e question. If I
choose to remain in the President's councils, do these gentlemen mean to
say that I cease to be a Massachusetts Whig? I am quite ready to put that
question to the people of Massachusetts." He was well aware that he was
losing party strength by his action; he knew that behind all these
resolutions was the intention to raise his great rival to the presidency;
but he did not shrink from avowing his independence and his intention of
doing what he believed to be right, and what posterity admits to have been
so. Mr. Webster never appeared to better advantage, and he never made a
more manly speech than on this occasion, when, without any bravado, he
quietly set the influence and the threats of his party at defiance.

He was not mistaken in thinking that the treaty was not yet in smooth
water. It was again attacked in the Senate, and it had a still more severe
ordeal to go through in Parliament. The opposition, headed by Lord
Palmerston, assailed the treaty and Lord Ashburton himself, with the
greatest virulence, denouncing the one as a capitulation, and the other as
a grossly unfit appointment. Moreover, the language of the President's
message led England to believe that we claimed that the right of search had
been abandoned. After much correspondence, this misunderstanding drew forth
an able letter from Mr. Webster, stating that the right of search had not
been included in the treaty, but that the "cruising convention" had
rendered the question unimportant. Finally, all complications were
dispersed, and the treaty ratified; and then came an attack from an
unexpected quarter. General Cass--our minister at Paris--undertook to
protest against the treaty, denounce it, and leave his post on account of
it. This wholly gratuitous assault led to a public correspondence, in which
General Cass, on his own confession, was completely overthrown and broken
down by the Secretary of State. This was the last difficulty, and the work
was finally accepted and complete.

During this important and absorbing negotiation, other matters of less
moment, but still of considerable consequence, had been met by Mr. Webster,
and successfully disposed of. He made a treaty with Portugal, respecting
duties on wines; he carried on a long correspondence with our minister to
Mexico in relation to certain American prisoners; he vindicated the course
of the United States in regard to the independence of Texas, teaching M. de
Bocanegra, the Mexic