this country by
England, and to the circumstances attending it.

Very recently it became known that on board of an English mail steamer,
'The Trent,' were two men, Messrs. SLIDELL and MASON, accredited agents
from a portion of the United States which is in open and flagrant
rebellion against a constituted government which has been recognized as
such by every nation in the world. Those men, calling themselves
ambassadors, and just as much entitled to that dignity or to official
recognition as two agents from NENA SAHIB would have been during the
revolt stirred up by that Hindoo, were taken by an officer of the United
States government from the Trent, under the full impression by him that
the seizure was in every sense legal.

The British government regarded this arrest an outrage, and promptly
responded by a demand for the restoration of Messrs. SLIDELL and MASON.
Numerous 'indignation meetings' held in the great centres of English
commerce and manufactures echoed this demand, which received a
threatening form from the fact that great military and naval
preparations, evidently aimed against the United States, were at once
put under way.

Was the seizure illegal?

The vast amount of international law which has been brought to light on
this subject, not merely in the press, but from the researches and pens
of eminent jurists, led us to no severely definite conclusion. That an
emissary is not a contraband of war as much as a musket or a soldier,
appears preposterous, and offers a distinction which, as Mr. SEWARD
observes, disappears before the spirit of the law, M. THOUVENEL to the
contrary, notwithstanding. It was therefore in the mode of procedure in
regard to the seizure of the emissaries that the trouble lay. According
to law, the vessel, if carrying contraband of war, is liable to seizure.
But if this assumed contraband be _men_, these may not be guilty, and
are entitled to a trial. Still, as the law--or want of law--stands, the
seizure of the vessel is the requisite step, the minor issue being
practically regarded as the major; an anomaly not less striking than
that which still prevails in certain courts, where, to recover damages
for seduction, the defendant can only be mulcted in a penalty for the
loss of time caused to his victim. It was not possible for Captain
WILKES to seize the vessel, Great Britain declined to waive her claim to
the execution of every jot and tittle of the letter of the law, and
consequen