tley's expression, "as being the fountain head of the
disasters," is a conversational paraphrase of the words of his
instructions, "as it shows the beginning and the animus of that course of
conduct which resulted so disastrously," which is not "in precise
conformity" with his instructions, but is just such a variation as is to
be expected when one is talking with another and using the words that
suggest themselves at the moment, just as the familiar expression, "hung
up on a peg," probably suggested itself to Lord Clarendon.

3. "The fruits of the proclamation" is so inconsiderable a variation on
the text of the instructions, "supplemented by acts causing direct
damage," that the secretary's hint about want of precise conformity seems
hardly to have been called for.

It is important to notice this point in the instructions: With other
powers Mr. Motley was to take the position that the "recognition of the
insurgents' state of war" was made "no ground of complaint;" with Great
Britain that the cause of grievance was "not so much" placed upon the
issuance of this recognition as upon her conduct under, and subsequent
to, such recognition.

There is no need of maintaining the exact fitness of every expression
used by Mr. Motley. But any candid person who will carefully read the
government's dispatch No. 70, dated September 25, 1869, will see that a
government holding such language could find nothing in Mr. Motley's
expressions in a conversation held at his first official interview to
visit with official capital punishment more than a year afterwards. If
Mr. Motley had, as it was pretended, followed Sumner, Mr. Fish had
"out-Sumnered" the Senator himself.

Mr. Davis's pamphlet would hardly be complete without a mysterious letter
from an unnamed writer, whether a faithless friend, a disguised enemy, a
secret emissary, or an injudicious alarmist, we have no means of judging
for ourselves. The minister appears to have been watched by somebody in
London, as he was in Vienna. This somebody wrote a private letter in
which he expressed "fear and regret that Mr. Motley's bearing in his
social intercourse was throwing obstacles in the way of a future
settlement." The charge as mentioned in Mr. Davis's letter is hardly
entitled to our attention. Mr. Sumner considered it the work of an enemy,
and the recollection of the M'Crackin letter might well have made the
government cautious of listening to complaints of such a character. Thi