ithout even depriving one rebel of his franchise as an elector. The
advice of the noble earls, on the side of mercy, would have had more
weight and influence, had weight and influence been needed, if their
own Government, after every rebellion, however small or under however
great provocation, had not uniformly followed its victory by the
gibbet, by imprisonment, by transportation of the men who had taken up
arms against intolerable oppression. If noble earls of England had
scrutinized English policy, and advised their own Government as they
now advised the Government of the United States, some heroic lives
would have been spared to Ireland, and subjects in India would not have
been doomed to a personal degradation which heightened the horror of
impending death.

But while offensive surveillance of American affairs ceased in
Parliament, offensive criticisms in the British Press continued
throughout the period of Reconstruction, and our Government was held
answerable for alleged wrongs and outrages against a conquered foe.
Especial hostility was exhibited towards the Republican party, which
had conducted the Government through the war and led it to its complete
triumph. This party controlled Congress when it levied heavy
protective duties and stimulated manufacturing in American as the basis
of that financial strength which proved during the civil war a marvel
to the world. Offended by the Protective policy of the United States,
the British Press now denounced the measures proposed for the
Reconstruction of the South. No censure was too harsh, no epithet
too severe to apply to the policy and to the Republican party that
stood sponsor for it. It might have surprised those English critics
to learn that the opponents of the Reconstruction policy at home could
find nothing to say of it so denunciatory or so concentrated in
bitterness as that the National Government was trying to reduce the
Southern States to the condition of Ireland. And thus while we were
receiving from British oracles multiplied instructions as to the
manner of dealing with the States that had attempted to break from
their allegiance, those States knew that almost within sight of
England's shores there could be found the worst governed, the most
cruelly treated people within the circle of Christendom. The American
mote could be plainly descried beyond the broad ocean, but the Irish
beam was not visible across the narrow channel.

The comparison o