
more subtle, their praise ample, and their
temper fair. During the time which I
have attempted to portray the harm
done was very great. Englishmen gave
comparatively little attention to us or to
what we thought or said, but the attacks of
her writers upon the United States, running

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 65
through a period of years, bred a bitter
hatred of England among the American
people, which has gradually and fortunately
grown into a cold but cheerful indifference,
and this, in turn, it is to be hoped, wiU be
come something more and better than
occasional friendship between individual
members of the two nations.
The regret which one feels as one looks
back over the writings of that period brim
ming over with bitterness and anger is en
hanced by considering the good which might
have been done by more serious works con
ceived in a different spirit. We have two
conspicuous examples of such books ready
to our hands and possessed of an enduring
reputation denied to those who wrote of the
United States only to decry and wound.
De TocquevUle is of the same period. His
famous book is by no means filled with un-
dUuted praise. He both warned and criti
cised, but he took America seriously and he
was studied and admired. In our own time a
distinguished English statesman has written

66 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
a hook upon our body politic and our meth
ods of govemment. He has seen what was
good as weU as what was evU in our pohtics
and our political system. He is a severe
but just judge. Far from resenting his
strictures, Americans regard his book with
admiration and as high authority. It may
be truly said that no Englishman has ever
been more popular in the United States than
James Bryce, the author of the " American
Commonwealth," The final question which arises in one's
mind when contemplating that time in the
dry, cool light of history is whether, on
the whole, it benefited England and was
profitable to her to breed enmity and bitter
ness in a country which had every natural
disposition to be her friend. The Govern
ment had ceased^to aim deliberately at alien-
ating the UnitedStates after the treaty of
Ghent was made ; and then it was that Eng
lish writers,^r^at__and_small, took up the
work which the Government, for the time
at least, had abandoned. Their operations

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 67
were less dangerous because the issues of
peace and war did not liein Jheirjiands, but
in creating^ a settled hate on the part of one
pe_Qplelor_anoikerLilieyjssLete_.more effective
than diplomatists and ministers, becaiTse
they wounded personal pride and made each
member of the community, according to his
temperament, feel humiliation or anger, in
his own particular person. To-day such
writings on the part of the English or of
any other nation would produce no effect of
the slightest consequence in the United States,
After natiQna_j2ass a certain point in_ their
risfi-.-to— greajjie^ ^^pse by inhabitants of
other countries may make the person utter
ing the abuse unpopular, but has no effect
upon the nation or people abused. Be
tween 1820_md-JMD, when the United

States was stUi^truggUngin the first stages
of nation^uilding, when it was still largely
a wilderness and its pioneers were forcing
the frontier westward with daring and pain
ful effort, this abusive and^ _savage_.iaiti-
cism, whether just or not, was_deeply felt.

68 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
That it had an improving or instructive
effect upon Americans, in view of the man
ner in which the instruction was admin
istered, may well be doubted, but in making
them angry and in turning them against
England, and causing them to look with the
friendly eyes of preference on almost every
other nation, it was highly successful. In
the relations of two great nations, speaking
the same language and beheving in the same
political principles, it is not a pleasant period
to look upon in the clear light of seventy
years later ; yet I think, if rightly considered,
it is not without its lesson, not only to those
concerned, but to all who wish to maintain
good relations among the nations of the
earth. During this same period, which may be
called, as I have said, the period of the
commentators and the critics, certain events
occurred of a much more perilous nature,
which brought the two countries to the
verge of war. In the nature of things,
we were certain to have many more

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 69
matters of difference with Great Britain
than with any other country, because her
provinces lay to the north of the United
States and furnished a common boundary
line three thousand mUes in length. What
was much worse was the fact that this boun
dary line was left largely unsettled by the
treaties of 1818 and 1827. One of the three
treaties of 1827 provided for arbitration as
to the northeast boundary, and the question
was referred to the King of HoUand as
arbitrator. In 1831 the King rendered a
decision, but as he really decided only two
points and merely expressed an opinion as
to all the others, his award was rejected by
the United States upon the ground that it
was not a decision of the questions submitted.
Thus the entire matter was left open, and
serious troubles soon began to arise along
the northeastern boundary between the
people of Maine on the one side and those
of the adjoining British provinces on the
other. An American surveyor was arrested.
The State of Maine appropriated money and

70 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
sent a force of men in Aroostook County) to
the border. There were similar difficulties
in Madawaska. The English Government
postponed action, and the question began to
assume a very angry and threatening appear
ance. Meanwhile another disturbance broke
out along the New York and Vermont fron
tiers. There had been a rebellion in Canada
against the bad government of that day,
and the defeated patriots took refuge in the
United States, where they met with a cordial
reception. Considerable bodies of volun
teers were raised. Secret organizations were
formed to support the rebeUious Canadians,
a party of whom, under the leadership of
William McKenzie, seized Navy island, in
the Niagara river, and fortified it. The
authorities in Canada despatched Colonel
McNab to guard the frontier against this
invasion, and McNab sent out a party of
armed men who seized and burned the
steamer Caroline, which had been used to
convey volunteers and munitions of war to
Navy island. The destruction of the Caro-

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 71
line took place at Fort Schlosser, on Amer
ican territory, and was, of course, a gross
violation of the sovereignty of the United
States. The Government of the United
States and the State governments behaved,
fortunately, with entire propriety and broke
up and checked, so far as they could, th©
movements of the patriots and their sympa
thizers. Nevertheless, acts of violence con
tinued on both sides. A party of refugees
in the Thousand Islands crossed to the
Canadian side and burned the steamer Sir
Robert Peel as a set-off for the Caroline,
while the American steamer Telegraph was
fired upon. It would require a volume of
reasonable size to give a history of these
border troubles, which are not without
much human interest, but which have all
faUen quite dim now, and indeed are hardly
remembered except by the historian. In a
brief review of the relations of England and
the United States during one hundred years
it is impossible to do more than allude to
them. It must suffice to say here that the

72 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
whole border from Maine to Michigan was
not only disturbed, but^ina rnost inflamed
and explosive condition. It was just one of
those situations where war might have been
precipitated at any moment by reckless men
who were quarrelling over the possession of
land and where a rebellion existed in one
country which excited warm sympathy in
the other. In addition, a case arose, grow
ing out of the destruction of the Caroline,
which aroused animosities even more than
the actual troubles along the border. An
American named Durfee had been shot and
killed on the Caroline. Two years later a
Canadian named Alexander McLeod came
down from Canada and whUe he was drunk
bragged of having himself killed Durfee,
He was, of course, arrested, although it was
afterwards shown that he had not been
present at the destruction of the Caroline.
But on his own admission it was perfectly
proper to arrest him. The crime had been
committed on American soil and McLeod
had confessed himself to be the guilty man.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 73
yet none the less the English Government
flew into a fine rage and undertook to inter
fere with the action of the courts. Not con
tent with this, they also saw fit to offer their
advice in regard to the case of the Amistad,
a Spanish vessel which had been seized by
the slaves whom she was carrying and had
been run ashore at Long Island, where she
was taken possession of by the Govemment.
There was a very grave question as to
what was to be done with the negroes, but
no part of the question concerned England
the least in the world, and her benevolent
advice, coming just at that moment, was
deeply resented. In this condition of pub
Uc sentiment, with England on the edge of
declaring war on account of McLeod, and
with the popular feeUng in the United States
greatly excited by the border troubles and
by the case of the Amistad, the Democrats
went out of power and the Whigs came in,
with Mr. Webster as Secretary of State.
The situation was one of extreme and
dangerous complexity. The British having

74 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
avowed the destruction of the Caroline to
be a Governmental act, it was obvious that
McLeod could not properly be held, but his
case was in the State courts of New York,
over the proceedings of which the United
States had no control. Mr, Webster endeav
ored to secure the discharge of McLeod, but
in vain, and the New York courts refused to
grant a writ of habeas corpus. On the
other side, Mr. Fox, the British Minister,
saw fit to adopt a most offensive tone,
which Mr, Webster was the last man in
the world to accept with tameness or in
a meek spirit. He took a firm attitude
with England, while suggesting privately
that negotiations should be opened for es
tablishing a conventional northeastern hne,
and, as has just been said, he used his best
efforts to secure the discharge of McLeod,
This perilous situation was fortunately
reheved by two incidents which came to
pass outside the efforts of the Government.
McLeod was acquitted at Utica by the simple
process of proving an alibi ; and the Whigs

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DANIEL WEBSTER
(From portrait in State Department)
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 75
were beaten in England, an event which
made Lord Aberdeen Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs in place of Lord Palmerston.
As has usuaUy happened since the war of
1812, we fared much better with a Tory or
Conservative administration than we did
with Whigs or Liberals. Response was
now made to Mr. Webster's proposal to es
tabUsh a conventional line, and in January,
1842, information reached Mr. Webster from
Mr. Everett that Lord Aberdeen had deter
mined to assent to our proposition, and had
sent Lord Ashburton as special Minister to
the United States to settle the boundary and
all outstanding questions. This marked a
sharp change in the English attitude, and
was no doubt owing in a measure at least to
the confidence which was felt in Mr, Webster
personaUy, Indeed, it is to Mr, Webster
that we owe the settlement at this time of
questions which had been so inflamed by
extraneous and accidental circumstances as
to have brought the two countries to the
verge of war.

76 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
Mr. Webster's position had throughout
been one of extreme difficulty. Not only
did he have to deal with the McLeod case,
but the border was in a constant ferment
and he was compeUed to be constantly on
the alert to prevent, if possible, outbreaks
which might precipitate hostilities at any
moment. In addition to all this his own
personal situation was most trying. General
Harrison, who had made him Secretary of
State, died a month after his inauguration,
and, although President Tyler gave his en
tire confidence to Mr, Webster, he immedi
ately broke with the Whig party, which had
elected him, and Mr, Webster's position be
came, in consequence, a very difficult one.
The Whigs felt that he ought immediately
to resign. He was denounced as a traitor to
Whig principles, and there was much bitter
ness of feeling, Mr. Webster, however,
understood the situation between this coun
try and Great Britain better than any one
else. He knew how dangerous it was. He
felt, and rightly, that ff any one was able to

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 77
bring it to a peaceful conclusion he could,
and that whatever his party associates might
say or think, it was his plain duty to remain in
the Cabinet until the English question was
settled. Unmoved, therefore, by the attacks
made upon him, he remained at his post,
and it was well for the country that he did
so. Lord Ashburton arrived in the United
States on the 4th of April, 1842, and the re
sult of his negotiations with the Secretary of
State was the agreement known in history as
the Webster- Ashburton treaty, which was
concluded on the 9th of August, 1842, and
proclaimed in the following November,
This result, however, was not easily reached,
for the settlement was surrounded by diffi
culties, owing to the fact that the territory of
the two States of Maine and Massachusetts
was involved, and Mr, Webster, therefore,
could not deal with this territory with a free
hand. It was very fortunate that Mr, Web
ster was a New England man, and his per
sonal influence as well as the tact he displayed
were most effective in managing the arrange-

78 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
ments with the two States, It is not possi
ble to follow the negotiations in their details,
for the discussion involved filled volumes at
the time and might be made to fill volumes
now. All that it is possible to say here is
that the treaty brought about, in the first
place, a condition of entire peace between
the two countries and thus put an end to
one in which war was momentarily prob
able. It settled the northeastern boun
dary and the northern boundary from Lake
Huron to the Lake of the Woods, together
with various matters related to these two
questions. It also made an agreement for
joint effort toward the suppression of the
slave trade and for joint remonstrances to
the other Powers against that traffic. It
further provided in another article for the
extradition of criminals. As a whole the
treaty was a most important advance toward
the establishment of good relations between
the two branches of the English-speaking
_people. It was one of Mr. Webster's great
est achievements, and, in view of the extreme

LORD ASHBURTON
(From portrait in State Department)

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 79
irritation existing and the incipient border
warfare, it was a very remarkable feat.
Benton denounced the treaty in the Senate
as a surrender to England, and Lord Palm
erston assailed it in Parliament as a surrender
by England to the United States ; from
which it may be inferred that it was, upon
the whole, a very fair settlement.
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty had, how
ever, one defect; it did not determine our
northwestern boundary beyond the Rocky
Moimtains. That region, it will be remem
bered, under the treaties of 1818 and 1827
was left to the joint occupation of Great
Britain and the United States, although
Mr. Monroe had offered to end the dispute
by adopting the forty-ninth parallel as the
line of division. The country for some time
remained unsettled, but the Hudson Bay
Company finally started to push its posts
down to the Columbia River, and just when
Mr. Webster was at work on the treaty with
Lord Ashburton the American movement
toward Oregon began in earnest. As soon

80 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
as our settlers arrived there troubles at once
arose, and the question drifted into the do
main of politics. The failure of the Web
ster-Ashburton Treaty to deal with it and
the absorption of the Administration in the
much greater question of the annexation of
Texas_kept the whole matter open with in
creasing irritation, although Mr, Tyler re
newed the offer of the forty-ninth parallel,
to which Great Britain paid no attention.
The American rights and claims were taken
up with noisy enthusiasm in different parts
of the country, and were put forward by
public meetings in the largest possible way.
When the election of 1844 came on, the
Democrats took extreme ground in their
platform, claiming the whole region which
was in dispute, and the cry of " Fifty-four
forty or fight " ran through the campaign.
The excitement was enhanced by the failure
of Congress to act, for there were many
Senators and Eepresentatives from the older
parts of the country who regarded Oregon
as worthless, and who resisted aU efforts to

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 81
take action in regard to it. Mr. Polk, the
Democratic candidate, was one of the ex
tremists on the question and in favor of the
54-40 Une. Nothing could have been less
desirable than this attitude. It is never well
to threaten, and it is particularly undesirable
to threaten unless you mean just what you
say. The people who were responsible for
the cry of " Fifty-four forty or fight " did
not really intend to fight for that line, and
therefore the cry was mere bluster for politi
cal purposes. It had, however, the effect of
inflaming the question, so that there was
talk of war on both sides of the Atlantic.
When Mr. Polk came in, he took very ex
treme ground in his inaugural, which had, as
was to be expected, a very bad effect in Eng
land, and increased the difficulty of a settle
ment. After aU his bluster, however, Polk,
with the very lame excuse that he was in
volved by the acts of his predecessor, renewed
the offer of the forty-ninth parallel, which
Mr. Pakenham, the British Minister, who
was apparently about as judicious as Polk,

82 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
promptly, and, as it afterward appeared,
without authority, declined. President Polk
in his Message asked Congress for authority
to terminate the convention of 1827. Ees-
olutions were passed and the convention
was terminated. The situation had now be
come so threatening that Mr. Webster made
a strong speech at Boston in which he de
nounced the foUy of going to war with
England on such a question and urged its
proper settlement. The speech made a deep
impression not only in England and Amer
ica, but in Europe. Pakenham, under in
structions from the Ministry, then renewed
on his side the offer of the forty-ninth
paraUel, and the valiant Polk accepted it
with the approval of Congress. The treaty
of 1846 followed, by which the hne to the
coast was settled. We obtained the Oregon
country and granted to Great Britain the
right of navigation on the Columbia River,
The loss ofjbhe region between the forty-
ninth parallel and the line of 54-40 was one
of the most severe which ever befeU the

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 83
United States. Whether it could have been
obtained without a war is probably doubtful,
but it never ought to have been said, offi
ciaUy or otherwise, that we would fight for
54—40 unless we were fully prepared to do so.
If we had stood firm for the line of 54-40
without threats, it is quite possible that we
might have succeeded in the end ; but the
hypotheses of history are of little practical
value, and the fact remains that by the
treaty of 1846 we lost a complete control
of the Pacific coast.
It is impossible, nor is it necessary here,
to enter into the controversies which arose
from the annexation of Texas and in which
England took no little interest, but the
ggmtjnovement of expansion which charac
terized that period brought on another
difference with England which at one time
was very serious and which resulted in a
treaty that wasfor many years a stumbUng-
block in the way of^all plans_for building
ah Isthmian ^ajxsX. From the time of Mon
roe, Clay, and John Quincy Adams the

84 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
construction of an interoceanic canal had
been one of the cherished desires of the
United States. It passed through many
phases, involved as it was in the tortuous
and revolutionary conditions of Central
America, but the question finaUy came to
a head after the annexation of Texas,
Great Britain had always, despite treaties
to the contrary, maintained a hold on the
Mosquito Coast and was in the habit of
exercising a protectorate over a person,
whom she humorously caUed the " Mos
quito King," selected from the worthless
savages who inhabited that region. She
now took advantage of this interest in the
Mosquito Coast to take possession of San
Juan, which was at the mouth of the river
where it was planned to begin the Nica
ragua Canal. On the other hand, the
United States engaged in the work of
making arrangements with the Central
American republics and with Granada to
get possession of the canal routes. It is
not necessary to follow the treaties made

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 85
by Mr. Hise and later by Mr. Squier in
which they exceeded their instructions and
secured for us everything we desired.
With England at the mouth of the San
Juan and indulging herself in the seizure
of Tigre Island, and with the United States
possessed of treaties entered into by the
people of the countries through which the
canal must pass, all the conditions were
ripe for a very pretty quarrel, which there
upon duly arose. There is no necessity
of following it in all its intricacies, but
the result was a treaty hastily made by
Sir Henry Bulwer, the British Minister,
and Mr. Clayton, Secretary of State, in
order to forestaU action upon the Squier
treaty by the Senate.
The ±ceaty thus made in 1850 provided
that neither the United States nor Great
Britain should ever obtain jor maintain^ for
themselves any exclusive control over the
ship. cS'iis.l, or maintain any fortifications,
or assume or exercise any dominion over
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast,

86 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
or any part of Central America, The
treaty further provided for the neutrality
of the canal in case of war and for the
protection of its construction, which both
Powers promised to facilitate. It also ar
ranged for guarantees of neutrality and for
invitations to other Powers to cooperate.
This agreement settled the outstanding
differences between England and the
United States, but it was pregnant with
other difficulties hardly less serious. In
its nature it was an abandonment of the
Monroe Doctrine, because it provided for
bringing in European Powers to deal
with a purely American question, and also
made it impossible for either the United
States or Great Britain to build a canal
without mutual cooperation. In process
of time it became necessary to get rid
of this treaty, which was a most unwise
one. It undoubtedly removed a subject
of great irritation at the moment, but it
did so by agreements which carried
with them the seeds of future troubles,

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 87
always a perUous price to pay for tem
porary relief.
Nevertheless the immediate effect was
soothing, and the next transaction between
the two Governments was the treaty of
1854, which established reciprocity with
Canada, and which, as was said at the
time, was floated through by Lord Elgin
upon seas of champagne. Although this
treaty in its practical operation proved a
disappointment to the United States, it
was at least a distinctly friendly arrange
ment and indicates how much relations
between the United States and Great
Britain, despite many vicissitudes, had im
proved since the war of 1812. This was
shown even more emphatically a few years
later when the Prince of Wales, then a
boy of eighteen, came to the United States
in the year 1860. Although the fateful
election of that year was in progress and
the country was torn by the political con
flict, the Prince was received with the
utmost cordiality by every one in author-

88 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
ity from the President down, and with real
enthusiasm by the people. That he car
ried away pleasant memories of America
was made evident throughout his hfe, and
especially after he came to the throne, by
his kindhness and friendship not only
toward the United States, but toward aU
Americans, What was more important at
the time, the warmth of his reception in
the United States deeply gratified the
Queen and Prince Albert, and was not
without a marked influence a year later
when the relations of the two countries
and the fate of the American Union were
trembling in the balance.
The Elgin treaty, and, stiU more, the
visit of the Prince of Wales just on the
eve of the CivU War, came at a time
when the people of the United States
were so deeply absorbed in the slavery
question at home that they had httle
thought to give to their relations with any
foreign country. The passions aroused by
the slavery struggle were rising to a fierce

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 89
intensity and the dark clouds of secession
and civil war were already gathering upon
the horizon. With the coming of that
war all that had been gained in the past
years toward the establishment of perma
nent and really friendly relations between
the two countries, which had been severed
by the American Revolution, was lost in
a moment. During the years which had
elapsed between 1850 and 1860 the most
severe reproach uttered by English lips
against the United States was the contin
ued maintenance of negro slavery. The
reproach was bitterly felt because no an-1
swer, no explanation, no defence, was pos
sible. Now the United States was plunged
in civil war waged by the North for the
preservation of the Union, and all the
world knew that the cause of the North
carried with it freedom to the slaves. The
people of the Northern States felt that
under these circumstances and in that
hour of trial the sympathy of England
would go out to them at once without

90 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
either question or hesitation. To their
utter surprise, the feeling of England, as
expressed in her magazines and news
papers and by the governing classes, was,
with very rare exceptions, uniformly hos
tile. The vocal part of English society
seemed to be wholly in sympathy with the
South, and -the North  could— jiot  leam
until later that the silent masses^ of Eng
land were on the side of the Unjon and
.freedom. The bitterness of hatred then
awakened by the utterances of the Eng
lish press and English public men can
hardly be realized to-day. Early in the
struggle its intensity was manffested when
the Trent affair occurred. The act of
Wilkes in stopping the Trent and taking
from her the Southern commissioners was,
from the standpoint of the United States,
entirely indefensible, inasmuch as it was a
flat contradiction of the American doctrine
for which the country had fought in 1812,
Yet in 1861 the people of the Northern
States hailed the action of Wilkes with

Copyright, 1911, 6?/ Revieir of licidcwi Company, Taken from "' Pho
tographic Hi'-tory flf Civil War."
REAR ADMIRAL CHARLES WILKES, U.S.N.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 91
wild delight, and the hatred aroused by
the English attitude was so great that
they were quite ready to go to war, al
though war at that moment probably
meant the establishment of the Confed
eracy and the final severance of the
Union. It is not easy now to realize the intensity
of the feeling or the fierce joy which broke
out everywhere in the North when the stop
ping of the Trent with the Commissioners
of the Confederacy was known, Mr, Charles
Francis Adams, in his very thorough and
most interesting paper upon the " Trent
Affair," gives a vivid picture of the excite
ment and of the manifestations of public ap
proval in Boston, whither Mason and SlideU
had been brought for incarceration in Fort
Warren. The Governor and the Chief
Justice, Edward Everett, with his long
career of public and diplomatic service,
eminent lawyers, men of the largest business
and financial interests vied with each other in
applauding the taking of the commissioners

92 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
from the Trent, and in sustaining the
legality of the act. By Governor Andrew
Mason and SlideU were compared unfavor
ably with Benedict Arnold, and Mr, Robert
C. Winthrop was denounced as little better
than a traitor because he sent some wine to
the prisoners, whom he had known well in
Washington, and who, shut up in a harbor
fort in the midst of a New England winter,
were certainly not enjoying an undue
amount of comfort. Two days after his
arrival a great banquet was given to Captain
Wilkes, and his officers and the speakers,
among whom were Governor Andrew and
the Chief Justice, praised Wilkes in un
measured terms and gloried in what had
been done, Boston did not differ from the
rest of the country, and if such was the
feeling among the best-informed and most
conservative classes of the community, it is
not difficult to imagine what a wave of
passionate exultation swept over the masses
of the people throughout the North, The
reason for aU this emotion, and for the

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 93
violent manifestations of it in speech and in
the press, lay in the wild hatred of England,
which had been aroused by the apparent
attitude of her people, and by the language
of her newspapers in our hour of trial, and
was not at all due to the fact that two
notorious Southern leaders had been cap
tured. The fact that the Trent was an
English ship was the cause of the reckless
language and unbridled exultation of the
American people in the loyal North who,
regardless of consequences, rejoiced in this
sharp retort to the insults which England
was heaping upon the United States.
On the other hand, the English attitude
in regard to the Trent affair was not calcu
lated to improve this situation, although, in
all candor, it must be said that it is difficult
to see how England could have, practically,
assumed any other position than that
which she actually took, despite the fact
that by so doing she utterly rejected the
doctrine which she had upheld and en
forced even at the cost of war during

94 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
the first fifteen years of the century.
The reversal of England's position and
her rupture with the past were, at
once, violent and complete. On Novem
ber 11, 1861, Lord Palmerston wrote to
Mr, Delane:^
" It may be useful to you to know that
the ChanceUor (Lord Westbury), Dr, Lush
ington, the three Law officers, Sir G. Grey,
the Duke of Somerset, and myself, met at
the Treasury to-day to consider what we
could properly do about the American cruiser
come, no doubt, to search the West Indian
packet supposed to be bringing hither the
two Southern envoys ; and, much to my
regret, it appeared that, according to the
principles of international law laid down in
our courts by Lord StoweU, and practised
and enforced by us, a beUigerent has a right
to stop and search any neutral not being a
ship of war, and being found on the high
seas and being suspected of carrying enemy's
iProc. Mass. Hist. Society, November, 1911, "The Trent
Affair," by Mr. Charles Francis Adams, p. 54.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 95
despatches; and that consequently this
American cruiser might, by our own princi
ples of international law, stop the West
Indian packet, search her, and if the South
ern men and their despatches and credentials
were found on board, either take them out,
or seize the packet and carry her back to
New York for trial."
The opinion of November 11 so histori
cally correct did not long endure. It was
not difficult for the three Law officers of the
Crown when the event actually occurred to
slip away by a pleasing gyration from their
opinion sustaining Lord Stowell and discover
that the seizure of the Trent was indefensible
because Wilkes had not taken the ship and
sent her into a prize court. With this
whoUy preposterous proposition they man
aged to bridge over the gulf which separated
the legal doctrine they had always cherished
from that of the United States and the rest
of the civiUzed world. These ingenious if
flexible Law officers of the Crown were also
able in this way to give the ministers the

96 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
legal shelter necessary to protect them when
they proceeded to act not in obedience to
their doctrine steadily upheld for sixty years
but in accord with their own desires and
prejudices as well as with the sentiment and
the passions of the English people at that
moment. Feeling in England was as violent
as in the United States and was quite as in-
temperately expressed. A single example,
which is a statement in regard to Captain
WUkes, wiU show sufficiently the mental
attitude of England and the degree of
calmness which she exhibited. Captain
Wilkes, it must be remembered, was a
gentleman as well as an officer of distinction
and reputation widely known by his ant
arctic expedition. The worst that could
fairly be charged against him was that in
the Trent affair he had acted hastily and
without orders but in strict accord with
the English doctrine as to the rights of
neutrals and in direct contravention of the
American doctrine on the same point in
behalf of which the United States had gone

LOHD PALMBBSTON

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 97
to war half a century before. This conduct
was injudicious, no doubt, but it was neither
criminal nor disgraceful. Here is what the
London Times said about Captain Wilkes
and the American people in November,
1861: " He is unfortunately but too faithful a
type of the people in whose foul mission he
is engaged. He is an ideal Yankee, Swag
ger and ferocity, built up on a foundation of
vulgarity and cowardice — these are his
characteristics, and these are the most prom
inent marks by which his countrymen, gen
erally speaking, are known all over the
world. To bully the weak, to triumph over
the helpless, to trample on every law of
country and custom, wilfully to violate all
the most sacred interests of human nature,
to defy as long as danger does not appear,
and, as soon as real peril shows itself, to
sneak aside and run away — these are the
virtues of the race which presumes to an
nounce itself as the leader of civilization
and the prophet of human progress in these

98 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
latter days. By Captain Wilkes let the
Yankee breed be judged,"
One knows not which to admire most, the
moderation of this statement or the dignity
with which it is expressed. It makes one
think of the Eatanswill newspapers and of
Pott and Slumkey, their immortal editors.
Yet the Times was at that time not only the
greatest and most powerful newspaper in
England but the greatest and most powerful
newspaper in the world. If the great mastiff
of the Enghsh press could howl in this way,
it is easy to imagine what the barkings and
yelpings of Blanche, Tray and Sweetheart,
and the rest of the little dogs must have
been like.
With the popular mind both in England
and the United States in this condition the
situation was not only one of the utmost
difficulty for the administration but was in a
high degree perilous. The danger was en
hanced by the fact that the popular feeling
was rife among public men in Washington
who were charged with the responsibihty of

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OP PEACE 99
office. Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the
Navy, who if we may trust his diary never
gave way to a generous emotion or praised
any one if he could possibly help it, seized
this occasion to send a despatch to Captain
WUkes approving and applauding what he
had done in a most injudicious and extreme
manner. Congress voted Wilkes a gold
medal. Senator Sumner and Montgomery
Blair the Postmaster-General indeed seem
to have been the only men in Washington
with one exception who from the beginning
took a sane and thoroughly wise view of
the capture of the Confederate envoys.
That exception happUy was the President
himself, and his attitude was more vital
just then than that of all other men in
office put together. There was no doubt of
his position or of his perfect clearness of
vision from the very beginning. Mr. Lossing
the historian saw the President just after the
arrival of the despatch from Captain Wilkes
announcing the capture of Mason and SlideU,
and this is his account of the interview :

100 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
" The author was in Washington city
when the news reached there of the capture
of the conspirators, and he was in the office
of the Secretary of War when the electro-
graph containing it was brought in and read.
He can never forget the scene that ensued.
Led by the Secretary, who was foUowed by
Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, and
others, cheer after cheer was given by the
company with a will. Later in the day, the
writer, accompanied by the late Ehsha
Whittlesey, First Comptroller of the Treas
ury, was favored with a brief interview with
the President, when the clear judgment of
that far-seeing and sagacious statesman
uttered through his lips the words which
formed the key-note to the judicious action
of the Secretary of State afterward, ' I fear
the traitors will prove to be white ele
phants,' said Mr, Lincoln, ' We must stick
to American principles concerning the rights
of neutrals. We fought Great Britain for
insisting, by theory and practice, on the
right to do precisely what Captain Wilkes

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(From a photograph)

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 101
has done. If Great Britain shall now pro
test against the act, and demand their re
lease, we must give them up, apologize for
the act as a violation of our doctrines, and
thus forever bind her over to keep the peace
in relation to neutrals, and so acknowledge
that she has been wrong for sixty years.' " ^
Thus at once, even in the first moment of
excitement, Mr. Lincoln grasped the situation
and pointed out the true pohcy. Fifty years
later it is easy to say what a chance was lost
for an exhibition of the highest statesman
ship in not at once making pubhc dec-
' " The Civil War in America.'' Benson J. Lossing. Vol. II,
pp. 156-157. Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, corroborated the
statement in The Galaxy for May, 1873, p. 647* - " The Presi
dent, with whom I had an interview, immediately on receiving
information that the emissaries were captured and on board the
San Jacinto, before consultation with any other member of the
cabinet discussed with me some of the difficult points presented.
His chief anxiety — for his attention had never been turned to
admiralty law and naval captures — was as to the disposition of
the prisoners, who, to use his own expression, would be elephants
on our hands that we could not easily dispose of. Public indigna
tion was so overwhelmingly against the chief conspirators that he
feared it would be difficult to prevent severe and exemplary punish
ment, which he always deprecated."
* " Abraham Lincoln, a History." Nicolay and Hay. Vol. V,
p. 26.

102 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
laration of the position which Mr. Lincoln
stated informally in his conversation with
Mr, Lossing, Had he done so, he would
probably have committed a blunder of the
first magnitude. It was not difficult for
other and lesser men to announce rash judg
ments or vow undying hatred of England
on the one hand or on the other to express
sound and wise opinions like Mr. Sumner
and Mr, Blair, But upon the President, and
upon the President alone, rested the dread
responsibility of decision and action. He
understood and gauged the feehngs of the
American people far better than any one
else. He knew what a tempest of passion
ate excitement was sweeping over the coun
try. It was so strong that Mr. Eussell, the
correspondent of the London Times, did not
think that the government would dare to
give up the prisoners and expected riot and
disturbance if it was attempted. To have
defied public feeling in its first wild outburst
by announcing that Wilkes had done wrong
and that the prisoners would be immediately

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 103
given up would not have been statesman
ship but a mad temptation of fate. The
administration had only been in power
a Uttle more than six months. It was
hedged in by perils, it was not strong, it
had encountered a great disaster at the first
battle of BuU Run ; it was in no condition
to stand the shock of popular wrath which
would have been poured out upon it if it
had undertaken to give up Mason and SlideU
at once when the excitement and exultation
of the public were at their height. Mr.
Lincoln, therefore, sought for delay and
suggested compromises. He secured the
delay, forty days passed, the sober second
thought asserted itself, Mr. Seward sent his
memorable despatch, and Mason and SlideU
were surrendered quietly and without out
break of any kind. A month earlier this
would have been impossible. On the other
side of the Atlantic the situation was saved
by the calm wisdom of the Prince Consort.
The English Ministers were only too ready
to take advantage of the Trent affair in

104 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
order to precipitate a war which would
have insured the destruction of the United
States, Fortunately, however, they were
persuaded by the wise counsels of Prince
Albert, acting through the Queen, by whom
American kindness to the Prince of Wales
was still freshly remembered, to modify a
despatch which, if unaltered, would almost
certainly have brought on war and the
establishment of the Confederacy, In his
" History of Twenty-five Years " Sir Spencer
Walpole says :
^ " , . . Fortunately, while the passions
of the multitude were excited, the judgment
of two men of high station remained cool;
for, on one side of the Atlantic, Mr, Lincoln
had, from the first, the wisdom to see that
Captain Wilkes's action could not be justi
fied ; ^ and, on the other side, the Piince
Consort had the discretion to recommend
' " History of Twenty-five Years," by Spencer Walpole. Vol. II,
p. 45. 2 "Hansard," Vol. GLXV, p. 522. Cf., on the whole story.
Lord Selborne, " Family and Personal Memorials," Vol. II,
pp. 389 seq.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 105
that the despatch which the Govemment had
drawn up should be modified by the expres
sion of a hope and a beUef that Captain
Wilkes's act was neither directed nor approved
by the Government of the United States." ^
Knowing from the moment when the
news came what ought to be done and what
must be done, Lincoln, with his large and
patient wisdom, bided his time. The public
excitement subsided, and then the President
surrendered Mason and SlideU. The coun
try, unconvinced, accepted his decision, but
the real feeUng of the people was exactly
expressed in LoweU's lines :
"We give the critters back, John,
Cos Abram thought 'twas right ;
It warn't your bullying clack, John,
Provokin' us to fight,
Gle Uncle S. sez he, ' I guess
We've a hard row,' sez he,
' To hoe jest now ; but thet somehow
May happen to J. B.
Ez wal ez you an' me,' "
1 « Life of Prince Consort," Vol. V, p. 422. It ought to be added
that Lord Lyons, on his own responsibility, extended by twelve
hours the time alloted to the Government of the United States to
give their reply. Sir E. Malet, " Shifting Scenes," p. 29.

106 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
The avoidance, by Lincoln's action, of
this great perU did not, however, alter —
on the contrary, it intensified — the hostile
feeling of the loyal people of the North
toward England, nor was there anything in
the utterances or conduct of those who spoke
for England calculated to produce a change.
The vilification in the magazines and news
papers of the United States and her Presi
dent and of all her leaders and soldiers
continued without ceasing and without
modification. From British ports and Brit
ish shipyards armed vessels slipped away,
which, although nominaUy ships of the Con
federate navy, pursued in reality a simple
career of privateering closely akin to piracy.
The only one of them which actually came
into action was destroyed by the Kearsarge,
and an English yacht rescued the Southern
officers and the British crew of the sinking
Alabama. This business of furnishing a
Confederate navy from the ports and ship
yards of a neutral country was continued
with the covert support of the British

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 107
Cabinet until the case of the Laird rams
was reached.
The struggle which Mr. Adams carried
on for many weary months not only against
the British ministry but against the Law
officers of the Crown, the bench, the bar,
the vested interests, and the aristocracy of
England is one of the most dramatic chap
ters in the whole history of the Civil War.
The letters of Mr, Adams are a monument
of abUity, tenacity, courage, and force. The
culmination came in September, 1863, when
the rams were about to sail. On September
1st Lord RusseU wrote that her majesty's
government could not interfere with the
saUing of the Rams. On September 3d, noth
ing of any importance having occurred since
the letter of September 1st was despatched,
Lord RusseU ordered the Rams detained and
notified Lord Palmerston, who was in Scot
land, of his action. On the same day Mr.
Adams wrote a note to Lord Russell con
taining a veiled ultimatum, so thinly veiled,
indeed, that war appeared very plainly be-

108 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
hind the diaphanous curtains of diplomatic
words. On September 4 Lord Russell wrote
Mr. Adams that the matter of the rams was
under the most " serious and anxious con
sideration of her Majesty's government,"
StiU ignorant that his victory was won, Mr,
Adams sat down and wrote his famous note
of September 5, To tell the story fittingly
I will give it in the words of Mr, Brooks
Adams, taken from his article upon the " Seiz
ure of the Laird Rams," which is as admirable
in form as it is thorough and complete in
treatment. " That day, September 3d, 1863, when Earl
RusseU's note declining to stop the rams, and
Mr. Adams's note conveying a veUed ulti
matum touching their saUing, crossed each
other, marked a crisis in the social develop
ment of England and America, To Mr,
Adams the vacillation of the Cabinet seemed
astounding weakness. On September Sth he
wrote to Seward : ' The most extraordinary
circumstance attending this history is the
timidity and vacUlation in the assumption

LORD JOHN RUSSELL
(From a photograph)

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 109
of a necessary responsibility by the officers
of the Crown.' To us, who look back upon
the CivU War through a vista of fifty years,
' the most extraordinary circumstance '
seems to be that terrible energy which en
abled the United States in the extremity of
her agony to coerce the nobility and gentry,
the army, the navy, the church, the bench,
the bar, the bankers, the ship-builders, the
press, in fine, all that was wealthy, haughty,
influential, and supposed to be intelligent in
Great Britain. And it was as the vent of
this energy that Mr. Adams, after receiving
Earl RusseU's letter of September 4th, wrote
on September 5th, although despairing of
success, his memorable declaration of war.
Enclosing a paragraph cut from a Southern
newspaper which contained the famUiar
threat of burning Northern ports with
English-built ships, he observed as calmly
as though he were summing up a mathe
matical demonstration :
" 'It would be superfluous in me to point out
to your Lordship that this is war. ... In

no ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
my belief it is impossible that any nation, re
taining a proper degree of self-respect, could
tamely submit to a continuance of relations
so utterly deficient in reciprocity, I have no
idea that Great Britain would do so for a
moment,'" It was a very great victory, as important
to the United States and as decisive of the
result as a hard fought battle, although it
was won without bloodshed. The escape
of the rams would certainly have seri
ously protracted the war and caused enor
mous losses to the United States. To have
stopped them, as Mr, Adams did, was a
remarkable feat and a signal service, but
the action of England, extorted at the last
moment, did not soften American hostihty,
even though English shipyards then ceased
finally to send forth privateers.
In the great life and death struggle in
which the people of the United States
were engaged the loss of some merchant
ships on the high seas was an injury so
comparatively trifling in its effect upon the

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 111
result that it was hardly perceptible ; but
the course of England which permitted the
destruction of merchant vessels in this way,
and which threatened by means of the
Lairdjrams to^boreak jip^he bj^kade^ was,
in the eyes of the American people, a crime
of the first magnitude. The leaders of the
EngUsh Cabinet were not friendly, although
Lord Palmerston, fortunately for us, was
more indifierent and less actively hostile
than was generaUy supposed, and neither
he nor Lord John Russell, who was much
less fi-iendly, was disposed to precipitate war.
The one outspoken champion of the Con
federacy was Gladstone ; but fate so willed
it that in striving to harm the United States
he rendered it a great and decisive service.
It was in the autumn of 1862, a very dark
hour in the fortunes of the United States.
The Ministry were preparing to recognize
the Confederacy, The Queen, since the
death of Prince Albert, as Mr, Charles
Francis Adams has recently shown, had
ceased to interest herself in American afiairs.

112 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
A Cabinet meeting was called for October
23d, and then the recognition of the Con
federacy was to be given. On the 7th of
October Mr. Gladstone, anticipating the
action of the Cabinet, went to Newcastle
and delivered the famous speech in which
he declared that "Jeffierson Davis had
made a nation," Lord Palmerston saw his
successor in Gladstone, but he had no in
tention of letting him rule before his time.
He resented the Newcastle speech; he did
not propose to have Mr, Gladstone force his
hand, and a week later he sent Sir George
Lewis down to Hereford to controvert and
disavow the Newcastle utterances. The
Cabinet meeting on the 23d was post
poned, but the accepted time had passed,
and never returned. Mr, Gladstone's speech,
however, did its work in the United States,
still further embittering the already intense
and deep-seated enmity toward England
and her Govemment, We had fi-iends, it is
true — some even in the Cabinet, like Sir
George Lewis — but the general attitude of

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 113
the English Ministry was such that, whUe
it inflamed the .emnity of the North, it was
far from gaining the friendship of the South,
because, while the South was amused with
sympathetic expressions and encouraged to
hope for substantial support,_it_never re

ceived anvthina; of real value, thus being;
left with an unpleasant sense of having
been betrayed. A system more nicely
calculated to incur the hostility of both
sides in the great quarrel could not have
been imagined, and it does not seem unjust
to suggest that such a system did not imply
a very high order of inteUigence. Only
very slowly and entirely outside the Govem
ment did it become apparent that the Union
and freedom had any friends in England.
The first pubUc man to declare for the
North was Richard Cobden, and he was
foUowed by John Bright, whose powerfiil
and most eloquent speech on the Roebuck
resolution was one of the greatest services
rendered by any man, not an American, to
the cause of the Union. Lord Houghton,

114 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
then Monckton Milnes, also spoke for us in
the House of Commons, Mr, Forster was
our friend, so were John Stuart Mill, Gold-
win Smith, and Thomas Hughes ; and there
were others, of course, like these men, whose
support it was an honor to have.
The working-men of Lancashire, reduced
to misery by the cotton famine, were none
the less true in their sympathy for the
cause which they believed to be that of
human rights and human fi-eedom. But
these voices, potent as they were, were
lost in the general clamor which arose
from the clubs of London, from the news
papers, and from the reviews. The desire
to side actively with the South declined, of
course, as the fortunes of the Confederacy
sank, but the contemptuous abuse of the
North went on without abatement. Even
so late as the last year of the war as
clever a man as Charles Lever demon
strated, in Blackwood's Magazine, to his own
satisfaction the foUy and absurdity of
Sherman's great movement. The article

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 115
appeared just in time to greet Sherman
as he emerged triumphant at Savannah,
Sherman's march to the sea, following
jeers and predictions like those put forth
by Lever, produced a profound impression
in England, which then, at last, seemed to
become dimly conscious that a great war
had been fought out by great armies. The
end of the war and the complete triumph
of the Union cause soon followed. As in
games, so in more serious things, English
men are exceUent winners, but, as a rule,
poor losers, apt to cry out, when they have
lost, that there has been something unfair,
and to try to belittle and explain away
their adversary's victory. In this case,
however, England showed herself a good
loser, for the result was too momentous to
be treated with contempt or with charges of
unfairness. Moreover, England found her
self confronted not only by the success of
the United States, and the consequent
consolidation of the Union, but by a very
unfortunate situation which she had herself

116 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
created. She had managed to secure the
bjtter hostility of both sides. She had
given sympathy to the South, but had
done nothing practical for the cause of
the Confederacy, and at the same time she
had outraged the feelings of the Northern
people and developed among them a bit
terness and dislike which, when they were
flushed with victory, might easUy have
had most serious consequences. It is
quite true that she had not behaved so
badly toward the United States as France,
which had stopped just short of war.
When England, France, and Spain united
to exact reparation from Mexico, England
and Spain withdrew as soon as they dis
covered that France intended to establish
a govemment of her own creation upon
Mexican soU, Not only was the French
Government sympathetic with the South,
but Napoleon was more than anxious to
recognize the Confederacy, and took ad
vantage of our civU war to fit out the
Mexican expedition and establish MaximU-

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 117
ian as Emperor. As soon as the war was
over we forced France out of Mexico, and
the unfortunate Maximilian, an amiable and
brave man, of less than mediocre capacity,
was executed by his subjects and thus
offered up as a sacrifice to his incautious
reliance upon the French Emperor and to
his own ignorance of the peril of infiinging
the Monroe Doctrine.
Yet, despite all this, the ,pfiaplB_(iL_thfi_
United States cared very little about what
France had_done, and felt bitterlyjjli that
the English^had said. The attitude of the
French Government during our CivU War,
which there is no reason to suppose was
the attitude of the French people, no doubt
caused Americans generally to sympathize
with Germany in the war of 1870, but ex
cept for that sympathy we regarded with
great indifference the French treatment of
the United States during the civil war.
Very different was the case with Great
Britain. As soon as the war was over the
era of apology began on the part of Eng-

118 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
land, finding its first expression in Tom
Taylor's weU-known verses upon the death
of Lincoln. The acknowledgment of mis
takes, however, produced but slight impres
sion in the United States, where there was
a universal determination to exact due
reparation for the conduct of England, and
especially for the depredations of the Ala
bama and the other cruisergJ^Liflose^om
British shipyards._tOL_prey upon our__coni-
merce. Attempts were at once made to
settle these differences, but the Johnson-
Clarendon treaty was rejected by the
Senate, and when Grant came to the Presi
dency there was a strong feeling, repre
sented by Mr. Sumner, in favor of making
no demands upon England, but of obtaining
our redress by taking possession of Canada.
With a veteran army of a mUlion men and
a navy of over seven hundred vessels,
including some seventy ironclads, the task
would not have been a difficult one. Presi
dent Grant and Mr. Fish, however, decided
upon another course, and were genuinely

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 119
unwilling to adopt a policy which, however
justifiable, might have carried the country
into another war. The result was that
England sent out a special commission to
Washington to make a treaty. Mr. Glad
stone, who was then prime minister, be
haved with manliness and courage. He
admitted frankly the great mistake he had
made in his Newcastle speech, and bent
all his energies to reaching a settlement
with the United States which would satisfy
Americans and so far as possible heal the
wounds inflicted by England's attitude and
by English utterances during the war. In
the first article of the treaty of 1871, which
followed, it is said :
"Her Britannic Majesty has authorized
her high commissioners and plenipotentia
ries to express in a friendly spirit the regret
felt by her Majesty's Government for the
escape under any circumstances of the
Alabama and other vessels from British
ports and for the depredations committed
by those vessels."

120 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
It must have been a serious trial, not only
for a Ministry but for a proud and powerful
nation, thus formaUy and officially to apolo
gize for its past conduct, and yet, unless
England was ready for war and for the loss
of Canada, no other method seemed possi
ble. It is greatly to England's credit and
to the credit of Mr, Gladstone's Government
that they were wUling to express their re
gret for having done wrong.
The t^ealy established a court of arbitra
tion to consider and pass upon the claims.
It also provided for referring the differences
in regard to the line of our boundary
through the Fuca Straits to the Emperor
of Germany, who subsequently made an
award wholly in favor of the United States.
The treaty also dealt with many other
questions, including fishery rights, the navi
gation of the St. Lawrence and of Lake
Michigan, the use of canals, and the convey
ance of merchandise in bond through the
United States. In due course the Alabama
claims were taken before the Geneva tribu-

THE LAND OF LIBERTY

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 121
nal. The arbitration came dangerously
near shipwreck, owing to the projection into
it of the indirect claims, so caUed, which
were urged in a powerful speech by Mr.
Sumner in the Senate, but the tribunal
wisely excluded them, and the case came to
a decision, an award of $15,500,000 being
made to the United States for the damages
caused by the Alabama and her sister ships.
So far as the official relations of the two
countries were concerned, the treaty of
Washington restored them to the situation
which had existed before the Civil War.
Once again we were, officially speaking, on
good and friendly terms with Great Britain,
but the feeUng left among the people of the
United States by England's attitude re
mained unchanged, and the harsh and bit
ter things which had been said in Eng
land during our days of trial and suffering
stiU rankled deeply. This was something
which only the passage of time could mod
ify, and the wounds which had been made
took long to heal, although the healing

122 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
process was facilitated by the fact that the
civil war had made the people of the
United States profoundly indifferent to
foreign criticism. There was, moreover, no
clash between the countries untU many
years after the treaty of Washington, and
when the next difficulty arose it came not
from any immediate difference between
England and the United States, but grew
out of an English invasion of the Monroe
Doctrine in South America.
For many years there had been & dispute
between England and Venezuela as to the
boundary between that country and the
possessions of England in British Guiana,
Venezuela, weak and distracted by revolu
tion, had sought more than once for arbi
tration, which England would not grant.
On the contrary, the British Government
had steadUy pushed its line forward and
extended its claims untU it was found that
it was graduaUy absorbing a large part of
what had always been considered Vene
zuelan territory, Venezuela had broken off"

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 123
diplomatic relations, but nothing had suc
ceeded in checking the EngUsh advances.
The oflfer of the good offices of the United
States had been equally fruitless, and
when the matter finally reached a crisis, Mr.
Cleveland, on December 17, 1895, sent in
his well-known message. After reviewing
the Venezuelan question and the efforts that
we had made toward a peaceful settlement,
the President recommended that an Amer
ican commission be appointed to examine
the question and report upon the matter.
He said that when such report was made
" it would be the duty of the United States
to resist by every means in its power as a
wilful aggression upon its rights and inter
ests the appropriation by Great Britain of
any lands or the exercise of governmental
jurisdiction over any territory which after
investigation we have determined of right
belongs to Venezuela." The Message con
cluded with the following sentence : " I am,
nevertheless, firm in my conviction that,
while it is a grievous thing to contemplate

124 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
the two great English-speaking peoples of
the world as being otherwise than friendly
competitors in the onward march of civili
zation and strenuous and worthy rivals in
aU the arts of peace, there is no calamity
which a great nation can invite which
equals that which follows a supine sub
mission to wrong and injustice and the
consequent loss of national self-respect and
honor, beneath which are shielded and de
fended a people's safety and greatness."
The language employed by the President
was vigorous and determined. At the time
it was thought rough, England was sur
prised, and operators in the stock market
were greatly annoyed. The closing words
of the message, which was a very able one,
do not seem quite so harsh to-day as they
did at the time when they were read to
Congress, President Cleveland, moreover,
however much Wall Street might cry out,
had the country with him, and no one to
day, I think, can question the absolute
soundness of his position.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 125
With the existing possessions of any
European Power in the Western Hemi
sphere we, of course, do not meddle, but it
is the settled poUcy of the United States,
that those possessions shall not be extended
or new ones created. _The_forcihl£_s.eizuTe^
of American territory by a Emopean Power
woii^d be. of course, an_.jibviaiia_YiolatioiL
of the Monroe Doctrine, whjeh^this country
J)elieves essentialto its safetyj_but_ the, ,
^gradual grasping of American territory on
the basis of shadowy, undetermined, and
constantly^ widening claims, differs from
^forcible seizure only in degree. If, in this
case, the land in dispute belonged to Great
Britain, we had nothing whatever to say,
but so long as it was in controversy the
United States had the right to demand that
that controversy should be settled by a
proper tribunal under whose decision the
world should know just what belonged to
England and what to Venezuela. Presi
dent Cleveland's strong declaration sur
prised England, but it brought her to terms.

126 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
She woke up to the fact that the day had.
long since passed jwhen the UnitedStates
could be trifled with on any American
question, and the soundness of Mr, Cleve^
land's judgment was shown by the fact that
within a year the question was referred to
a tribunal which met in Paris and which
consisted of two Americans, two English
men, and one Russian jurist. The Ameri
can judges were Chief Justice Fuller and
Mr. Justice Brewer, of the Supreme Court.
They went to Paris with the somewhat
innocent idea that they were to hear the
case and decide it on its merits, ex
actly as they decided a case in their own
Supreme Court, They found, however,
that the two English judges had no such
conception of their functions, but were
there as representatives of England, hold
ing the positions of advocates instead of
judges. The result was that the decision
rested with the fifth man, Mr, Martens,
and he, apparently under instructions not
strictly judicial, was prepared to decide

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 127
entirely in favor of England, although the
English case for a large part of the claim
was of the most shadowy character. It
was very important, however, to England
that the award should be signed by all
the arbitrators, and that which was most
essential to Venezuela was to preserve her
control of the mouths of the Orinoco. ,Th^
American arbitratogs-eonsented t^ sign the
jward if the mouths of the Orinoco were
J.eft to Venezuela, and this- was-done, aU the
rest of the disputed territory going to
JEngland. If the rest of_the_ie-rritory_be-
Iqnged to___England, _the_nuxuths of the
Orinoco also should have been hers.. If
the mouths of the Orinoco belonged to
VenezueiaT'l^gtanH was not entitled to a
large part of what shejLcceived'. In other
words, the judgment of the arbitral tribunal
was a'^Compromise and not a decision on
JhejDQerits of the case, in which it followed
the course of mo8t_-arbitrations and dis-
closed jhe~^eakness, , of which arbitral
tribunalsLlmve hitherto _nearly always been

128 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
guilty. This failing is that they do not
decide a case on its merits, but make a
diplomatic compromise, giving something
to each side. It is this tendency or prac-
iice_of_arbitral tnbunais which lia^~caused
.tliem to be distrusted, and especiaUy in the
United States, ^because, wEileTheTJmted
States has no questions inEurop^TEurope
hftn mflny qiipxturna of interest~in the West-
ern Hemisphere, and the result has beenTon
,inQr£--OccasiQiia_thaii_one that the United
States has been drawn into an arbitration
where it could gain nothing and was certain
to losei£.aDyL_compromise was effected. In
this particular instance, however, the result
which Mr, Cleveland desired and which he
sought to reach by his Message was fuUy
attained. The boundary was determined,
the process of gradual encroachment upon a
weak American state under cover of claims
more or less artificial and advanced by a
powerful European nation was stopped, and
an end was put once and for all to the plan
of securing new American possessions by

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 129
the insidious method of starting and de
veloping claims and then refusing to have
the claims settled and boundaries deter
mined by any impartial tribunal, Mr,
Cleveland rendered a very great public
service by his action and caused the Powers
of Europe to understand and appreciate
the force and meaning of the Monroe
Doctrine as they had never done before.
Three years after President Cleveland's
Venezuelan Message the United States was
at war with Spain. Admiral Dewey's fleet
had captured Manila and the great Euro
pean Powers hastened to send war-ships to
the scene of action. Some of these vessels
were more powerful than any which Ad
miral Dewey had in his fleet, and thejGer-
man Admiral behaved in a way which
came very near bringing on serious trouble
between his country and the United States.
Admiral Dewey's firmness put an end to
the disagreeable attitude of the Germans,
but he at the same time received assurances
of support from Captain Chichester, in

130 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
command of the English ships, which were
of great value. This almost open act of
friendliness, which recalled the old days
in China when Commodore Tatnall went
to the aid of the English, declaring that
"blood was thicker than water," was merely
representative of the attitude of the English
Government. The sympathies of Europe
were with Spain, but England stood by the
United States, and this fact did more to
wipe outjthe_past and make the relations
between the two countries what they
should have been long before than all
the years which had elapsed since the
bitter days of the Civil War,
England's attitude, moreover, toward the
United States during the war with Spain
was only a part of the general policy of the
Government then in control. When the
Panama Canal, the interest in which had
been steadUy growing, reached a point
where the United States was determined
that the Canal should be buUt, itjwas found
that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was a

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 131
stumbUng-block to any movement on the
part of the United States. The American
feeling was so strong that Congress was
only too ready to abrogate the treaty by its
own action, but, the question being brought
to the attention of Lord Sahsbury, the
English Government showed itself more
than willing to joinjwith the United States
in superseding the jQlaytan---B.u^ treaty
by a new one under which the United
States should have a free hand^in deaUng
with the Canal. The first Hay-Pauncefote
treaty faUed, owing chiefly to its having
incorporated in it a provision by which it
was agreed that the Powers of Europe
should be entitled to join in the neutraliza
tion of the Canal. This, on our part, was
of course inviting the destruction of the
Monroe Doctrine, and the Senate amended
the treaty. England refused to accept the
Senate amendments, but proceeded to make
with us a second treaty which conformed
to the changes proposed by the Senate, and
this was ratified without opposition.

132 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
The policy manifested by the attitude of
England in regard to the Canal question,
which came soon after the end of the
Spanish War, was closely foUowed, and
was indeed enlarged, by Mr, Balfour when
he succeeded Lord Salisbury as Prime
Minister. President McKinley, in his de-
sire to settle all possible outstanding ques
tions with GreatBritain — questions which
related entirely to Canada — had brought
about a meeting of an Anglo-American
commission in Washington, It became
evident that aU questions could be easUy
arranged, with the exception of the Alaskan
boundary, and upon that the diff'erence was
so sharp that the commission adjourned
wfthoirrTiaving reached any conclusion at
all in any direction, AU the other differ
ences remained in abeyance, but the Alas
kan question became constantly more per
Uous, Nations, like men, will fight about
the possession of land when they wUl fight
about nothing else, and the Alaskan ques
tion, which caused a great deal of feehng in

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 133
the Northwest, was rapidly approaching the
dangerous stage. A treaty to submit the
boundary of Alaska to an international tri
bunal, consisting of three Americans and
three representatives of Canada and Great
Britain, was made and ratified in 1903,
The English representatives were two dis
tinguished Canadians and Lord Alverstone,
the Lord Chief Justice of England. The
case was fully argued, and the decision was
almost wholly in favor of the contention of
the Unites States, which was owing to the
action of Lord Alverstone, who decided in
the main against the Canadian claim.
Thus the one question which was preg
nant with real danger was eUminated, and
the other questions with Canada were
rapidly disposed of during the succeeding
years of President Roosevelt's Administra
tion while Mr. Root was Secretary of State.
One treaty settled the international boun
dary, another provided for the protection
of the fisheries on the Lakes, another for
the intemational waterways, and, finally,

134 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
the long-contested question of our rights
in the Newfoundland fisheries went to The
Hague for determination under a treaty
framed by Mr. Root,
AU- "these important agreement^_ which
made for the best relations between Great
Britain and the United States grew out of
the attitude of^ngland at the tme_ofjthe
Spanish War, and were due to the pohcy
of which Mr, Balfour in particular, and
Lord Lansdowne, the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, were the chief expo
nents. In a speech at Manchester Mr.
^alfour said :
"The time may come — nay, the time
must come — when some statesman of au
thority, more fortunate even than President
Monroe, wiU lay down the doctrine that
ib^tweenEnghsh-speaking peoples war _is^
I impossible." To that sound policy Mr. Balfour and
Lord Lansdowne strictly adhered, and to
their action we owe both the settlement of
aU these differences with our northern neigh-

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 135
bor, which have so perplexed us and, as
a necessary consequence, the good relations
which now exist between Great Britain and
the United States, and which it is to be
hoped wUl always continue. The policy
might have been adopted in 1798 as well
as in 1898, but Mr. Balfour and Lord
Lansdowne were the first English statesmen
who not only saw, but put into effect their
belief, that the true poUcy for England was
to be friends with the United States, and
that friendship could be brought about by
treating the United States, not as had been
the practice in the past, but as one great
nation should always be treated by another.
They came to us, it is true, in the hour of
our success, but none the less they are
entitled to a place in the memory of Ameri
cans with Burke and Fox and Chatham,
with Cobden and with Bright, who did not
forget the common language and the com
mon aspirations for freedom in the days
when the Americans were a little people
struggling to exist, or in those darker

136 ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE
days when the government of the United
States was trying to preserve the unity
of the great nation which Washington had
founded and which Lincoln was destined
to save.

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ence, they are an attempt to relate concisely the antecedents
and the salient events of our Civil War. Mr. Rhodes's deep
conviction that the war was due to slavery is cogently set forth;
his story of the decade before 1861 shows the resistless march
of events toward the bloody consummation. The events of the
war itself are grouped about Lincoln, Lee, and Grant, three
heroes of undying interest; the assassination of Lincoln in his
hour of success is the culmination of the tragedy.

" The fairness and clearness with which these lectures are written and
the critical judgment which has reduced the number of details and made a
unity of the war, give a merit to the book that places it in the front ranks
of works on the Civil War." — Boston Evening Transcript.
" The lecturer's study of a war which marks an important epoch in mod
em civilization is an admirable piece of work." — London Athenceum.
" The author seems to us to be eminently fair in dealing with historic
facts. The book is written in fine spirit and will be a welcome addition to
the literature of the subject." — New York Baptist Examiner.
"From every point of view this is a study of exceptional quality." —
Washington {D.C.) Star. 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
FublisheTB 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork

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