Ix11v.] TO MRE. SUMNER ON THE WAR, 8c

that male it very difficult for the advocates of peace on this 1861.
side to keep the field. We can get over the sayings of Xr67.
your Herald that ¢ France will not and England dare not go
bo war.” Your newspapers will not drive us into war. But
when grave men (or men that should be grave), holding the
highest posts in your cultivated State of Massachusetts,
compliment Captain Wilkes for having given an affront to
the British lion, it makes it very hard for Bright and me to
contend against the ¢ British lion party’ in this country.
All I can say is that I hope you have taken Bright’s advice,
and offered unconditional arbitration. With that offer
publicly made, the friends of peace could prevent our fireeaters
 from assaulting you, always providing that your
public speakers do not put it out of our power to keep the
peace. I was sorry to see a report of an anti-English
speech by your colleague at New York. Honestly speaking,
and with no blind patriotism to mislead me, I don’t think
the nation here behaved badly under the terrible evil of
loss of trade and danger of starving under your blockade.
Of course all privileged classes and aristocracies hate your
institutions—that is natural enough; but the mass of the
people never went with the South. I am not pleased with
your project of sinking stones to block up ports. That
is barbarism. It is quite natural that, smarting as
you do under an unprovoked aggression from the slaveowners,
 you should even be willing to smother them like
hornets in their nest. But don’t forget the outside world,
and especially don’t forget that the millions in Europe are
more interested even than their princes in preserving the
future commerce with the vast region of the Confederate
States.”
« Jan. 28, 1862.—1It is, perhaps, well that you settled the
matter of sending away the men at once. Consistently
with your own principles, you could not have justified their