as very different from the disaffection of Europe, or that our
institutions contained some conservative principle that did not usually
exist in this hemisphere. My Vevaisan was curious to know to which of
these circumstances I ascribed the present quiet in Carolina. I told
him to both. The opposition in that state, as a whole, were honest in
their views; and, though some probably meant disunion, the greater part
did not. It was a governing principle of our system to seek redress by
appeals to the source of power, and the majority were probable looking
still, to that quarter, of relief. Under other systems, rebellion, nine
times in ten, having a different object, would not be checked by this
expectation.

The Swiss listened to all this attentively, and remarked that America
had been much misrepresented in Europe, and that the opinion was then
getting to be general in his country, from improper motives. He told me
that a great deal had been said about the proceedings in the case of
Rowland Stephenson, and he frankly asked me to explain them; for, being
a commercial man, he admitted that injurious impressions had been made
even on himself in relation to that affair. This was the third Swiss who
had alluded to this subject, the other two instances occurring at Rome.
In the latter cases, I understood pretty distinctly that there were
reports current that the Americans were so desirous of obtaining rich
emigrants, that they had rescued a criminal in order to reap the benefit
of his gold!

Of course I explained the matter, by simply stating the facts, adding,
that the case was an admirable illustration of the treatment America had
received from Europe, ever since 1776. An Englishman, _a member of
Parliament, by the way_, had absconded from his own country, taking
shelter in ours, by the mere accident of meeting at sea a Swedish brig
bound thither. A reward was offered for his arrest, and certain
individuals had taken on themselves, instigated by whom I know not, to
arrest him on a retired road, in Georgia, and to bring him covertly
within the jurisdiction of New York, with the intention to send him
clandestinely on board a packet bound to Europe. Now a grosser abuse
than an act like this could not well be committed. No form of law was
observed, and the whole proceeding was a violation of justice, and of
the sovereignty of the two states interested. It is true the man
arrested was said to be guilty of gross fraud; but where su