Ampthill,
February 7, 1862.
My Dear Motley:
My dear wife and myself have had for weeks past a great longing to hear
something about you and your belongings. As I do not know how to gain
information on that not uninteresting subject from any other quarter, I must
ask you myself how you are all going on. I did hear, some month or two ago,
that Mrs. Motley and your daughters were going to spend a part of the winter at
Pau; two or three weeks since I was told this was inaccurate, and that you are
now all at Vienna together, which is much more satisfactory, no doubt, to you
and your friends.
I hope you all found it as agreeable as we did on two
different occasions when we spent some days there in 1835 and 1853. To be sure,
you do not live among a free people, as you and I have been accustomed to do,
but you live, as I have found, among a people full of bonhomie and kindness,
well disposed and quiet, with a fair admixture of intelligence, brave and
loyal; and it sometimes happens that our freedom prevents our being so
agreeable. We found abundant civility from Esterhazy, whom I dare say you know.
I was in great anxiety at the time of the unfortunate affair of the Trent. How
I should have hated to be at war with your free and great country! How
unfeignedly I rejoiced to hear the almost unexpected news that the dispute was
settled, and how sincerely I hope that no other event will occur to prevent us
remaining at peace with each other forever! Your immediate fellow-countrymen,
the Northerners, have much too strong a feeling that we do not wish them well.
The “Times” and other papers have dealt so much and so long in abuse and
insolent remarks, and are in such circulation here, that your fellow-countrymen
assume they express the public feeling, which I think is far from being the
case. No doubt we were provoked by the proceeding of Captain Wilkes. The
sentiment was unanimous and intense, but as the act has been disavowed (and it
could not possibly have been justified), the feeling is rapidly dying away, and
I hope we shall continue good friends, and I am sure we shall endeavor to act
with perfect neutrality between the belligerents; for such they must be
considered to be, though you were, in my opinion, perfectly right in those two
letters you published in the early part of the summer, when you proved the
Southerners then to be rebels. We lawyers feel rather inclined to be
surprised that so much bad international law should be laid down by such
authorities as Messrs. Everett, Seward, G. and C. Sumner. There is but one
opinion on that subject among us. Most of them relied upon a dictum of Lord
Stowell, not fully explained in our treatises on international law, viz., that
ambassadors were seizable whilst proceeding from a belligerent to a neutral
country. All that was meant was that an ambassador was seizable in passing
through the country of a belligerent — that his diplomatic character would not
protect him there.
The last despatches of Earl Russell, stating the legal
argument, are very good — all the legal parts the Solicitor-General's, Roundell
Palmer. This was mentioned last night in the House of Lords.
I hope what the noble earl and also Lord Granville said as
to future conduct on our part may not be unacceptable in America.
My lady is a great sufferer from gout, having been since
Saturday in bed. I began the New Year with a week of bed from the same cause. I
am now well.
She desires her kindest remembrances to your ladies and
yourself, and sincere good wishes for your prosperity. I agree most truly.
Believe me
Yours very sincerely,
Wensleydale.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition,
Volume 2, p. 234-7
No comments:
Post a Comment