tly the 'contrabands' were surrendered.

The absurdity of involving two great nations in a war, on account of a
legal paradox of this nature, requires no comment. The dry comment of
General SCOTT, that the 'wrong' would have been none had it only been
greater, recalls the absurd line in the old play:--

'My wound is great because it is so small;'

and the supplement,--

'Then 'twould be greater were it none at
all.'

But, absurd or not, the law must be followed. Great nations must settle
their disputes by the law, even as individuals do, and there is no shame
in submitting to it, for submission to the constituted authorities is
the highest proof of honor and of civilization. And if England chooses
to strain the law to its utmost tension, to thereby push her neutrality
to the very verge of sympathy with our rebels, and manifest, by a
peremptory and discourteous exercise of her rights, total want of
sympathy with our efforts to suppress rebellion,--why, we must bear it.

And here, leaving the letter of the law, we may appropriately say a few
words of the _animus_ which has inspired the 'influential classes' in
England as regards this country, during our struggle with the South. We
are assured that the mass of the English people sympathize with us, and
we are glad to hear it,--just as we are to know that Ireland is friendly
in her disposition. But we can not refrain--and we do it with no view to
words which may stir up ill-feeling--from commenting, in sorrow rather
than anger, on the fact that such a majority of journalists,
capitalists, yes, and the mass of inhabitants of English cities, have so
unblushingly, for the mere sake of money, turned their backs on those
principles of freedom of which they boasted for so many years, flouting
us the while for being behind them in the race of philanthropy! It is
pitiful and painful to see pride brought so low. We of the Federal Union
are striving, heart and soul, to uphold our government--a government
which has been a great blessing to England and to the world. Who shall
say what revolutions, what tremendous disasters, would not have
overtaken Great Britain had it not been for the escape-valve of
emigration hither? If ever a situation appealed to the noblest
sympathies of mankind, ours does. Struggling to maintain a government
which has given to the poor man fuller rights and freer exercise of
labor than he has ever before known on this earth; fighting heroically
to u