Ixxrv.] ON THR AMERICAN WAR. 873
France with persistent energy from the first. I confess
that their eagerness for other European intervention in
Some shape has always given me a strong suspicion of their
Conscious weakness. But considering how much more we
have suffered than other people from the blockade, this
abstinence on our part from all diplomatic interference is
Certainly to our credit, and this I attribute entirely to the
honourable attitude assumed by our working population.”
“ Midhurst, Jan. 8, 1863. (To Mr. Paulton.)— . ... Do
you remember when that old slave-dealer, the Confederate
envoy, breakfasted with you last spring, and we were distussing
 the vast preparations then making by the Federal
government, that he remarked with considerable emphasis,
When alluding to the incapacity of the Washington
government, ‘ Sir, I know these men well, and I tell you
they are setting in motion a machine which they have not
the capacity to control and guide.’ I have often thought
of the truth of this remark when witnessing the frightful
mismanagement at headquarters among the Federals during
the last twelve months. If it were not for the negro
element I should think it the most wild and chimerical dream
that ever entered the human mind to think of subjugating
the vast region comprised in the Southern Confederacy.
But I have a suspicion that the much-despised ‘nigger ’ is
going to play the part of arbiter in this great conflict.
Neither party wishes to use Lim or consult him in the matter.
Both parties will tolerate his intervention with about equal
disgust. But the North stands in the position of being able
to make the first use of some half-million of men who are
capable of being drilled into good soldiers, and bear the
climate of the battle-ground without the average losses from
disease.
“These black troops in posse will be more and more the
temptation of the North to make the plunge for complete

1863.
Ar. 59,