at we have been wronged, not merely insulted. The
only sure way of bringing about a healthy relation between the two
countries is for Englishmen to clear their minds of the notion that we
are always to be treated as a kind of inferior and deported Englishman
whose nature they perfectly understand, and whose back they
accordingly stroke the wrong way of the fur with amazing perseverance.
Let them learn to treat us naturally on our merits as human beings, as
they would a German or a Frenchman, and not as if we were a kind of
counterfeit Briton whose crime appeared in every shade of difference,
and before long there would come that right feeling which we naturally
call a good understanding. The common blood, and still more the common
language, are fatal instruments of misapprehension. Let them give up
trying to understand us, still more thinking that they do, and acting
in various absurd ways as the necessary consequence, for they will
never arrive at that devoutly-to-be-wished consummation till they
learn to look at us as we are and not as they suppose us to be. Dear
old long-estranged mother-in-law, it is a great many years since we
parted. Since 1660, when you married again, you have been a
step-mother to us. Put on your spectacles, dear madam. Yes, we have
grown, and changed likewise. You would not let us darken your doors,
if you could possibly help it.

[Footnote 41: Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, Mr. Adams's successor as
minister to England, negotiated a settlement of the _Alabama_ dispute,
which was unfavorably received in this country and finally rejected by
the Senate, which led to his recall in 1869.]

[Footnote 42: Charles Francis Adams, our minister to England from 1861
to 1867, made this remark to a British cabinet minister at the time of
the threatened sailing of the Laird rams.]

We know that perfectly well. But pray, when we look to be treated as
men, don't shake that rattle in our faces, nor talk baby to us any
longer.

"Do, child, go to it grandam, child;
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig!"

CHARLES A. DANA

Born in 1819, died in 1897; joined the Brook Farm Community
in 1842; an editor of the New York _Tribune_ in 1847-62;
Assistant Secretary of War in 1863-64; became editor of the
New York _Sun_ in 1868, remaining editor until his death;
published "A Household Book of Poetry" in 1857; joint editor
with Geo