tU^.: ^^J-. X >.^V'\ JnW'ii '^J^: -.M ) '"•Nr*^" "^^•' -.^- . ^ ^ X ti« X ^ / Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007"witli funding from , IVIicrosoft Corporation Iittp://www.arcliive.org/details/correspondenceof02motluoft THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN LOTHEOP MOTLEY, D.C.L., AUTUOR OP "THE HISTOnY OP THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC," "THE HISTORY OF THE UNITEO NETHERLANDS,'' ETC. EDITED BY GEOKGE WILLIAM CUUTIS. IN TWO VOLUMES.— VOL. IL WITH PORTRAIT. LONDON: JOHN MURK AY, ALBEMARLE STEE:ET. 1889. •. ''6> LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LnriTED^ STAMFORD STREET AND CHAUIXO CU0S8. CONTENTS TO VOL. II. CHAPTER I. THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. Mr. Motley returns to America — The war — Boston society — Remem- brances to friends in England — The Northern army — Its numbers and' quality — Departure of the Gordon Regiment for the seat of war-^The "Mercenaries" — "The North is a unit" — Death of Mrs. Longfellow — Objects and prospects of the war — The com- manders— McC lei Ian — McDowell — Patterson — Johnston— Butler — Kumours of engagements — Lord Lyndhurst on Mr. Motley's letter — "Commencement" at Harvard University — Reception of General Scott's name — Skirmish of July 18th — Converging on Manassas — A review at Boston — Lieutenant Brownell — Battle of Bull's Run — First rumours — News of the defeat — Lord J. Russell's letter — Tlie essence of the Union — Cause of defeat at Bull's Run — The war was inevitable — Josiah Quincy — Longfellow — Holmes — " Tom Brown " — Incidents of the battle — Mr. Motley appointed United States Minister to Austria — The Duke of Arjiyll on the feeling of England .......... CHAPl'ER II. VIESXA. Voyage to Liverpool — Fryston Hall — Mr. W. E. Forster — Lord J. Russell — Abergeldie — The cotton famine — The English press — Bal- moral— Interview with the Queen — Paris — 3il. Thouvenel — The English Government and the Press — Life in Vienna — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes— News of the Battle of Ball's Bluff— Anxiety and suspense — Attitude of the European Powers — Letter from Dr. O. W. Holmes — His son's remarkable escaixj at Ball's Bluff — The Trent affair — Imminent risk of war with England — Action of the Times — An anxious crisis — Awaiting the President's Message . 33 IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. viENKA (1862) — continued. PAGE Ml'. Bright's letter on the Trent affair, negotiations, and on the blockade — Settlement of the Trent affair — The War and Slavery Party in England — Society in Vienna — Compared with that in London — Austrian sympathy with the North — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — The South and slavery — Mr. Conway — Letter from Lord Wens- leydale on International Questions and Law — Vienna theatres — 'I he privilege of prophesying — ' Songs in many Keys ' — Feeling in J'-ngland towards the North — Democracy in England and America — The prospect in America — Slavery must be abolished — A policy of " Thorough "—Lowell's ' Yankee Idyll '—The Archduke Ferdi- nand Maximilian — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Mr. Quincj' — Enthusiasm on capture of Fort Donelson — The Court in Vienna — " Compromise was killed at Sumter " — Achievements of the North — The Canal — The Monitor — General Burnside — What is to come after the war ? — Eeflections on the war — The Union must survive — Eulogium of Lincoln — The Sovereignty of the people — Louis Napo- leon's endeavour to induce England to join in the war — General' McClellan — The Eichmond battles — Abraham Hayward — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Forecasts — Rumours from the front — Enthusiasm at Boston — Reflections on the war — General McClellan — Concentration of troops on the Rappahannock — Cedar Moimt Battle — Letter from Mr. J. S. Mill on tlie war — Mr. Dicey's 'Notes of a Journey in America ' — Laws and rights of war — A letter from Mr. J. S. Mill — Lincoln's Anti-Slavery Proclamation — English and French sympathy with the North — Action of the English Govern- ment— Incidents of the War — Elections in America — French policj'- — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — The mischief of "Mercantile Materialism " — The Crown Princess of Prussia — Mr. Froude's and T. Carlyle's Histories — General Wadsworth — Death of Mrs. d'Hauteville — Results of Elections 5 J CHAPTER IV. VIENNA (1863) — continued. Letter to Lady W. Russell— Exclusiveness of Viennese Society — The Throne of Greece— Baron Sina—" Varius "—Letter from Mr. J. S. Mill — The early settlers in New England and in Virginia — The Alabama — Northern successes — Prof. Goldwin Smith and Dr. Whewell on the war— Growth of anti-slavery feeling in England — Meeting at Liverpool— Duke of Argyll's speech— The Times and it&- influence — Failings of the American body politic — Vienna Salons — compared with English Society — European sympathy with the CONTENTS. ▼ TAfilC United States — Letter from Mr. Bright — English jealousy of America — Revulsion of public feeling — Rumours of French inter- vention— Baron Sina — Adelina Patti — Exclusiveness of the Austrian aristocracy — Letter from Baron von Bismarck on the vexations of a Minister — The German people — Rumours of European War — Letter to I^dy W. Russell — Dulness of Viennese Society — The Polish question — Secret societies in Warsaw — The climate of Vienna — Hon. E. Twisleton — News of the surrender of Vicksburg and battle of Gettysburg — General Lee's position — Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — The recent vic- tories— Dr. 0. W. Holmes' oration — Tlie drought in Vienna — Elections in America — Louis Napoleon's scheme of a Congress of Sovereigns — European complications — ^The lessons of war — General Grant 10J> CHAFPER V. VIENNA (1864) — continued. Festivities at Vienna — The war drawing to a close — The Danish war — Letter to the Duchess of Argyll — Colonel Robert Shaw — A Court dinner — The Empress — Letter to Lady W. Russell — The Schleswig- Holstein afifair — Emperor Maximilian — The Honourable Julian Fane — Letter from Mr. E. Everett — The East Tennessee Fund — Change of feeling in America — Letter from Baron von Bismarck — Death of Mr. Motley's fixther — Death of Mr. Julius Lothroji — Grant's Richmond campaign — The Alabama and Kearsarge — • Letter to Lady W. Russell — At work on the ' History ' — Death of. General Wadsworth — Letter from Mr. J. R. Lowell — Editorship of the North America'ii Review — An appeal for contributions — Poli- tical prosi>ect in America — The sinking of the Alabama — The Vienna conferences — Lincoln and Grant — The repulse at Petersburg — A dinner with Bismarck — King of Prussia's visit to Vienna^ Candidates for the Presidency — Excluded from the Vienna Ar- chives— The " Woman's League" — First principles of commerce — The ebb and flow of gold — Paper currency — National economy — Peace conferences at Vienna — McClellan's candidature — Count Spiegel — Condition of the Austrian peasantry — Tour to Gmunden and Ischl — Salzburg — Venice — Breakfast with Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg— The Comte de Paris— His sympathy with the North — Work on the ' History ' — Intention of writing History of Thirty Years' War— The Prater — The Opera — Lincoln President the second time — Belief in democracy — Winter in Vienna — Letter from Mr. J. R. Lowell — The North American Iteview again — Prosj^ects of the end of the war 14S VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. VIENNA (1865) — continued. PAGK Dinner with the Emperor — Davison the Actor — Capture of Fort Fisher — Serious illness of Mr. Motley's mother — Letter to the Duchess 0 Argyll — Assassination of the President — General Grant — Final victory of the North — Abraham Lincoln — Death of Lord Carlisle — Letter from Mr. Bright — Cobden and the civil war — Free trade — Letter to Lady W. Russell — Austrian Tyrol — Hall — Gmunden — Condition of the people — Suspension of the Constitution of the Austrian Empire — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Marriage of Miss Motley — Sir F. Bruce — General Grant — his jDOwer of sleeping — Stanton — Admiral Farragut — Mr. Burlingame — Mr. Howells — Lieutenant-Colonel AVendell Holmes ..... 198 CHAPTER VIL VIENNA (1866, 1867) — continued. Andrew Johnson, President — A diplomatic party — The European crisis — Dealings between Austria and Prussia — Work on the 'United Netherlands ' — Rumoured recall of Mr. Motley — Letter from John Stuart Mill — Introduction to Dr. 0. "W. Holmes — Progress of recon- struction in America — Outbreak of war between Austria and Prussia — The future of Prussia — Bismarck — Condition of Austria — Mar- shal Benedek — Rapid movements of the Prussian army — Benedek's strategy — The Bund — News of the Battle of Koniggratz — Action of Louis Napoleon — Panic in Vienna — Advance of the Prussian army — Lieutenant Sherman — The rapidity of the campaign — The " Waffenruhe " — Prospects of peace — Abolition of the Bund — Unification of Germany — Position of Italy — The Atlantic telegraph and its effects — "Charlemagnism" and " Ameiicanism" — Louis Napoleon's policy — The balance of j)ower — Despatches and blue books — Collapse of Austria — The King of Hanover — Letter to Mr. W. Amory — Bazaar in Vienna on behalf of sufferers by the war — Letter to Lady W. Russell — Condition of Austria — ^Letter to the Duchess of Argyll— The Duke's ' Reign of Law '—General King — America and Radicalism — ' The Guardian Angel ' — George McCrackeri — Approaching completion of the ' United Netherlands ' —Contemplated Histoiy of the Thirty Years' War . . .213 CONTENTS. VII CHAPTER VIII. LOXDOX. Visits to old friends — ^Dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Hugbcs — The Cosmo- politan— Ball at Stanford House — Disraeli's Reform Bill — Professor Goldwin Smith — Friends and engagements — Argyll Lodge — Tlio Reform Bill — The Sultan in London — Breakfast with the Due d'Aumale — Holland House — Dinner with Mr. John Murray — Sir W. Stirling — Pembroke Lodge — Lord and Lady Russell — Hon. PL Elliot — Mr. Bright — Speech of the Duke of Argyll in the House of Lords — The Philo-biblon Sixjiety — Breakfast with Mr. Turner — Visit to Lord Stanhoi)e at Chevening — Chiswick — Duchess of Sutherland — Dinner with Mr. Gibbs — Lord Houghton — Mr. Forster • — Lord Lytton — Mr. and Mrs. Grote — Dinner with Colonel Hamley — Dean Milman — Strathfieldsaye — Lord John Hay — The Duchess of "Wellington — Bramshill — Silchester — General Grant appointed Secretary of War — Mr. and Mrs. Sturgis — Chevening — English feeling towards America — Knole Park — The Bishop of Oxford — Holland House — Visit to Lord Sydney at Frognal — ' Black Sheep ' — ' Cometh up as a Flower ' — Lord "Wensleydale — Visit to Lord Stratford de RedclifFe — Professor Owen — Madresfield Court — Witley Court — The English aristocracy — Frampton Court — The Sheridaus — Letter from Earl Russell on Vol. IH. of * United Netherlands ' — Letter to Lady "W. Russell on Mr. Odo Russell's engagement — Neuralgia — Story's statue of Mr. Peabody — Letter from Mr. George Ticknor on the ' Historv ' 250 CHAPTER IX. UNITED STATES MINISTER TO ENGLAND. Return to Boston — ^Washington — Interview with Mr. Sumner and other members of Government — General Thon^as — Washington Society — Dinner with Mr. Evarts — M. de Magalhaens, M. Berthdmy, General Lawrence, etc. — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes on Mr. Motley's a\>~ pointment as Minister to England — Letter from Mr. J. R. Lowell introducing Mr. Spelman — Letters from Count Bismarck — Invita- tion to Varzin — Mr. George Bancroft — Letter to the Duchess of Argyll — London Fog — Confidence in Mr. Gladstone's Government — Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — The Club — Emerson — Longfellow .... 301 Tiii CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. - HOLLAND, VAEZIN', ETC. TAGS Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — His son Edward's marriage — Engagement of Miss Mary Motley to Mr. Sheridan — Contemplated journey to Holland and resumption of literary work — Eecall from his missiou to England — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes on his daughter's engage- ment— Dislike of letter-writing — Letter to Lady "VV. Russell — Con- gratulations on promotion of Mr. Odo Russell — Excursion with the Queen of Holland to Haarlem — Brederode Castle — Work on the life of John van Olden Barneveld — European politics — Gift to Mrs. Motley from English ladies — Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Russell — Visit to Dresden — Prague — M. and Madame de Seehach — The Holbein controversy — Baron Stockhausen — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — His domestic affairs — Articles in the Atlantic Morithly — Mr. Motley's house at the Hague — John van Olden Barneveld — A Court ball — Leeuwarden — Market day — Groniugen — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Engagement of his son Wendell — Affection between Russia and America — 300th anniversary of the capture of Brill — Popularity of Mr. Motley's works in Holland — ' The Poet at the Breakfast Table' — Death of Princess Henry — Letter from Prince Bismarck-»-Invitation to Varzin — Visit to Varzin — Prince Bismarck's home and daily life — His reminiscences of the Austrian war — His interviews with Thiers and Jules Favre — His silver wedding — The Varzin and Lauenburg estates —Berlin — Dinner with Mr. Bancroft— Thale— Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes—" Unde- signed coincidences" — "Table talk" — Plans for the winter — Bismarck's achievements — ^United Germany — Letter to Archbishop Trench, thanking him for his work on the Thirty Years' War — Visit of the Queen of the Netherlands to Frampton Court — Mr. Sumner — Prospects of General Grant's election . . . . ."^lO CHAPTER XL LAST YEARS. Bournemouth — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Great fire in Boston and its consequences — ' The Poet at the Breakfast Table ' — Bournemouth and its climate — Sir Percy Shelley — Boscombe House — Relics of Shelley — Burial of Lord Lytton in Westminster Abbey — Visit to Poltimore Park — Asking for advice — Mr. Motley's illness — Desire to go to America — Visit to Mentmore — Letter to Baroness Meyer •de Rothschild — Miss Thackeray — Education in Massachusetts — Eeturn to London — Hatfield and its archives — Panshanger — Ball at Orosvenor House — Improved health — Work on * Barneveld's Life ' — CONTENTS. IX Txam Chiswick — The Shah — Dinner with the Duke and Duchess of Argyll — Various entertainments — F6te at Northumberland House — The Prince of Wales — The emancipated slave singers — Progress of the ' Life of Barneveld ' — Letter from Dean Stanley — Fresh attack of illness — Publication of the ' Life of John van Olden Barneveld' — Letter from Dean Stanley — Cannes — Letter to Dr. O. W. Holmes — Account of Mr. Motley's illness — Death of Mr. Sumner — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Boston gossip — Mrs. Agassiz — Literary work — Birth of a grandson — Naworth Castle — Death of Mrs. Motley — Letters to Baroness Meyer de Rothschild and to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Letter from Mr. Carlyle — Letter to Mrs. W. W. Wadsworth — Plans for the future — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — The monotony of lecturing — Friendship and sorrow — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Failing powers — Mr. Dana's nomination — Mr. Motley elected a Member of the Institute of France — Visit to the Queen of the Netherlands — Huis ten Bosch — Visit to Allenheads — Letter to the Duchess of Argyll — The Eastern Question — Letter to Dean Stanley on Vol. ILL of the ' His- tory of the Jewish Church ' — London in winter — Lady Marian Alford — Hengler's Circus — The Eastern Question — Sir William Harcourt's speech — Letter to Dr. O. W. Holmes — Marriage of Lady Vernon Harcourt in Westminster Abbey — The Turco-Russian War — Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lome — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — ^Reverence for the past — Death of Mr. Turner-Sargent — Letter to Mr. H. Cabot Lodge — Death of Admiral Davis — Letter to Dr. 0. W. Holmes on the death of his son-in-law and of Tumer- Sargent — English politics — The Eastern Question — Visits to the Duke of Somerset at Bulstrode and to Mr. Le Strange at Hunstanton — Miss Martineau's Autobiography — Kingston Russell — Rumours of war between England and Russia — Extract from Dean Stanley's sermon — Conclusion ........ 356 Vol. tt. LETTERS OF JOHN LOTHEOP MOTLEY. CHAPTER I. THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. Mr. Motley returns to America — The war — Boston society — Remembranas to friends in England — The Northern army — Its numbers and quality — Depar- ture of the Gordon Regiment for the seat of war — The " Mercenaries " — " The North is a unit " — Death of Mrs. Longfellow — Objects and prospects of the war — The commanders — McClellan — McDowell — Patterson — John- ston— Butler — Rumours of engagements — Lord Lyndimrst on Mr. Motley's letter — "Commencement" at Harvard University — Reception of General Scott's name — Skirmish of July 18th — Converging on Manassas — A review at Boston — Lieutenant Brownell — Battle of Bull's Run — First rumours — News of the defeat — Lord J. Russell's letter — The essence of the Union — Cause of defeat at Bull's Run — The war was inevitable — Josiah Quincy — Longfellow — Holmes — " Tom Brown " — Incidents of the battle — Mr. Rlotley appointed United States Minister to Austria — The Duke of Argyll on the feeling of England. To his Wife. Boston, Jvly UU 1861. My dearest Mary, — This is only a note, because I would not let the steamer from New York of day after to-morrow go without a greeting from me. There is absolutely nothing new in the political world since I wrote last. By the way, by the mid-week steamer I sent rather a lengthy epistle to the Duke of Argyll, which I hope that he will pardon in two respects — first, its unconscionable length, and secondly, for talking very plainly about the state of public feeling here. I felt that I could not pay a higher compliment to his intellect and his candour than to make a kind of general statement, without mincing matters. VOL. IL B 2 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I. I told Lord Lyons in Washington that I had appointed myself a peace commissioner between the two countries, and meant to discharge my duties to the fullest extent, and in that vein I had spoken to the President, to Seward, Chase, Blair, and Bates, and to every other personage, private or public, with whom I came in contact. Of course I only said this in jest — for I have no idea of exaggerating my humble individuality — but he was kind enough to say that he thought I might do much good. I think, however, that the day for talk is gone by — England had made up its mind that we had gone to pieces. When she learns, what we are thoroughly convinced of here, that the United States G-overnment is invincible, and that this insurrection is to be quelled — as it will be within a year — she will cease to talk of Northern and Southern States, and will find out that the Great Kepublic is still existing one and indivisible. Our case has always been understated. We have a good cause, and no intention of " subjugation," which, like the ridiculous words secession and coercion, has been de- vised to affect the minds of the vulgar — the United States Government is at home on its own soil in every State from Maine to California, and is about asserting the rights of property and dominion. General Scott says that the general impatience is the greatest obstacle in his way, but he is a cool hand and a tried one, and he will give a good account of himself, never fear. The rebels never dreamed of the intense feeling of nationality which pervaded the Free States. They thought to have a united South and a divided North, they find exactly the reverse. Slavery will be never extended, and the United States Government will survive this crisis and be stronger than ever. Pray give my kindest regards to Lord Lyndhurst and her Ladyship, say that I mean to have the pleasure of writing to him very soon. Mrs. Greene is very well ; I have a kind note from Miss Sarah Greene, asking me to dine to- morrow, and I shall do so if I can get up from Nahant. I go there now; my mother is already better for the sea air. I have received all your letters up to 12th of June. They 1861.] BOSTON SOCIETY. 3 are most delightfal to me, and I have read them all agaia and agdia. The family of course have seen them, and I lent them to the Lodges and Mr. Cabot. They go to Newport to-day — what an awful disappointment to me ! The first summer that they have not been at Nahant for so many years is the one I am passing there. While I am writing, Copley Greene and James Amory have been here ; Amory showed me a note from Lord Lyndhurst. I have also seen jVIiss Greene, and agreed to dine with her mother next week instead of this. Saturday we had a delight- ful club dinner. Agassiz, who was as delightfal as ever, and full of the kindest expressions of appreciation and affection for Lily, and Holmes, who is absolutely unchanged, which is the very highest praise that could be given — Lowell, Pierce, Tom Appleton, Dana, Longfellow, Whipple. There were three absent, Felton, Emerson, and Hawthorne, and it says some- thing for a club in which three such vacancies don't make a desolation. Nahant. — I am finishing this note to-night at N 's, as I must send it by to-morrow's early boat. My mother is looking better than usual. I have been on the Agassiz's Piazza just now. He was not there, but will come to-morrow. Mrs. Agassiz and Mrs. Felton all looked very natural and nice and gentle, and had a thousand kind things to say of you and Lily. Most affectionately yours, J. L. M. To his Wife. BoBton, July 7th, 1861. My dearest Mary, — I can't tell you how much delight your letters give me Seyd umschlungen millionen ! You must give my kindest regards to dear Mrs. Norton, to Lady Dufferin — if you are so fortunate as to see her, which seems too great a privilege ever really to come within your reach — to Lady Palmerston and Lord Palmerston, to the adorable Lady and Lord , B 2 4 motley's LETTEKS. [Chap. I. to Milnes, Stirling, Forster, to dear Lady William, with my most sincere wishes for her restoration to health. Tell her I should give myself the pleasure of writing to her, but my whole mind is absorbed with American affairs and I know that they bore her inexpressibly, and I could write of nothing else. Don't forget my kind regards to Arthur and to Odo if he comes. If you see Lady John Eussell and Lord John, I wish you would present my best compliments, and say that I have been and am doing everything within my humble means to suppress the noble rage of our countrymen in regard to the English indifference to our cause , and that I hope par- tially to have succeeded. At any rate there is a better feeling and less bluster ; but, alas and alas ! there will never in our generation be the cordial, warm-hearted, expansive sentiment towards England which existed a year ago. Yet no one is mad enough not to wish for peaceful relations between the countries, and few can doubt that a war at this moment would be for us a calamity too awful to contemplate. Pray give my kindest regards to Mrs. Stanley — it was so kind of her to ask you to so pleasant a party as you mention. I hope you took the responsibility of remembering me to Froude ; and indeed I wish really that you would say to all our friends individually when you see them, that I beg my remembrances in each letter. There is no need of my specifying their names, as you see now that I have got to my third page and have not men- tioned one-third. Vivent nos amis les ennemis, and so I give my kind regards to Delane. I wish he wasn't such a good fellow, and that I didn't like him so well, for the Times has played the very devil with our international relations, and if there is one thing I have ever set my heart upon it is the entente cor- diale between America and England. Give my kind regards to Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan. It never occurs to me that any one can doubt the warmth of my feelings towards England, and so when I try to picture the condition here it is that my friends in England may see with my eyes, which must be of necessity quicker to under- stand our national humours than those of any Englishman can be. Give my regards to Parker, to whom I daresay you read 18G1.] THE NORTHERN ARMY. 5 portions of my letters. Pray don't forget to present my most particular regards to Lord Lansdowne, and I hope it may have occurred to you to send him some of my letters, as I can't help thinking that it would interest him to have private infor- mation about our affairs, which, so far as it goes, can at least be relied upon. Don't forget my kind regards to Layard and to the dear Dean of St. Paul's and Mrs. Milman, and to those kindest of friends. Lord and Lady Stanhope, and also to the Reeves. As for my true friend IMurray, I am ashamed not to have written him a line ; but tell him, with my best regards to him and j\[rs. M., that I have scarcely written to any one but you. If you see him tell him what I think of our politics. It will distress his bigoted Tory heart to think that the great Republic has not really gone to pieces ; but he must make up his mind to it, and so must Sir John Ramsden. The only bubble that will surely burst is the secession bubble. A government that can put 250,000 men in the field within ten weeks, and well-armed, officered, and uniformed, and for the time well drilled, may still be considered a nation. You see that Abraham asks Congress for 400,000 soldiers and 400 millions of dollars, and he will have every man and every dollar. But before I plunge into politics, let me stick to private matters for a little. If I have omitted any names in my greetings, supply them and consider them as said. I write to scarcely any one but you, and then to such as I know are sincerely interested in American affairs. To-day I send a letter to Lord Lyndhurst, a long one, and I am awfully afraid that it will bore him, for unluckily I haven't the talent of Sam Weller to make my correspondent wish I had said more, which is the great secret of letter-writing. McClellan and Lyon and Mansfield and McDowell and a host of others, all thoroughly educated soldiers with large ex- perience, to say nothing of old Scott, whose very name is worth 50,000 men, are fully a match for Jeff, and Beauregard, able men as they unquestionably are. Then as to troops, I wish those who talk about Northern mercenaries, all Irish and Ger- man, and so on, could take a look at the Rhode Islanders, at the 6 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I. Green Mountain boys from Vermont, at the gigantic fellows from Maine, whose magnificent volunteers excite universal applause, at the Massachusetts fellows, who can turn their hands to anything, at the 50,000 men from the "Empire State," already marched forward and equipped like regulars, and so on to Ohio, and Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, etc. I thought before I came home that there was some exaggera- tion in the accounts we received ; but the state of things can't be exaggerated. I never felt so proud of my country as I do at this moment. It was thought a weak government because it was forbearing. I should like to know how many strong governments can stamp on the earth and produce 250,000 — the officially stated number of fighting men — almost at a breath ; and there was never in history a nobler cause or a more heroic spectacle than this unanimous uprising of a great people to defend the benignant government of their choice against a wanton pro-slavery rebellion which had thought the country cowardly because she had been forbearing and gentle. A whole people, 22,000,000, laying aside all party feeling, stand shoulder to shoulder to protect this western continent, the home of freemen, from anarchy, perpetual warfare, and the universal spread of African slavery. But for this levy of bucklers the Great Republic would have been Mexico and Alabama combined. Now slavery as a political power is dethroned, it can never spread an inch on this continent, and the Eepublic will come out of this conflict stronger and more respected than it ever was before. Yesterday was a painfully interesting day. The Gordon re- giment— the Massachusetts 2nd, of which I have spoken to you so often — took its departure for the seat of war. They have been in camp at Brook Farm for several weeks, and I have visited them often and have learned to have a high regard for Gordon. He was an excellent scholar at West Point, and served with distinction in the Mexican war. Afterwards, becoming tired of quarters in Oregon and such wildernesses in the piping times of peace, he left the profession and studied and com- menced the practice of law in Boston. But, on the breaking out of the great mutiny, he at once applied for leave to raise 1861.] THE GORDON REGIMENT. 7 a regiment. His lieutenant, Colonel Andrews, is also a West Point man, Laving graduated first in his class. Wilder Dwight, whom you knew in Florence, is major, and a most efficient, energetic, intelligent fellow he is Well, a telegram came on Saturday evening last, signed Winfield Scott, ordering the second to move forward at once to help reinforce General Patterson in ]\lartinsburg, Virginia. Patterson is expecting daily an engagement with Johnston, one of the best of the rebel generals, who commands some 20,000 men within a few miles of IMartinsburg, so that the second regiment is going straight to glory or the grave. It was this that made the sight so interesting. It is no child's play, no holiday soldiering, which lies before them, but pro- bably, unless all the rebel talk is mere fustian, as savage an encounter as men ever marched to meet. Within four days they will be on the sacred soil of Virginia, face to face with the enemy. The regiment came in by the Providence rail- road at 11 o'clock. It had been intended that they should march through many streets, as this was the first opportunity for the citizens of Boston to see the corps ; but the day was intensely hot, a cloudless sky and 95° of Fahrenheit in the shade, so they only marched along Boylston, Tremont, up Beacon Streets, to the Common — very wisely changing the programme. They made a noble appearance : the uniform is blue, and they wore the army regulation hat, which I think — although Mr. Russell does not — very becoming with its black ostrich plumes, and I am assured that it is very convenient and comfortable in all weathers, being both light, supple, and shady. The streets were thronged to cheer them and give them God-speed. There was a light collation spread on tables in the Beacon Street Mall, and I walked about within the lines, with many other friends, to give the officers one more parting shake of the hand. There were many partings such as press the life from out the heart. I was glad that M and the girls were not there ; but I saw Mr. and Mrs. D , Mrs. Quincy, and many other wives and mothers. You may judge of the general depth of feeling when even Tom D wouldn't come to see the regiment off 8 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. I, for fear of making a fool of himself. People seemed generally to be troubled with Lear's hysterica passio, so that the cheers, although well-intentioned, somehow stuck in their throats. The regiment got to the cars at 3 o'clock, and were to go via Stonington to New York, and soon via Chambersburg, Penn., to Williamsport, Maryland, and Martinsburg. We shall hear of them by telegram, and I hope occasionally to get a line from Gordon. Oh, how I wish that I had played at soldiers when I was young, wouldn't I have applied for and got a volunteer regiment now ! But, alas ! at forty-seven it is too late to learn the first elements, and, of course, I could not be a subaltern among young men of twenty-two. William Greene — lucky fellow ! — is raising a regiment ; he was educated at West Point,, you know, and served in the Florida war ; and Raymond Lee, also a West Point man, is raising another of the additional ten regiments offered by Massachusetts. Young Wendell Holmes — who by the way is a poet and almost as much a man of genius as his father, besides being one of the best scholars of his time — has a lieutenant's commission in Lee's regiment, and so on. Are you answered as to the Irish and German nature of our mercenaries ? Nothing decisive [has yet occurred. The skirmishes — out- post affairs, and which have furnished food for telegrams and pictures for the illustrated newspapers — are all of no conse- quence as to the general result. Don't be cast down either if you near of a few reverses at first. I don't expect them ; but, whether we experience them or not, nothing can prevent our ultimate triumph and a complete restoration of the Union. Of this I feel very confident. I don't like to prophesy — a man always makes an ass of himself by affecting to read the future — yet I will venture one prediction — that before eighteen months have passed away the uprising of a great Union party in the South will take the world so much by surprise as did so- recently the unanimous rising of the North. For example, only a very few months ago, the Confederate flag was to wave over Washington before May 1st, and over Faneuil Hall before the end of this year ; there was to be a secession party in every northern state, and blood was to flow from internecine combats 1801.] ''THE NORTH A UNIT," 9 in every northern town. Now Washington is as safe as London; the North is a unit, every Northern town is as quiet and good- natured, although sending forth regiment after regiment to a contest far away from home, as it was five years ago ; while Virginia is the scene of civil war — one Virginia sending senators and representatives to Washington, while another Virginia sends its deputies to Jeflf. Davis's wandering capital, and the great battle-field of North and South will be on the " sacred soil." I feel truly sorry for such men as C ; there could not be a man more amiable or thorough gentleman than he seemed to be on our brief acquaintance. But rely upon it, that Abraham is a straightforward, ingenuous, coura- geous backwoodsman, who will play his part manfully and wisely in this great drama. The other day I dined with Mr. Palfrey. It was a very pleasant little dinner, and besides Frank and the daughters, there were Holmes, Lowell, and John Adams. Frank Palfrey is lieutenant-colonel in William Greene's regiment ; Mr. Pal- frey's other son, John, is a lieutenant in the regular army, and I am truly sorry to hear to-day that he has just come home from Fortress Monroe with typhoid fever. I am just going down to inquire after him. Lowell and Holmes were as delightful as ever. I liked John Adams very much indeed ; he seemed to me very manly, intelligent, and cultivated, and very good- looking. He was kind enough to ask me to come down to Quincy to dine and pass the night, and I certainly shall do so, for, besides wishing to see tlie ancient abode of the Adamses, I must go and see the venerable Mr. Quincy, who has kindly sent for me once or twice. By the way, remember me kindly to Mr. and Mrs. Adams, whenever you see them. I hear that they speak of you in all their letters in the most friendly and agreeable manner Ever yours affectionately, J. L. M. 10 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. L To his Wife. Nahant, July nth, 1861. My dearest Mary, — I write you this line only to tell you of a most dreadful and heart-rending calamity which has thrown this community into mourning. Mrs. Longfellow was burned to death the day before yesterday. She was making seals for the amusement of her younger children in her house at Cambridge, when the upper part of her thin muslin dress caught fire, and in an instant she was all in flames. Long- fellow was in the next room. Hearing the shrieks of the children, he flew to her assistance, and seizing a rug held it around her, and although she broke away from him, attempting to run from the danger — as persons in such cases seem invari- ably to do — he succeeded at last in extinguishing the fire, but not until she was fatally injured. She lingered through the night, attended by several physicians, and expired yesterday forenoon about half-past ten, J une 10th. I understand that, through the influence of ether, her sufferings were not very intense after the immediate catastrophe, and that she was un- conscious for a good while before she died. Longfellow was severely burned in the hands, but not dangerously ; but he too has been kept under the effects of ether, and is spoken of as in almost a raving condition. I have not had the heart to make any inquiries, but think that on Saturday I will try to see Mrs. Appleton. It is not more than five or six days since I was calling upon Mr. Appleton, who has so long been dying by inches, and who will look less like death than he does now, when he shall have breathed his last. F was there, and greeted me most afiectionately, making the kindest inquiries after you ; she never looked more beautiful, or seemed happier, and Long- fellow was, as he always is, genial and kind and gentle. I should have stayed with them probably during Commence- ment week at Cambridge, and was looking forward with great pleasure to being with them for a little while. There is something almost too terrible to reflect upon in this utterly 18G1.J DEATH OF MRS. LONGFELLOW. 11 trivial way in which this noble, magnificent woman has been put to a hideous death. When you hear of a shipwreck, or a stroke of lightning, or even a railway accident, the mind does not shrink appalled from the contemplation of the tragedy so utterly as it now does, from finding all this misery resulting from such an almost invisible cause — a drop of sealing-wax on a muslin dress. Deaths in battle are telegraphed to us hourly, and hosts of our young men are marching forth to mortal combat, day by day, but these are in the natural course of events. Fate, acting on its large scale, has decreed that a great war shall rage, and we are prepared for tragedies, and we know that those who fall have been discharging the highest of duties. But what compensation or consolation is there for such a calamity as this ? I was with Holmes at the Parker House when the news was brought to us. We had gone to see the Greenes (William), with whom we were speaking in the hall. Holmes wanted a commission in Greene's regiment for his son Wendell in case he finds Lee's list completed. We both burst into tears, and did nothing more that morning about military matters ; Holmes is however going out to see Lee to-morrow morning at his camp at Eeadville, and will doubtless obtain a lieu- tenancy under him for his son. Wendell is a very fine fellow, graduating this commencement, but he can't be kept in college any longer. He will get his degree, and is one of the first scholars in his class, but, like nearly all the young men, he has been drilling for months long in one of the various preparatory home battalions, and is quite competent for the post he wishes ; but there are so many applicants for these commissions that even such a conspicuous youth as he is not sure of getting one immediately. God bless you, dearest Mary, and my dear children. In great haste. Affectionately yours, J. L. M. 12 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I. To his Wife. Nahant, July Uth, 1861. My deaeest Maky, — This is the first rainy day since I landed in the country, now nearly five weeks ago. It has been most wondrously bright weather day after day, some- times very hot, but as it can never be too hot for me I have been well satisfied. I was so glad to hear of Lady Dufferin's safe return, and I do hope sincerely that the Syrian sun has not visited her too roughly, but that the gentle atmosphere of an English summer will entirely restore her ; what a comfort it must be to dear Mrs. Norton to have them safe back again. Alas! during all my pleasure at reading your letters I could not throw off for a moment the dull, deadly horror of the calamity of which I wrote to you in my last. Yesterday I went out to Longfellow's house, by especial message from Tom Appleton, to attend the funeral ; it was not thus that I expected for the first time after so long an absence to cross that threshold. The very morning after my arrival from England I found Longfellow's card, in my absence, with a pencilled request to come out and sup with them, Tom, Mack- intosh, and the rest. I could not go, but have been several times begged to come since that day, yet this is the first time I have been there. I am glad I had seen F however. I think I told you that I saw her a few days ago, at the chair of her dying father ; she was radiant with health and beauty, and was so cordial and affectionate in her welcome to me ; I did not mean to look at her in her coffin, for I wished to pre- serve that last image of her face, undimmed. But after the ceremony at the house the cortege went to Mount Auburn, and there was a brief prayer by Dr. Gannett at the grave, and it so happened that I was placed, by chance, close to the cofiin, and I could not help looking upon her face; it was turned a little on one side, was not in the slightest degree injured, and was almost as beautiful as in life — " but for that sad shrouded eye" — and you remember how beautiful were her eyes. Longfellow has as yet been seen by no one except 1881.] OBJECTS AND PROSPECTS OP THE WAR. 13 his sisters. He has suffered considerable injury in the hands, but nothing which will not soon be remedied. He has been in an almost frenzied condition, at times, from his grief, but I hear is now comparatively composed ; but his life is crushed I should think. His whole character, which was so bright and genial and sunny, will suffer a sad change. .... We were expecting the Longfellows down here every day. Tom and he own together the old Wetmore cottage, and they were just opening it when the tragedy occurred. I still think it probable that they will come, for he certainly cannot remain in his own house now. My mother is decidedly gaining strength and is very cheerful. I don't find Mr. Cabot much changed, except that he is more lame than he was. They have invited me to Newport, and so has Mr. Sears and Bancroft, but I have no idea of going. I have hardly time to see as much of my friends and relations in Boston and its neighbourhood as I wish. I had better go back, I think, and try to do a year's hard work in the diggings, as I can be of no use here, and it is absolutely necessary for me to go on with my work. .... Although it seems so very difficult for the English mind, as manifested in the newspapers, to understand the objects of the war, they seem to twenty millions of us very plain — first, to prohibit for ever the extension of negro slavery, and to crush for ever the doctrine that slavery is the national, common law of America, instead of being an exceptional, local institution confined within express limits ; secondly, to main- tain the authority of the National Government, as our only guarantee for life, liberty, and civilization. It is not a matter of opinion, but of profound, inmost conviction, that if we lose the Union, all is lost — anarchy and Mexicanism will be sub- stituted for the temperate reign of constitutional, representa- tive government, and the English common law. Certainly, these objects are respectable ones, and it is my belief that they will be attained. If, however, the war assumes larger proportions, I know not what results may follow — but this I do know, that slavery will never gain another triumph on this continent. 14 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I. This great mutiny was founded entirely on two great postulates or hopes. First, the conspirators doubted not of the assistance, in every Free State, of the whole democratic party, who they thought would aid them in their onslaught against the constitution, just as they had stood by them at the polls in a constitutional election. Miserable mistake ! The humilia- tion of the national flag at Sumter threw the whole democratic party into a frenzy of rage. They had sustained the South for the sake of the Union — for the love of the G-reat Kepublic. When the South turned against the national empire, and fired against the flag, there was an end of party differences at that instant throughout the Free States. Secondly, they reckoned confidently on the immediate recognition and alliance of England. Another mistake ! And so, where is now the support of the mutiny ? Instead of a disunited North, there is a distracted South, with the Free States a unit. There is no doubt whatever, that the conspirators expected confidently to establish their new constitution over the whole country except New England. I find the numbers of United States troops given thus : General Patterson's command, 25,000 ; General McClellan, 45,000 ; General McDowell, 45,000 ; General Butler, 20,000 ; total 135,000. Certainly, if we should deduct 10 per cent, from this estimate, and call them 120,000, we should not be far wrong. McDowell commands opposite Washington, along Arlington, at Alexandria, etc.; McClellan is at this moment at Beverly, and Grafton in West Virginia ; Butler is at and near Fortress Monroe. Patterson is at Martinsburg. I take it for granted that you have a good map of Virginia, and that* you study it. Now for the commanders. McClellan is a first-class man, thirty-seven years of age, of superior West Point education, and has distinguished himself in Mexico. The country seems to regard him as the probable successor to Scott in its affec- tions, when he shall be taken from us. McDowell is a good, practical, professional soldier, fully equal to his work, about forty years of age. Patterson is an Irishman by birth, age sixty-nine, but educated here, and has been in the army much 1861.] THE NORTHERN GENERALS. 15 of his life, having served both in the war of 1812 and in Mexico, and he commands against an able rebel — Johnston — who is, or was, at Winchester and its neighbourhood. Butler is the militia general who commanded at Annapolis, for a time, in the first outbreak, and has since been made major- general in the army. The Gordon regiment, whose departure from Boston I mentioned in my last, are now at Martinsburg, and will be in the front ranks under Patterson, who has been perpetually menaced by Johnston with a general attack. The prevailing impression is, however, that Johnston will fall back, as the rebels have constantly been doing ; all the dash, impetuosity, and irrepressible chivalry on their part have hitherto only manifested themselves on paper. Don't be aft'ected by any sneers or insinuations of slowness against Scott ; I believe him to be a magnificent soldier, thoroughly equal to his work, and I trust that the country and the world will one day acknowledge that he has played a noble and winning game with consummate skill. He can afford to neglect newspaper criticism at present, whether cis- or trans- Atlantic. One victory at least he has achieved : he has at last reduced the lying telegram manufacturers to submission. Henceforth you may read our newspaper accounts with toler- able confidence. Now, look at the map of Virginia, and you will see his plan so far as developed. You read the American newspapers, of course, which I ordered for you. Yesterday and to-day bring accounts from McClellan, in which he officially informs Government that he has routed and annihilated the rebels in West Virginia. Their general is killed, their army broken to pieces. One colonel (Pegram) has surrendered himself and his whole regiment. McClellan has at least 1000 prisoners. He has lost very few men — the rebels, perhaps, 200, but the result is a large one. I am sure no one wishes to hear a long list of killed and wounded on either side. What Scott wishes is to demoralise and disorganise this senseless and wanton rebellion, and to crush its leaders. Now, these 10,000 just routed by McClellan compose the main force by which the counter-revolution of West Virginia was to be pre- vented. There is another force in the South- West, on the 16 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. I. Kanawha, under the redoubtable Wise, whose retreat you will soon hear of. You will also, I think, soon find that Johnston has fallen back from Winchester. Thus the rebels will soon, be squeezed down towards Eichmond. There, I suppose, they must make a stand, and there will, perhaps, be a great battle. Hitherto, however, they have shown no avidity for such a result. Virginia is the battle-ground for the summer. Lord Lyndhurst to Mrs. Motley. George Street, July 16a, 1861. I have just finished Mr. Motley's very interesting letter, and feel most grateful for his endeavours to soothe the irri- tation existing in the Northern States towards this country. I hope when you write you will remember me kindly to him. Accept my best thanks for the communication, from which I have derived a much better account of the state of affairs on the other side of the water than from all the channels of information to which I have from time to time had access. I remain, my dear Mrs. Motley, Most faithfully yours, Lyndhurst. To lis Wife. Woodland Hill, Sunday, July list, 1861. My deaeest Mary, — I have not the time nor the matter for anything but a hasty line. I am obliged to write two days before the packet day, as I must go to Nahant to-morrow, Monday, and the next day I have promised to dine with old Mr. Quincy, at Quincy. I came up yesterday to dine with Mr. George Curtis and his wife, Ticknor, Everett, and Felton. You will see in the Daily Advertiser the proceedings of one or two public bodies by whom respectful tribute has been paid to Mr. Appleton's character. His mind was singularly calm and 1861.] "COMMENCEMENT" AT HARVARD. 17 lucid to the last. On Wednesday I went to Cambridge, by- invitation, to hear the exercises of Commencement and to be present at the dinner. The performances were very creditable indeed, and I found at the dinner, at which there were some three hundred of the alumni present, several members of my class, and passed a very pleasant hour, the more so as Felton had faithfully promised me that I should not be call ed out for a speech. As I have received an LL.D. at the previous Com- mencement in my absence, I could hardly refuse the invitation to the dinner. But two degrees of LL.D. were conferred on this occasion — one on Governor Andrew, and the other on General Scott. The announcement, which was made on the platform in the church, after the conclusion of the college exercises, of the Governor's name was very well received, and there was much well-deserved cheering, for he has been most eflScient and intelligent in his exertions, ever since this damnable mutiny broke out, and it is much owing to his energy that Massachusetts has taken the noble stand which she now occupies, in defence of the constitution and the country. But when the name of Winfield Scott was announced, there arose a tempest of cheers such as I am sure was never heard before at any academic celebration in Cambridge. I thought the church would have split to pieces like a bomb-shell, so irrepressible was the explosion of enthusiasm. 'Tis a pity the old man couldn't have heard it with his own ears. He is used to huzzahs from soldiers and politicians ; but here were grave professors and clergymen, judges, young undergraduates and octogenarians, all hallooing like lunatics. And the same thing was repeated at the dinner when his health was drunk. You will see an account of the proceedings in the Daily Advertiser of the 18th of July You will also observe that I was startled from my repose at the table, not by Felton, but by Everett, who made a most complimentary allusion to me, far beyond my deserts, in his after-dinner speech. They insisted on my getting up and saying a few words of acknowledgment ; but I was too much moved to make a speech, and they received my thanks with much cordiality. VOL.JI. 0 , 18 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. I. Nothing can be better than Everett's speech at New York — one of the most powerful commentaries on this rebellion that has ever been spoken or written — and he has made several other addresses equally strong in tone. We are now in an era of good feeling throughout the North, and we no longer ask what position any man may have occupied, but where he stands now, and I am glad that we shall henceforth have the benefit of Everett's genius and eloquence on the right side. Since I wrote last nothing very important has occurred ; but now important events are fast approaching. I don't use this expression in the stereotype phraseology of the newspapers, because you must have perceived from all my letters that I did not in the least share the impatience of many people here. The skirmish of the 18th was by detachments, only 800 men in all, of Tyler's Brigade, commanded by him in person, and they are said to have behaved with great skill and gallantry. It is your old friend Daniel Tyler of Norwich, who, you know, was for a considerable part of his life in the army, and was educated at West Point. He is now a brigadier- general, and, as you see, commands under McDowell, whom I described to you in my last. Montgomery Ritchie, by the way, is aide to a Colonel Blenker, who has a regiment in Tyler's Brigade, and James Wadsworth is aide to McDowell. The affair at Bull's Run is of no special importance — of course we don't know what losses the rebels sustained, nor is it material. These skirmishes must occur daily, until it appears whether the enemy means to risk a pitched battle now, or whether they mean to continue to retire, as they have hitherto been steadily doing, before the advance of the Union forces. The question now is, will they make a stand at Manassas, or will they retreat to Richmond ? Beauregard, who commands at Manassas, is supposed to have at least 60,000 men, and Johnston, who was until two days ago at Winchester, is thought to be falling back to join him. On the other hand, while McDowell is advancing towards Manassas, Patterson, with 35,000 men (with whom is Gordon's regiment, Massachusetts 2nd), has moved from Martinsburg to Charlestown, and, as I thought, will soon make a junction with him, and McClellan is expected daily out of 1861.] CONVERGING ON MANASSAS. 19 West Virginia. Thus, some 120,000 Union troops are converg- ing at Manassas, and, if the rebels have sufficient appetite, there will soon be a great stand-up fight. If they retreat, however, there will be more delays and more impatience, for it is obvious that the Union troops can gain no great victory until the rebels face them in the field. This has not yet been the case, but they have fired from behind bat- teries occasionally while our men were in the open. Hitherto nothing of importance has occurred except the slow advance of the Union and the slow retreat of the rebellion. Perhaps before this letter is posted, two days hence, something definite may have occurred in the neighbourhood of Manassas. Day before yesterday I saw the Webster regiment reviewed on the common. On the previous afternoon Governor Andrew had invited me to come to his room at the State House. I did so at the time appointed, and found no one there but the Governor, his aides. Colonels Harrison Ritchie, Wetherell and Harry Lee, and Mr. Everett, who was to make a speech on presenting the colours to the regiment. I saw them march along Beacon Street in front of the State House, and thought they had a very knowing soldierly look. They have been drilling for months down at Fort Independence, and are off for the seat of war to-morrow. When the regiment had arrived on the common and was drawn up in the Lower Mall, we proceeded to review them. Governor Andrew, in his cocked hat and general's uniform, took possession of Mr. Everett, and the two were flanked by four aides-de-camp, effulgent in what the newspapers call the " gor- geous panoply of war ;" while I was collared by the Adjutant- General and the stray Colonel, and made to march solemnly between them. What the populace thought of me, I don't know, but I believe that I was generally supposed to be a captured Secessionist, brought along to grace the triumph of the Governor. Well, we marched on, followed by a battalion of escort Guards, and preceded by a band of music to the Mall, and then the Webster regiment went through its manoeuvres for our benefit, and that of some thousands of enthusiastic spectators besides. o2 20 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap, t Of course, I am no judge of military matters, but they seemed to be admirably drilled, and one or two army officers with whom I spoke were of the same opinion — one of these, by the way, was a Virginian, Marshall by name, a staunch Union man and nephew of the General Lee of Arlington, who so recently abandoned the side of General Scott for a high post in the rebel army — but I am at least a judge of men's appearance, and it would be difficult to find a thousand better-looking men with more determined and resolute faces. They wear the uniform of the regular army, and their officers are nearly all young, vigorous men, of good education and social position. I had a little talk with Fletcher Webster, who seemed de- lighted to see me. Everett made a magnificent little speech on presenting the standard, and Webster a very manly and simple reply. The standard bears for inscription the motto from Webster's (the father's) famous speech : " Not a single stripe polluted, not a single star efiaced," together with the motto of Massachusetts: Ense petit placidam suh Uhertate quietem, i.e. " With the sword she seeks tranquillity under the protection of liberty." This has been the device of the Mas- sachusetts seal for more than a century, I believe ; but it is originally a plagiarism from Algernon Sidney. I am delighted with all that you tell me of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll and their warm and friendly sympathy ; of Lord Granville ; of Lord de Grey ; of Milnes and Forster and Stirling. I haven't time to mention all the names of those whom you speak of as being staunch in our cause — the great cause of humanity and civilization — to check and circumscribe African slavery, and at the same time to uphold free constitu- tional government is a noble task. If the great Eepublic perishes in the effort it dies in a good cause. But it isn't dying yet ; never had so much blood in it — Qui vivra verra. You say that I have not mentioned Sumner in my letters* I thought that I had. I saw him two or three times before I went to Washington. He is very well in health and un- changed in opinions or expectations, except that, like all of us, he has been made far more sanguine than ever before, as to the issue of the struggle. He came to Washington before I left 18G1.] THE BATTLE OF BULL'S RUN. 21 it, but we did not go together. He has of course remained there for the session, I have heard from him twice or thrice ; but, as I now write from America, I never quote any one's opinions, but send you my own for what they are worth. In this letter there is little of consequence. I am delighted with what you say about the sea-coast arrangement with the Hughes, and trust sincerely that it may be made. You cannot but be happy with such charming, sincere, and noble characters, and I envy you the privilege of their society. Pray thank Hughes for that most sympathetic dedication to Lowell. I am glad that the book is finished, that I may now read it with the same ^delight which the first one gave me. I saw Lowell commencement day, and promised to go out and dine with him some day next week. He is going to send for Hawthorne. Alas ! he meant to have had Long- fellow. We shall have Holmes, Agassiz, and others, and shall drink Hughes's health. I forgot to say that I saw at Felton's house young Brownell of the Ellsworth Zouaves. He, you may remember, was at Ellsworth's side as he came downstairs at the Marshall House, Alexandria, and was shot dead by Jackson. Brownell, who was a corporal in the regiment, im- mediately shot Jackson through the head. He has since been made a lieutenant in the army, and is here on recruiting service. He is a very quiet, good-looking youth of about twenty-two. The deed has no especial claim to distinction, except its promptness. You remember that it was at the very first occupation of Alexandria, and Jackson supposed, when he came out of a dark closet and fired at Ellsworth, that secession was still triumphant in the town. Brownell took out of his pocket a fragment of the secession flag-staff which Ellsworth had just taken from the house-top, and gave me a bit of it as a relic. The reason why Ellsworth] was so anxious to pull down the flag, was that it was visible at the ^Vhite House of Washington, and therefore an eyesore to the President. Monday, Juhj 22nd. — The battle was renewed yesterday at Bull's Run, and, as I anticipated when I began this letter, the rebel batteries have been carried, one after another, and the enemy beaten back to Manassas. A general engagement 22 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I. must now follow at once, unless they retreat towards Eich- mond. There is no need of my saying anything more, because the papers will give you, by telegraph to Halifax, later intel- ligence than I can possibly send. Perhaps the success which I now chronicle may not prove to be authentic. Yesterday Mr. William Dwight came over to Woodland Hill, and read us a couple of spirited letters frorh his son Wilder, major in the Massachusetts 2nd. It appears, as you will see in the papers, that Patterson has been superseded by Banks. This I hardly understand. Banks has great talent, and has generally suc- ceeded in everything he has undertaken ; but he is not an army man, and has had no experience in actual service. We are still in the dark here, as to the important fact, whether John- ston has retired from Winchester and effected his junction with Beauregard at Manassas, or whether he may still be cut off by the Patterson Division moving from Charlestown. Of course you will get this information by Thursday's (25th) telegram to Halifax. To their great disappointment, no doubt, Gordon's regiment has been detailed from the column to which it belonged, and has been sent from Charlestown to Harper's Ferry. It is a responsible and important duty, and the discipline and energy of this regiment were relied upon to quell all seces- sion at so important a point in the rear, when the great advance was making into the heart of Virginia. But it is a great sell for Gordon and his comrades, for it -keeps them for a time at a distance from the great scene of action. Wilder Dwight, in his letter, mentions cases in which the inhabitants of Martinsburg and its vicinity had been mal- treated by the rebel army. After the occupation of the place by the Union troops, one evening, a farmer of the vicinity invited Gordon and h^s officers to supper. He said the rebels took from him and fi^m all his neighbours everything they wanted, and paid nothiug for them except receipts in the name of the Confederacy — and " there ain't any Confederacy," he said. At Harper's Ferry he makes the same report. Women come in and tell of their husbands and sons having been impressed. Men complain of being driven from their 18G1.] THE BATTLE OP BULL'S RUN. 23 homes, and of other maltreatment. And, in short, you have here, from an unimpeachable witness, evidence that, even in Eastern Virginia, the very hot-bed of secession, the rebellion is not over popular, and that the stars and stripes are hailed, by some of the inhabitants at least, as the symbols of deliver- ance from a reign of terror. I shall leave my letter open, in order to add a P.S. to-morrow. ' T.S.—July 23rd, 11.30 a.m. Read this sheet first. I have had half a dozen minds about sending you the fore- going pages. Since they were written the terrible defeat of Sunday evening has occurred. We are for the moment over- whelmed with gloom. I pity you and my children inexpres- sibly, to be alone there. On the whole, I have decided to send my letter as it stands. There is no doubt that our troops behaved admirably during the whole of Sunday; that they charged and carried battery after battery of rifled cannon ; that the colonels of regiments led on their men on foot, rifle in hand, loading and firing like privates ; that our men repeatedly crossed bayonets with the enemy, and drove them off the field. This went on for nine hours. In the evening it appears that Johnston effected his junction with Beauregard, and then a panic, commenced by teamsters, together with reporters, members of Congress, and outsiders generally, who had no business on the field at all, was communicated to the troops, who fled in disorder. The accounts are very conflicting as to the behavour of our men after seven o'clock r.M. of Sunday. There is no doubt that we have sustained a great defeat. The measure of our dishonour, which I thought last night so great as to make me hang my head for ever, I cannot now thoroughly estimate. We must wait for the official reports, both as to the number of killed and wounded (which vary for our side from 4000 to 200 !), and for the more important matter of deciding whether we have been utterly disgraced as well as defeated. In a brief note which I wrote early this morning I told you that I should send for you to come home imme- diately. I sympathise most deeply with your position. You 24 IMOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. I. have many kind friends — none can be kinder ; but the situa- tion admits of no consolation. Do not, however, believe the sensation reports which have harrowed us here yesterday. We were very much outnumbered ; that is certain. We fought well the whole of the day, but we were outgeneralled and defeated, after nine hours' hard fighting. Whether we have lost everything, even honour, cannot be decided for a few days. I shall try to write by the intermediate steamer, but certainly by the next Cunarder, this day week, and I will then let you know what I think you had best do. I don't feel now as if I could come into England again. Don't show this letter to any one. I hope you are not in London, and that you are with the Hughes. God bless you and my dear children ! Ever your affectionate, J. L. M. To his Wife. Nahant, Jvly 28th, 1861. My deaeest Mary, — I have not written to Forster, because I have taken it for granted that he sees my letters to you, and I could only write the same facts and the same conclusions to other correspondents. Nevertheless, I wish very much to write a line to him and to Milnes, and especially to Lord de Grey, and shall certainly do so within a very short time. I was delighted to hear of young Kidley's triumphs, and sincerely sympathise in the joy of Lord and Lady Wensleydale, to whom pray give my kindest remembrance and congratulations. I am very much obliged to Lord John Eussell for his kindness in sending me a copy of his note to Mr. Everett. I have thought very often of writing myself to Lord John, and have abstained because I knew that his time was so thoroughly occupied as to leave him little leisure for unoflScial correspondence, and because I knew also that his despatches from Washington and his con- versations with Mr. Adams must place him entirely in posses- sion of all the facts of this great argument, and I have not the 1861.] THE ESSENCE OP THE UNIOX. 25 vanity to suppose that any commentary which I could make would alter the conclusion of a mind so powerful and experi- enced as his. " If on the 4th of March," he says to Mr. Everett, " you had allowed the Confederate States to go out from among you, you could have prevented the extension of slavery, and con- fined it to the slaveholding States." But, unfortunately, had this permission been given, there would have been no " you " left. The existence of this Government consists in its unity. Once admit the principle of secession, and it has ceased to be ; there is no authority then left either to prevent the extension of slavery, or to protect the life or property of a single individual on our share of the continent. Permit the destruction of the great law which has been supreme ever since we were a nation, and any other law may be yiolated at will. We have no government but this one, since we were dependent and then insurgent colonies. Take away that, and you take away our all. This is not merely the most logical of theories, but the most unquestionable of facts. This great struggle is one between law and anarchy. The slaveholders mutiny against all government on this continent, because it has been irrevo- cably decided no further to extend slavery. Peaceful acquies- cence in the withdrawal of the seven cotton States would have been followed by the secession of the remaining eight slave States, and probably by the border free States. Pennsylvania would have set up for itself. There would probably have been an attempt at a Western Confederacy, and the city of New York had already announced its intention of organizing itself into a free town, and was studying the constitutions of Frankfort and Hamburg. In short, we had our choice to submit at once to dismem- berment and national extinction at the command of the slavery oligarchy which has governed us for forty years, or to fight for our life. The war forced upon us by the slave- holders has at last been accepted, and it is amazing to me that its inevitable character and the absolute justice of our cause does not carry conviction to every unprejudiced mind. Those, of course, who believe with the Confederates that 26 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. L slavery is a blessing, and the most fitting corner-stone of a political edifice, will sympathise with their cause. But those who believe it to be a curse should, I think, sympathise with us who, while circumscribing its limits and dethroning it as a political power, are endeavouring to maintain the empire of the American constitution and the English common law over this great continent. This movement in which we now engage, and which Jefferson Davis thinks so ridiculous, is to me one of the most noble spectacles which I remember in history. Twenty millions of people have turned out as a great posse comitatus to enforce the laws over a mob of two or three millions — not more — led on by two or three dozen accom- plished, daring, and reckless desperadoes. This is the way history will record this transaction, be the issue what it may ; and, if we had been so base as to consent to our national death without striking a blow, our epitaph would have been more inglorious than I hope it may prove to be. Don't be too much cast down about Bull's Kun. In a mili- tary point of view it is of no very great significance. We have lost, perhaps, at the utmost, 1000 men, 2000 muskets, and a dozen cannon or so. There was a panic, it is true, and we feel ashamed, awfully mortified ; but our men had fought four or five hours without flinching, against concealed batteries, at the cannon's mouth, under a blazing July Yirginia sun, taking battery after battery, till they were exhausted with thirst, and their tongues were hanging out of their mouths. It was physi- cally impossible for these advanced troops to fight longer, and the reserves were never brought up. So far I only say what is undisputed. The blame for the transaction cannot be fairly assigned till we get official accounts. As for the affair itself, the defeat was a foregone conclusion. If you read again the earlier part of my last letter, you will see that I anticipated, as did we all, that the grand attack on Manassas was to be made with McClellan's column, Patterson's and McDowell's combined. This would have given about 125,000 men. In- stead of this, McDowell's advance with some 50,000 men, not one-third part of which were engaged, while the rebels had 100,000 within immediate reach of the scene of action. You 18C1.] THE WAR WAS INEVITABLE. 27 will also see, by the revelations made in Congress and in the New York Times, \ that this has been purely a politician's battle. It is in a political point of view, not a military, that the recent disaster is most deplorable. The rebellion has, of course, j^ained credit by this repulse of our troops. As for the civil war, nothing could have averted it. It is the result of the forty years' aggression of the slavery power. Lincoln's election was a vote by a majority of every Free State that slavery should go no further, and then the South dis- solved the union. Suppose we had acknowledged the con- federacy, there would have been war all the same. Whether we are called two confederacies or one, the question of slavery in the territories has got to be settled by war, and so has the possession of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Even on the impossible theory that the United States continued to exist as a government, after submitting, without a struggle, to dismemberment, still it would be obliged to fight for the right of its four or five million of tonnage to navigate American waters. In brief, the period has arrived for us, as it has often arrived for other commonwealths in history, when we must fight for national existence, or agree to be extinguished peaceably. I am not very desponding, although the present is gloomy. Perhaps the day will come ere long when we shall all of us, not absolutely incapacitated by age or sickness, be obliged to shoulder our rifles as privates in the ranks. At present there seems no lack of men. The reverse of last Sunday has excited the enthusiasm afresh, and the Government receives new regi- ments faster than it can provide for them. As I am not fit to be an oflScer, being utterly without military talent or training, and as it is now decided that such responsible oflSces shall not be conferred except upon those who can bear an examination by competent military authorities, I am obliged to regret my want of early education in the only pursuit which is now use- ful. As to going abroad and immersing myself again in the sixteenth century, it is simply an impossibility. I can think of nothing but American affairs, and should be almost ashamed if it were otherwise. 28 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. L A grim winter is before us. Gather your rosebuds while you may, is my advice to you, and engage your passages not before October. But, having said this, I give you earte blanche, and let me know your decision when made. The war is to be a long one. We have no idea of giving in, and no doubt of ultimate triumph. Our disaster is nothing : our disgrace is great, and it must be long before it can be retrieved, because Oeneral Scott will now be free to pursue the deliberate plan which he had marked out when he was compelled by outside pressure to precipitate his raw levies against an overwhelming superiority of rebels in a fortified position. A few days ago I went over to Quincy by appointment to dine with old Mr. Quincy. The dinner was very pleasant. Edmund was there, and very agreeable, with Professor Gould, and Mr. Waterston, and the ladies. The old gentleman, now in his ninetieth year, is straight as an arrow, with thirty-two beautiful teeth, every one his own, and was as genial and cordial as possible. He talked most agreeably on all the topics of the day, and after dinner discussed the political question in all its bearings with much acumen, and with plenty of interesting historical reminiscences. He was much j)leased with the messages I delivered to him from Lord Lyndhurst, and desired in return that I should transmit his most cordial and respectful regards. Please add mine to his, as well as to Lady Lyndhurst, when you have the privilege of seeing them. I was very sorry not to be able to accept young Mr. Adams's offered hospitality, but I had made arrangements to return to Nahant that night. Pray give my best regards to Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Last Saturday I* went to Cambridge, and visited Longfellow. He was in bed, with both hands tied up ; but his burns are recovering, and his face will not be scarred, and he will not lose the use of either hand. He was serene and resigned, but dreaded going downstairs into the desolate house. His children were going in and out of the room. He spoke of his wife, and narrated the whole tragedy very gently, and without any paroxysms of grief, although it was obvious that he felt himself a changed man. Holmes came in. We talked of general matters, and 1801.] INCIDENTS OP THE BATTLE. 29 Longfellow was interested to listen to and speak of the news of the day and of the all-absorbing topic of the war. The weather has been almost cloudless for the seven weeks that I have been at home — one blaze of sunshine. But the drought is getting to be alarming. It has hardly rained a drop since the first week in June. Fortunately the charm seems now broken, and to-day there have been some refreshing showers, with a prospect of more. I dined on Saturday with Holmes. He is as charming, witty, and sympathetic as ever. I wish I could send you something better than this, but unless I should go to Washington again I don't see what I can write now that is worth reading. To-morrow I dine here with Wharton, who is unchanged, and desires his remembrances to you ; and next day I dine with Lowell at Cambridge, where I hope to find Hawthorne, Holmes, and others. . . . P.S. — Tell Tom Brown, with my kindest regards, that every one is reading him here with delight, and the dedication is especially grateful to our feelings. The Boston edition (I wish he had the copyright) has an uncommonly good likeness of him. As for Wadsworth, I heard from several sources of his energy and pluck. Wharton has been in my room since I began this note. He had a letter from his sister, in which she says John Vennes, a servant (an Englishman) of theirs, who enlisted in the 69th New York, had written to say that his master was the bravest of the brave, and that he was very proud of him as he saw him without his hat, and revolver in hand, riding about and encouraging the troops at the last moment to make a stand. I had a letter from Colonel Gordon the other day. He is at Harper's Ferry, and not at all discouraged by the results of the battle, in which of course he had no part. He says, " Our late check, it seems to me, is almost a victory. From seven to four did our brave troops face that deadly fire of artillery and infantry delivered from breastworks and hidden embrasures. Over and over again did they roll back the greatly outnumbering columns of the enemy, until at last, when a foolish panic seized them, they left the enemy in 30 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. I. such a condition that he could not pursue them more than a mile and a half ; so that one entire battery, which they might have had for the taking, was left all night on the field and finally returned to us again. Many such victories would de- populate the South, and from the victors there is no sound of joy. In Charleston, Virginia, at Harper's Ferry, and at Mar- tinsburg they mourn the loss of many of their sons. Fewer in numbers, we were more than their match, and will meet them again." In estimating the importance of this affair as to its bearings on the future, it should, I think, be never forgotten that the panic, whatever was its mysterious cause, was not the result of any overpowering onset of the enemy. It did not begin with the troops engaged. Here we are not discouraged. The three months' men are nearly all of them going back again. Congress has voted 500,000 men and 5,000,000 of dollars ; has put on an income tax of three per cent., besides raising 20 or 30 millions extra on tea , coffee, sugar, and other hitherto untaxed articles, and Govern- ment securities are now as high in the market as they were before the late battle. .... J. L. M. To his Wife. New York, August 12th, 1861. My deaeest Maey, — I have but an instant to write a single line. It is nearly twelve at night, and I leave for Washington to-morrow morning, very early. I have just been notified of my appointment as Minister to Austria. ... I am afraid Lily and Mary will be awfully disappointed, particularly as I wrote so recently that you had better return to America. But I think sincerely that they would both be made rather melan- choly by the present aspect of society here. . . . There is no great change in the political situation, and I have no time to go into the depths of affairs. We expect daily to hear of a battle in Missouri, and of course feel anxious. I have not \ 18G1.] FEELING IN ENGLAND. 31 seen Plon PI on, and he has left Washington. Sumner dined with me and Sam Hooper to-day here at the Brevoort House, just from Washington. He had been dining with Plon Plon once or twice, and we are very much amazed, annoyed, and amused, at our allowing him to make a formal visit to the rebels, escorted to their lines by a company of Union cavalry. Sumner was very energetic and stedfast in urging my ap- pointment, to which there was much opposition owing to the old cause — too much for Massachusetts ; and there were some urgent and formidable candidates. Ever affectionately yours, J. L. M. From tJie Duke of Argyll to Mrs. Motley. Inveraray, August 2Qth, 1861. My dear Mrs. IMotley, — Many thanks for the enclosed. You need not apologise for sending me letters containing details. All that I have seen in your husband's letters tends to increase our warm esteem and regard for him. I was sure he would feel the Manassas affair very keenly, and we feel much for him. It seems certain that the defeat was made far worse by the exaggeration of the Press ; though Kussell's account in the Times is so far confirmatory of the papers. But Bussell never reached the real front of the Federal line, and consequently saw nothing of the troops that behaved well. I think your husband's argument against ^Lord Kussell's advice (at least as that advice is quoted) is excellent. It does seem probable that to have allowed secession without a fight would have led to the complete disintegration of the Northern States. I fear you have now before you a long war. It is clear that a regular trained army must be formed before the subjugation of the South can be rendered possible, and I confess I am not so hopeful of the result as I once was. You may set Mr. Motley's mind at rest, I think, as regards 32 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. I. any possibility of our interfering — provided, of course, the con- test is carried on with a due regard to the law of Nations and the rights of Neutrals. But we have been in some alarm lest the Government were about to adopt measures which that law does not recognise. I hope the danger also has passed away. May I ask you to direct the enclosed letter to your husband ? I am, my dear Mrs. Motley, Yours very sincerely, Argyll. ( 33 ) I CHAPTER II. VIENNA. Voyage to Liverpool— Frystou Hall— 5Ir. W. E. Forster- Lord J. Russell — Abergeldie — The cotton famino — The English Press — Balmoral— Interview . with the Queen— Paris— M. Thouvenel— The English Government and the Press— Life in Vienna— Lotter to Dr. O. W. Holmes— News of the Battle of Ball's Bluff— Anxiety and suspense — Attitude of the European Powers — Letter from Dr. O. W, Holmes — His son's remarkable escape at Ball's Blufl" — Th© Trent affair — Imminent risk of war with England — Action of tho Times — An anxious crisis — Awaiting the President's Message. To his Mother. Wharfside, Yorkshire, September 5th, 1861. My DEAREST Mother, — I have but time to write you a brief note. When I get to Vienna I mean to be a good correspon- dent. Until that time I shall be very much hurried. My voyage was a singularly pleasant one — no bad weather, smooth seas, and fair winds, the whole way. We reached Liverpool in exactly eleven days. I was obliged to stop all Sunday in that not very fascinating city. I parted from Mackintosh that evening, who went to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, and from ]Mr. Blake, who was to stop a few days in Liverpool. I found by telegram that Mary and Lily were staying with Mr. Monck- ton Milnes in Yorkshire, so I went there, after passing one day in London. I afterwards dined with the Adamses. I do not think there is any present intention here of inter- fering with our blockade, or any wish, which is the same thing, of going to war in order to establish the Southern confederacy and get their cotton crop. I think they will try to rub on through next year, unless the cotton famine should be very great, and the consequent disturbances very alarming. I passed one day at Fryston Hall, Milnes's beautiful place in Yorkshire, where I had a delightful meeting with Mary and Lily. I have not yet seen dear little Susie, who is at Cromer VOL. IL D 34 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II, with her governess, and you may be sure that I missed the- dear face of my precious Mary. I hope she is enjoying herself,, and that you will be as fond of her as you used to be. It was too bad that we should have missed each other by a single- day. We have been spending two or three days since leaving^ Fryston with Mr. Forster, M.P. for Bradford, a gentleman: whom you have often heard me speak of as the warmest and most intelligent friend that America possesses in England. It is very agreeable for me to combine business with pleasure in my visit to him. He was to answer Gregory, the champion of the South, and will do so when the question of Southern recognition comes up, and my conversations with him have been very satisfactory. He disbelieves in any attempt to break the blockade, provided it is efficient. We go to-morrow to our friends the de Greys for a week's visit. Lord de Grey is a warm friend of the North. During*^ that week I expect to run up to Scotland for a day's visit to Lord John Eussell. We shall then go to London. I shall write another little note very soon. God bless you and preserve your health, my dearest mother. Give my love^ to my father and to my little Mary, and to all the family great and small. Ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. To his Mother. East Sheen, September 22nd, I8GI. My dearest Mothee, — I am writing you a little note again, I can do no more until such^ time as we shall be settled at Vienna. We came down h^re last evening to spend Sunday with your old friends Mr. ^nd Mrs. Bates. He is the same excellent, ki\pidly old gectleman he always was, and is as staunch an American anc as firm a believer in the ultimate success of our cause as if he had never left Boston. .... I have lost no time since I have been in England 1801.] THE ENGLISH PRESS ON THE WAR. 35 for almost every day I have had interesting conversations with men connected with the Government or engaged in public affairs. There will be no foreign interference, certainly none from England, unless we be utterly defeated in our present struggle. We spent a few days with our friends the de Greys in York- shire. During my visit I went up to the north of Scotland to pass a couple of days with Lord John Russell at Abergeldie, It is an old Scotch castle, which formerly belonged to a family of Gordon of Abergeldie. The country is wild and pretty about it, with mountains clothed in purple heather all round, the Dee winding its way through a pleasant valley, and the misty heights of Lochnagar, sung by Byron in his younger days, crowning the scene whenever the clouds permit that famous summit to be visible. I was received with the greatest kindness. There were no visitors at the house, for both Lord and Lady Eussell are the most domestic people in the world, and are glad to escape from the great whirl of London society as much as they can. In the afternoons we went with the children out in the woods, making fires, boiling a kettle, and making tea al fresco with water from the Dee, which by the way is rather coffee coloured, and ascending hills to get peeps of the prospect?. Most of my time, however, was spent in long and full con- versations tete-a-tete with Lord John (it is impossible to call him by his new title of Lord Russell). The cotton manufacturers are straining every nerve to supply themselves with cotton from India and other [sources. But it seems rather a desperate attempt to break up the Southern monopoly, however galling it is to them. I can only repeat, everything depends upon ourselves, upon what we do. There are a few papers, like the Baihj News, the Star, and the Spectator, which sustain our cause with cordiality, vigour, and talent. The real secret of the exultation which manifests itself in the Times and other organs over our troubles and disasters, is their hatred, not to America, so much as to democracy in England. We shall be let alope long enough for us to put D 2 36 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II. down this mutiny if we are ever going to do it. And I firmly believe it will be done in a reasonable time, and I tell everybody here that the Great Kepublic will rise from the con- flict stronger than ever, and will live to plague them many a long year. .... We shall probably remain another week in London, for I have not yet seen Lord Palmerston, whom I am most anxious to have some talk with, and he is expected to-morrow in London. While I was stopping with Lord John, the Queen sent to intimate that she would be pleased if I would make a visit at Balmoral, which is their Highland home about one and a half miles from Abergeldie. Accordingly, Lord John went over with me in his carriage. We were received entirely without ceremony by the Prince Consort (we were all dressed in the plainest morning costumes), who conversed very plea- santly with us, and I must say there was never more got out of the weather than we managed to extract from it on this occasion. After we had been talking some twenty minutes the door opened, and Her Majesty, in a plain black gown, walked quietly into the room, and I was presented with the least possible ceremony by the Prince Consort. I had never seen her before, but the little photographs in every shop window of Boston or London give you an exact representation of her. They are so faithful that I do not feel that I know her appearance now better than I did before. Her voice is very agreeable and her smile pleasant. She received me very politely, said something friendly about my works, and then alluded with interest to the great pleasure which the Prince of Wales had experienced in his visit to America. The Prince Consort spoke with great animation on the same subject. There is not much more to be said in regard to the interview. I thought that the sending for me was intended as a compliment to the United States, and a mark of respect to one of its representatives. Most affectionately your son, J. L. M. 18G1.] THE ENGLISH GOVERXMEXT AND THE PRESS. 37 To his Mother. ' ■' ' Paris, OcMier 18th, 18G1. My dearest Mother, — .... I have not had an oppor- tunity of seeing the Emperor, as he is at Compiegne. I saw the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Thouvenel, the other day, and had a long talk. So far as words go, he is satisfactory enough. You are annoyed with the English Press, nevertheless it is right to discriminate. The Press is not the Government, and the present English Government has thus far given us no just cause of offence. Moreover, although we have many many bitter haters in England, we have many warm friends. I sent you by the last steamer a speech of my friend, Mr. Forster, to his constituents. No man in England more thoroughly understands American politics than he does. There are few like him Good-bye, and God bless you, my dear mother. Ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. To his Second Daughter. Paris, October 25th, 1861. My dearest little Mary, — Your letter of 6th of October arrived a few days ago, and we are glad to find that you are growing fat and hearty, although we hardly expected that result from the hot sun of your native land at this epoch. I am very grateful to all the kind friends who are so good to you. I hope your dear grandmama will continue to improve in health and strength, although I fear that Boston will hardly be so strengthening to her as Nahant. Give us as many details as you can of what you see and hear, in all affairs of public interest, military and political. You have no idea how we hunger and thirst for such details, and how entirely we depend upon you. I wish that you would keep a 38 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. II. journal of what you see and hear that you think will interest us, and so when you write to your mother and me, you will merely have to refer to and copy from your diary. This will be a more satisfactory as well as an easier way of corre- sponding than it is to sit down at the last minute and write a hurried note. Nothing makes letters more interesting than personal and private details of important events. You are living at this moment in a country on which the eyes of the whole world are fixed, and in the midst of one of the most momentous epochs of the world's history. Try to describe to us simply but fully whatever you see or hear that you think may be interesting to us. It will be a good mental occupation to yourself, and the results will be very welcome to us. Do not be appalled at what I propose to you. I do not expect my dear little Mary to write me great political letters, and I shall not print them in the Allgemeine Zeitung, but if you take pains you may make them a great comfort to us. So soon as I get to Vienna, I mean to write to a few of my friends who promised me letters, and shall hope at least for a reply. The object has been from the beginning, and is still, not to secede permanently from the Union, but to conquer the whole United States and make it all one slave state. Here are foes against whom it is legitimate to feel some resentment. But one would think it impossible for those engaged in a common resistance to this mutiny not to sink, for the period of the war at least, every petty feeling of dislike to each other. I am sure that I have none but the kindest feelings now to every man of whatever party in the Free States — Hunker, Democrat, Belleverettian, Eepublican, or Abolitionist — provided they are willing to stand shoulder ,to shoulder to save the country from extinction. Your affectionate Papa. 18C1.] LIFE IN VIENNA. 39 To his Mother. Vienna, November Uth, 1861. My dearest Mother, — This is your birthday, and I cannot help writing a line to wish you joy and many happy and healthy returns of it. I am delighted to hear such good jiccounts of you and A . I suppose by this time that you lire established in town. I received your letter, conjointly with the governor's, of October 12th. We are far from comfort- able yet. We are at the hotel called the Archduke Charles, where we are pretty well off, but the difficulty of finding apart- ments is something beyond expression. We have finally decided upon a rather small one, just vacated by the Secretary of Legation, Mr. Lippitt — a very intelligent man, a class- mate of Lowell and Story. He has been here eight years, iind is married to a lady of the place, daughter of a banker. He is very useful to me, and is quite sympathetic with my political views. I have had two interviews with Count Rech- berg, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He received me with great cordiality, and informed me that my appointment had given very great pleasure to the Emperor and the Government, and that I was very well known to them by reputation. I am to have my formal audience of the Emperor day after to-morrow. Eut I am already accredited by delivering an official copy of my letter of credence to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I have made the acquaintance of several of my colleagues. AVe dine with the English Ambassador, Lord Bloomfield, to-morrow. He was Secretary of Embassy at St. Petersburg twenty years ago when I was Secretary of Legation, and he received me like an old acquaintance. Lady Bloomfield is very amiable and friendly, and very kind and helpful to Mary in her puzzling commencements in official life. There is always much bother and boredom at setting off. W^hen we have once shaken down into the ruts we shall go on well enough, no ■doubt. But our thoughts are ever at home. I never knew how intensely anxious I was till now that I am so far away. I get the telegrams in advance of the press through my bankers 40 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. II, and Mary always begins to weep and wail before I open them. I do wish we could receive one good piece of news. But I am not disheartened. I feel perfect confidence that the great result cannot be but good and noble. As I am not an optimist by nature, and far from being constitutionally hopeful, there is no harm in my expressing myself thus. We are going through a fiery furnace, but we shall come forth purified. God bless you,, my dearest mother ! My love to the governor and all, great, and small. Your affectionate son, J. L. M. To Br. 0. W. Holmes. Vienna, November Utli, 1861. My deak Holmes, — Your letter of October 8th awaited mo here. I need not tell you with what delight I read it, and with what gratitude I found you so faithful to the promises which we exchanged on board the Europa. Your poem,^ read at the Napoleon dinner, I had already read several times in various papers, and admired it very much, but I thank you for having the kindness to enclose it. As soon as I read your letter I sat down to reply, but I had scarcely written two lines when I received the first telegram of the Ball's Bluff affair. I instantly remembered what you had told me — that Wendell " was on the right of the advance on the Upper Potomac, the post of honour and danger," and it was of course impossible for me to write to you till I had learned more, and you may easily con- ceive our intense anxiety. The bare brutal telegram announc- ing a disaster arrives always four days before any details can possibly be brought. Well, after the four days came my London paper; but, as ill-luck would have it, my American ones had not begun to arrive. At last, day before yesterday I got a New York Evening Post, which contained Frank Palfrey's telegram. Then our hearts were saddened enough by reading, " Willie Putnam, killed ; Lee, Eevere, and George 1 'Vive la France.' A sentiment Napoleon at the Kevere House, Septem- offered at the dinner to H.LH. Prince ber 25, 18G1. 18C1.] NEWS OF BALL'S BLUFF. 41 Perry, captured ; " but they were relieved of an immense anxiety by the words, " 0. W. Holmes, jun., slightly wounded." Poor Mrs. Putnam ! I wish you would tell Lowell (for to the mother or father I do not dare to write) to express the deep sympathy which I feel for their bereavement, that there were many tears shed in our little household in this distant place for the fate of his gallant, gentle-hearted, brave-spirited nephew. I did not know him much — not at all as grown man ; but the name of Willie Putnam was a familiar sound to us six years ago on the banks of the Arno, for we had the pleasure of passing a winter in Florence at the same time with the Putnams, and 1 knew that that studious youth promised to be all which his name and his blood and the influences under which he was growing up entitled him to become. We often talked of American politics — I mean his father and mother and ourselves — and I believe that we thoroughly sympathised in our views and hopes. Alas, they could not then foresee that that fair-haired boy was after so short a time destined to lay down his young life on the Potomac, in one of the opening struggles for freedom and law with the accursed institution of slavery ! Well, it is a beautiful death — the most beautiful that man can die. Young as he was, he had gained name and fame, and his image can never be associated in the memory of the hearts which mourn for him except with ideas of honour, duty, and purity of manhood. After we had read the New York newspaper, the next day came a batch of Boston dailies and a letter from my dear little Mary. I seized it with avidity and began to read it aloud, and before I had finished the first page it dropped from my hand and we all three burst into floods of tears. Mary wrote that Harry Higginson, of the 2nd, had visited the camp of the 20th, and that Wendell Holmes was shot through the lungs and not likely to recover. It seemed too cruel, just as we had been informed that he was but slightly wounded. After the paroxysm was over, I picked up the letter and read a rather important concluding phrase of Mary's statement, viz., " But this, thank God, has proved to be a mistake." I think if you could have been clairvoyant, and looked in upon our 42 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. II. dark little sitting-room of the Archduke Charles Hotel, fourth storey, at that moment, you could have had proof enough, if you needed any fresh ones, of the strong hold that you and yours have on all our affections. There are very many youths in that army of freedom whose career we watch with intense interest ; but Wendell Holmes is ever in our thoughts side by side with those of our own name and blood. I renounce all attempt to paint my anxiety about our affairs. 1 do not regret that Wendell is Avith the army. It is a noble and healthy symptom that brilliant, intellectual, poetical spirits like his spring to arms when a noble cause like ours inspires them. The race of Philip Sidneys is not yet extinct, and I honestly believe that as much genuine chivalry exists in our Free States at this moment as there is or ever was in any part of the world, from the Crusaders down. I did not say a word when I was at home to Lewis Stackpole about his plans— but I was very glad Avhen he wrote to me that he had accepted a captaincy in Stevenson's regiment. I suppose by this time they are in the field. There, you see how truly I spoke when I said that I could write nothing to you worth hearing, while I, on the contrary, should be ever- hungering and thirsting to hear from you. Our thoughts are always in America, but I am obliged to rely upon you for letters. Sam Hooper promised to write (I am delighted to see, by the way, that he has been nominated, as I hoped would be the case, for Congress), and William Amory promised ; but you are the only one thus far who has kept promises. I depend on your generosity to send me very often a short note. No matter how short, it will be a living, fresh impression from the mint of your mind — a bit of pure gold worth all the copper counterfeits which circulate here in Europe. Nobody on this side the Atlantic has the faintest conception of our affairs. Let me hear from time to time, as often as you can, how you are impressed by the current events, and give me detail^ of such things as immediately interest you. Tell me all ab\ut Wendell. How does your wife stand her trials ? Give my\love to her and beg her to keep up a i)rave heart. Ssec olim meminisse juvdbit. And how will those aSCl.] ATTITUDE OP THE EUROPEAN POWERS. 43 youths who stay at home " account themselves accursed they were not there," when the great work has been done, as done it will be ! Of that I am as sure as that there is a God in heaven. What can I say to you of Cis- Atlantic things? I am almost ashamed to be away from home. You know that I decided to remain, and liad sent for my family to come to America, when my present appointment altered my plans. I do what good 1 ■can. I think I made some impression on Lord John Russell, with whom I spent two days soon after my arrival in England ; ^nd I talked very frankly, and as strongly as I could, to Lord Palmerston ; and I had long conversations and correspondences with other leading men in England. I also had an hour's talk with Thouvenel ^ in Paris, and hammered the Northern view into him as soundly as I could. For this year there will be no foreign interference with us, and I do not anticipate it at any •time, unless we bring it on ourselves by bad management, which I do not expect. Our fate is in our own hands, and Europe is looking on to see which side is the strongest. When it has made the discovery, it will back it as also the best and the most moral. Yesterday I had my audience with the Emperor. He received me with much cordiality, and seemed interested in a long account which I gave him of our affairs. You may suppose I inculcated the Northern views. We spoke in his vernacular, and he asked me afterwards if I was a ■German. I mention this not from vanity, but because he asked it with earnestness and as if it had a political significance. Of course, I undeceived him. His appearance interested me and his manner is very pleasing. Good-bye — all our loves to all. Ever your sincere friend, J. L. M. Remember me most kindly to the Club, one and all. I have loom for their names in my heart, but not in this page. * Minister of Foreign Affaira. 44 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II. From Br. 0. W. Holmes. Boston, November 2dth, 1861- My deae Motley, — I know you will let me begin with my personal story, for you have heard before this time about Bair& Bluff and its disasters, and among them that my boy came in for his honourable wounds. Wendell's experience was pretty well for a youngster of twenty, fie was standing in front of his men when a spent ball struck him in the stomach and knocked him flat, taking his wind out of him at the same time. He made shift to crawl off a little, the Colonel, at whose side he was standing, telling him to go to the rear. Presently he began to come right, and found he was not seriously injured. By the help of a sergeant he got up, and went to the front again. He had hardly been there two or three minutes when he was struck by a second ball, knocked down and carried off. His shirt was torn from him, and he was found to be shot through the heart — it was supposed through the lungs. The ball had entered exactly over the heart on the left side, and come out on the right side, where it was found — a minie ball. The surgeon thought he was mortally wounded; and he supposed so too. Next day better ; next after that, wrote me a letter. Had no bad symptoms, and it became evident that the ball had passed outside the cavities containing the heart and lungs. He got on to Philadelphia, where he stayed a week, and a fortnight ago yesterday I brought him to Boston on a bed in the cars. He is now thriving well, able to walk, but has a considerable open wound, which, if the bone has to exfoliate, will keep him from camp for many weeks at the least. A most narrow escape from instant death ! Wendell is a great pet in his character of young hero with wounds in the heart, and receives visits en grand seigneur. I envy my white Othello, with a semi-circle of young Desdemonas about him listening to the often told story which they will have over again. \ You know how well all our boys behaved. In fact, the defeat at Ball's Bluff, disgraceful as it was to the planners of J8C1.] THE "TKENT" AFFAIR. 45 the stupid sacrifice, is one as much to be remembered and to be proud of as that of Bunker Hill. They did all tliat men could be expected to do, and the courage and energy of some of the young captains saved a large number of men by getting them across the river a few at a time, at the imminent risk on their own part of being captured or shot while crossing. I can tell you nothing I fear of public matters that you do jiot know already. How often I thought of your account of the Great Armada, when our own naval expedition was off, and we were hearing news from all along the coast of the greatest gale which had blown for years ! It seemed a fatality, and the fears we felt were unutterable. Imagine what delight it was when we heard that the expedition had weathered the gale, and met with entire success in its most important object. To his Motlier. Vienna, December 1st, 18G1. My dearest Mother, — Your letter of November 5th reached us a few days ago. It is always a great delight to me to receive a note, however short, from your hand, and this time it was a nice, long, and very interesting letter. God knows how long we shall be able to correspond at all, for what I have been dreading more than anything else since our civil war began f?eems now, alas ! inevitable. Before this reaches you the Southerners have obtained an advantage which all their generals and diplomatists would not have procured for them in twenty years — the alliance of England and the assistance of her fleets and armies. As a technical point, I shall ever remain of opinion that a merchant ship like the Trent is no portion of neutral soil, and that therefore it is no asylum for any indivi- dual against a ship of war exercising its belligerent rights on the high seas. The jurisdiction of English merchant vessels is municipal, and extends only to its own subjects. It cannot legally protect the enemies of the United States against the United States Government. The law of nations prevails on 4G MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IL. the ocean, and the law of war is a part of that code. The law of war allows you to deal with your enemy where you can find him, and to intercept an ambassador on his passage to- a neutral country, provided you can do it without violating neutral soil. A ship of war is deemed a portion of its sove- reign's soil ; a merchantman is not ; so that if the Trent was not a ship of war, and was not within three miles of a neutral coast, I should say that the arrest of Mason and Slidell was- legal according to public laws and to the decisions of English admiralty, and according to the uniform practice of the English cruisers throughout the early part of this century. We know too well how many of our sailors were taken from our merchant vessels and compelled to serve against nations at peace with us. But all this signifies nothing. The English Crown-lawyers have decided that the arrest was illegal, and it is certainly not in accordance with the principles which we formerly sustained, although it is with the English practice. So England has at last the opportunity which a very large portion of its inhabitants (although not the whole, nor perhaps even a majority) have been panting for, and they step into the field with the largest fleet which the world has ever seen as champions and allies of the Southern Confederacy. If the commander of the Jacinto acted accord- ing to his instructions, I hardly see how we are to extricate ourselves from this dilemma, and it remains nevertheless true that Mason and Slidell have done us more damage now than they ever could have done as diplomatists. I am sorry to have taken up the whole of my letter with this theme. Our thoughts are of nothing else, and our life is in telegrams. I never expect another happy hour, and am almost broken- hearted. My whole soul was in the cause of the United States Government against this pro-slavery mutiny, and I never doubted our ultimate triumph; but if the South has now secured the alliance of England, a restoration of the Union becomes hopeless. We are on very good terms with the English Ambassador here and Lady Bloomfield, and they, as well as most of the members of the Embassy, have always expressed themselves 18C1.] THE ARREST OP SLIDELL AND MASON. 47 in the most frank and sympathetic language in regard to our Government and our cause, and even now that this incident has occurred, Lord Bloomfield, in discussing the matter with me last night, expressed the deepest regret, together with the most earnest hope that the affair might be arranged, although neither he nor I can imagine how such a result is to be reached. We are, as you may suppose, very unhappy, and have really nothing to say about our life here. If Vienna were l*aradise it would be gloomy under such circumstances. Mary and Lily are both well, and join me in much love to you and my father and all the family. I shall write by the next steamer, if only a single page like this. Perhaps the communications will be stopped before your answer can arrive. God bless you ! And believe me Your ever affectionate son, J. L. M. To his Second Daughter. Vienna, December Ist, 1861. My darling little Mary, — I am only writing you a note to say that we three are all well, but, as you may suppose, most unhappy. The prospect that our ports are to be blockaded by the English fleets, and no communications possible perhaps for years, fills us with gloom We have just received intelligence that the English Crown-lawyers have decided that the arrest of Mason and Slidell was illegal and an insult to England, and that the Government has decided to demand their liberation, together with an apology to them and com- pensation. This intelligence is only telegraphic, and may be exaggerated. If it prove genuine it is simply a declaration of war. From America our latest dates are a telegram, dated November 15th, announcing the arrival of Mason and Slidell at Fortress Monroe. If that, too, be correct, it shows that the Government had no intention of releasing them, and of course 48 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. II. cannot do so when summoned by England. Our next letters and newspapers should arrive to-morrow or next day, with dates to the 20th. With regard to the war, we have only the rumoured, but not authentic, intelligence that 15,000 men had been landed by the fleet at Beaufort. Now I must thank you for your nice, long, interesting letter of November 9-llth. I cannot tell you how much we all depend upon your letters. You are our only regular correspondent and mainstay. You cannot write too much, or give us too many details. Everything you tell us about persons is deeply interesting. Your affectionate Papagei.^ Tg Ms Second Daughter. December 10th, 1861. My dearest little Mary, — The cotton brokers and spinners have been making a great row about the blockade, and the Times, half ofScial organ of Government, has thrown off all disguise and comes out openly as the supporter of the Southern Confederacy through thick and thin, and clamours for war with America and cheap cotton and free trade with Charleston and New Orleans. Just now, nobody but Bright has the manliness to lift up his voice in the midst of the storm. You will see and read his magnificent speech; but he is hated and feared by the governing classes in England. I run on this way because I can think of nothing else. Perhaps this horrible danger may blow over. Since, I have had a letter from Mr. Adams, and feel a little calmer ; but I fear the voice of the mob in New York. I repeat we can avoid the war without dishonour by holding fast to the prin- ciples always maintained by us.^ As to the expediency of such a course, provided it be honourable, nobody out of a 1 " Parrot," a familiar signature to ^ This was the course taken by the his daughters. '■ Government of the United States. 1861.] THE CRISIS BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND, 49 lunatic asylum can doubt. God bless you, dear child ! write often and long letters ; we depend on our little " special cor- respondent." Give our love to Grandpapa and Grandmama, all our dear ones at home, great and small. Your affectionate Papa. To his Mother. ^ Vienna, I December 16th, 18G1. ]\Iy dearest ]\Iother. — It is painful to me to write under such circumstances, but I suppose it is better to send a line. While I write, we have not yet received a telegram of the steamer Asia, to leave December 4th, and to bring the Pre- sident's Message. Perhaps, before this note is posted this afternoon, it will arrive. The telegrams are always sent to me in manuscript by my banker here very soon after they arrive, and I cannot tell you the sickening feeling of anxiety with which we look at the little bit of folded paper brought in by a servant on a salver, which I always take up between my thumb and finger with loathing as if it were a deadly asp about to sting us. If the President does not commit the Government in his message I shall breathe again. I do not enter into the law or the history. I simply feel that if a war is to take place noiv between England and America, I shall be in danger of losing my reason. To receive at this distance those awful telegrams day by day announcing in briefest terms, bombard- ment of Boston ; destruction of the Federal fleet ; occupa- tion of Washington and New York by the Confederates and their English allies, and all these thousand such horrors, while I am forced to sit so far away, will be too much to bear. It is mere brag and fustian to talk about fighting England and the South at once, and I have a strong hope that Mr. Chase, who has to find the money, and General McClellan, who knows whether he has not already got enough on his own shoulders, will prevent this consummation of our ruin. If we are capable of taking a noble stand now, if we hold on to our traditional VOL. II. E 50 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [CiiAr. II. principle, the rights of neutrals and the freedom of the seas, instead of copying the ancient practice of England, we shall achieve the greatest possible triumph. We shall have peace by announcing to the world a high and noble policy, instead of desperate warfare by adopting an abominable one. The English Government has fortunately given us a chance by resting their case on the impropriety of allowing a naval officer to act as Judge of Admiralty.^ When I first wrote to you on this subject I had only a word or two of information by telegraph, and that was exaggerated. The English demand seemed a declaration of war. It appears that it is not so, and I have still a faint hope. I will say no more on the subject. We are beginning to get accustomed to Vienna. It is a sombre place at first, and our feelings about home just now would serve as a pall for the mansions of the blest. The diplomatic corps are all friendly and cordial and we are beginning to see something of the Viennese. But I have no heart for anything. God bless you, my dear mother ! Heaven grant that there may be some better news coming ! Your ever afiectionate son, J. L. M. P.S. — I have just got a telegram that the President does not mention the Trent affair. This is a blessed sign. 1 This point was treated fully in Minister, announcing tlie release of Mr. Seward's letter to the British Messrs. Slidell and Mason. ( 51 ) CHAPTER III. VIENNA (1862) — continued. Mr. Bright's letter on the Trent affair, negotiations, and on the blockade — Settlement of the Trent aff lir — The War and Slavery Party in England — Society in Vienna — Compared with tliat in London — Austrian sympathy witii the North— Letter from Dr. O. W. Holmes — The South and slavery — Mr. Conway — Letter from Lord Wensleydale on International Questions and Law — Vienna theatres — The privilege of prophesying — 'Songs in many keys ' — Feeling in England towards the North — Democracy in Eng- land and America — The prospect in America — Slavery must bo abolished — A policy of "Thorough'' — Lowell's 'Yankee Idyll' — The Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian — Letter from Dr. O. W. Holmes — Mr. Quincy — En- thusiasm on capture of Fort Donelson — Tlie Court in Vienna — " Compromise was killed at Sumter" — Achievements of the North — The Canal — ^The Monitor — General Burnside — Wliat is to come after the war ? — Reflections on the war — The Union must survive — Eijlogium of Lincoln — The Sove- reignty of tlie People — Louis Napoleon's endeavour to induce England to join in the war — General McClellan — The Richmond battles — Abraham Hayward — Letter from Dr. O. W. Holmes— Forecasts — Rumours from the front — Enthusiasm at Boston — Reflections on the war — General McClellan — Concentration of troops on the Rappahannock — Cedar Mount Battle - Letter from Mr. J. S. Mill on the war — Mr. Dicey's ' Notes of a Journey in America ' — Laws and rights of war — A letter from Mr. J. S. Mill — Liucoln's Anti-Slavery Proclamation — English and French sympatliy with tlie North — ^Action of the English Government — Incidents of the War — Elections in America — French policy — Letter from Dr. O. W. Holmes— The mischief of "Mercantile Materialism" — The Crown Princess of Prussia — Mr. Froudo's and T. Carlyle's Histories — General Wadsworth— Death of Mrs. d'Hautevillo — Results of Elections. Fi'om Mr. John Bright. Rochdale, January 9lh, 1862. I RECEIVED your letter with great pleasure, and I should have written to you sooner save for the sore anxiety which has pressed upon me of late in dread of the calamity from which escape seemed so unlikely. The news received here last night, if correct, gives us reason to believe that the imme- diate danger is over, and that your Government, looking only to the great interests of the Union, has had the wisdom and the courage to yield, in the face of menaces calculated to E 2 62 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. IIL excite the utmost passion, and such as it would not have been subjected to had the internal tranquillity of the Union been undisturbed. What has happened will leave a great griev- ance in the minds of your people, and may bear evil fruit hereafter — for there has been shown them no generosity such as became a friendly nation, and no sympathy with them in their great calamity. I must ask you, however, to understand that all Englishmen are not involved in this charge. Our ruling class, by a natural instinct, hates democratic and republican institutions, and it dreads the example of the United States upon its own permanency here. You have a sufficient proof of this in the violence with which I have been assailed because I pointed to the superior condition of your people, and to the economy of your Government, and to the absence of " foreign politics " in your policy, saving you from the necessity of great armaments and wars and debt. The people who form what is called " society " at the " West End " of London, whom you know well enough, are as a class wishful that your democratic institutions should break down^ and that your country should be divided and enfeebled. I am not guessing at this ; I know it to be true ; and it will require great care on the part of all who love peace to prevent further complications and dangers. The immediate effect of the discussions of the last month and of the moderation and courage of your Government has been favourable to the North, and men have looked with amazement and horror at the project of enlisting England on the side of slavedom ; and I am willing to hope that as your Government shows strength to cope with the insurrection, opinion here will go still more in the right direction. The only danger I can see is in the blockade and in the interruption of the supply of cotton. The Governments of England and France may imagine that it would relieve the industry of the two countries to raise the blockade ; but this can only be done by negotiation with your Government or by making war upon it. I don't see how your Government can at present consent to do it, and if it has some early success,[^the idea of war may be abandoned if it has already been entertained. I8G2.] SETTLEMENT OF THE "TRENT" AFFAIR. 53 Charleston Harbour is now a thing of the past; if New Orleans and IMobile were in possession of the Government, then the blockade might be raised without difficulty, for Savannah might, I suppose, easily be occupied. Trade might be interdicted at all other Southern ports and opened at New Orleans, Mobile, and Savannah under the authority of the Oovernment. Thus duties would begin to be received, and cotton would begin to come down, if there be any men in the interior who are disposed to peace and who prefer the Union and safety to secession and ruin. I hope all may go well. The whole human race has a deep interest in your success. The restoration of your Union and the freedom of the negro, or the complete control of what slavery may yet remain, are objects for which I hope with an anxiety not exceeded by that of any man born on American soil, and my faith is strong that I shall see them accomplished. I sent your message to Mr. Cobden ; he is anxious on the Wockade question ; but I hope his fears may not be realised. When you come back to England I shall expect to see you, and I trust by that time the sky may be clearer. I am very truly yours, John Bright. To Ms Second Daughter. Vienna, January I3th, 18G2. Dearest little Mary, — The cloud has blown over for the present, at least, and the war with England has been averted by the firmness, tact, prudence, and sense of right displayed by our Government. I have been thinking, talking, writing so much of this Trent affair, that I am determined not to fill my letters with it any longer now that it is settled. I will, however, make one observation in regard to England. We must not confound the eflbrts of the war faction in that country with the whole nation. By so doing we commit a great in- justice, and do ourselves an immense injury. There is a strong pro-slavery party in England which has almost thrown off all 54 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. Iir_ disguise in their fury in regard to the Trent aifair. This party seized upon the first plausible pretext that had been offered tO' them since our civil war began, and used it with all their energy to bring about the instant recognition of the Southern Confederacy, the raising of the blockade, and a destructive war against us. There has been a daily manifestation of pro- slavery sympathy in the Tory party in England, shared to a considerable extent by a certain portion of the Whigs. The course of the Grovernment of England has been courteous and proper, and we make a mistake in attributing too much im- portance to the manifestations of the press. As a member of the English Cabinet says to me in a letter written so soon as. the news of peace came, in order to express his joy and sympa- thise with mine : — " What mischief the press of both countries- has been doing ! Your people quote our Times ; we quote the New YorJc Herald, and mutual exasperation is natural enough." This is the Duke of Argyll, as sincere and warm a friend to America and to everything good in it as any one of our own countrymen. I had a letter from Layard, Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, written in the same spirit. There is no doubt that there is a large and strong party,, probably a majority, that hates the idea of a war with America, and is much relieved by the pacific termination to this- quarrel. On the other hand, no doubt, the pro-slavery faction is very active and noisy, and we shall have no end of efforts in the coming session of Parliament to procure the recognition of the slave confederacy. One thing is perfectly certain, if we continue to dally with the subject of emanci- pation much longer, and continue our efforts to suppress the rebellion without daring to lay a finger on its cause, we- shall have the slave confederacy recognized by all the govern- ments of lllurope before midsummer. The pro-slavery party in England dare not avow itself in favour of slavery, for that in- stitution is so odious to the great mass of the English nation as to consign any party openly supporting it to destruction ;. but it contents itself with persuading the public that slavery has nothing to do with secession, that the North is no more anti-slavery than the South, and that therefore all the sympa- 1862.] SOCIETY IN VIENNA AND LONDON. 55 thies of liberal Englishmen ought to be given to the weaker of the two sections which is striving by a war of self-defence to relieve itself from a tyrannical oppression, and so on. An answer to this insidious reasoning will, I hope, be soon fur- nished by the action of Congress. My dear child, I have been writing to you as if you were Mr. Seward or Abraham Lincoln, and I have half a mind to scratch your name from the top of the letter and substitute that of one of these worthies. However, you have become such a furious politician, that I daresay you will excuse such a long political letter. Your last letter, of December 23, gave us much pleasure, as do all your letters. You cannot give us too many details, or write too much or too often. We think of nothing but America now. I cannot tell you much about Vienna. Yesterday your mother and I went to a great diplomatic dinner at Prince Liechtenstein's. About thirty people, mostly dips. The Prince is kind-hearted, genial, with charming manners. The Princess very much the same. In the absence of the Court, on account of the illness of the Empress, they do a little entertaining in a kind of vice-regal way. Last week we all turned out in cocked-hats and laced coats to make an evening call, in order to express New Year's wishes and ask after the health of the Emperor and Empress. We had an extremely pleasant dinner at Prince Esterhazy's, and we dine occasionally with our colleagues of the diplomatic corps, many of whom are very agreeable. To-morrow night is the first ball of the season. It is the first of a set called pic-nics,* the Vienna Almack's subscription balls for the creme de la creme. Lily will give you an account of it when she writes next week. The winter is not likely to be gay, but I feel already a little better disposed to look for blue sky now that our Government, and especially our much-abused Secretary of State, have manifested so much magnanimity and real states- manship. I never felt so much confidence as I do now in the Washington authorities. 1 do not yet begin to enjoy society ! Much English society I regret almost to say, is very spoiling for any other kind 56 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chaf. III. Yet there is a great charm of manner about the Austrians. The great distinction between Vienna and London company- is that here the fine world is composed exclusively of folks of rank and title ; there, every illustration from the world of science, art, letters, politics, and finance mingle in full pro- portions with the patricians, and on equal terms. Society so constituted must be entertaining and instructive. To his Second Daughter. Vienna, January 22nd, 18G2. Deakest little Mary, — There is much sympathy for us in Austria, more I should say than in any country in Europe. The most widely-circulated journal of Vienna, Die Presse, has a leading article almost every day on the subject, as warm, as strong, as sympathetic, and as well informed even to the minutest details as if it were written in Washington or Boston. This moment I have been interrupted by a visit from a field marshal, whom I did not know, but who introduced himself to ask my advice about a young military friend who wished to serve in our army. Another gentleman called yesterday in behalf of a young man, son of one of the Ministers of the Grand Duchy of Baden. I receive letters daily from officers in all parts of Austria, and two or three warriors were here this morning before I was up. I could have furnished half-a-dozen regiments since I have been here, but of course I can only say that I have nothing to do with the War Department, and that any one who wishes to try his chance must betake himself to Washington. Lily has been to two or three balls, and enjoyed herself. The picnic balls, something like Almack's, are once a fort- night. The first took place last week, and Lily danced till three. She went with her mother, and I was allowed to stay at home, as it is not very amusing for an elderly party like me to look on at the mazy dance. Ever your affectionate Papagei. ?862.] SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH. 57 From Br, 0. W. Holmes. Boston, February 'Srd, 1802. .... We are the conquerors of nature — they ^ of nature's «A'eaker children. We thrive on reverses and disappointments. I have never believed they could endure them. Like Prince llupert's drops, the unannealed fabric of rebellion shuts an explosive element in its resisting shell that will rend it in })ieces as soon as its tail, not its head, is fairly broken o£f. That is what I think — I, safe prophet of a private correspon- dence, free to be convinced of my own ignorance and pre- sumption by events as they happen, and to prophesy again, for what else do we live for but to guess the future, in small things or great, that we may help to shape it or ourselves to it ? Your last letter was so full of interest by the expression of your own thoughts and the transcripts of those of your English friends, especially the words of John Bright — one of the two foreigners that I want to see and thank, the other being Count Gasparin — that I feel entirely inadequate to make any fitting return for it. I meet a few wise persons who for the most part know little ; some who know a good deal but are not wise. I was at a dinner at Parker's the other day, where Governor Andrew and Emerson and various 'unknown dingy-linened friends met to hear Mr. Conway, the not un- famous Unitarian minister of Washington, Virginia born, with seventeen secesh cousins, fathers and other relatives, tell of his late experiences at the seat of Government. He had talked a while with Father Abraham, who, as he thinks, is honest enough. He himself is an out-and-out immediate emancipa- tionist, believes that is the only way to break the strength of the South, that the black man is the life of the South, that the Southerners dread work above all things, and cling to the slave as the drudge that makes life tolerable to them. He believes that the blacks know all that is said and done with reference to them in the North ; that their longing for free- dom is unutterable ; that once assured of it under Northern protection, the institution would be doomed. I don't know * The Confederates. 58 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. whether you remember Conway's famous " One Path " sermon of six or eight years ago. It brought him immediately into notice. I think it was Judge Curtis (Ben) who commended it to my attention. He talked with a good deal of spirit. I know you would have gone with him in his leading ideas. Speaking- of the communication of knowledge among the slaves, h& said if he were on the Upper Mississippi and proclaimed emancipation, it would be told in New Orleans before the telegraph would carry the news there. I am busy with my lectures at the college, and don't se& much of the world, but I will tellyou what I see and hear from time to time, if you like to have me. I gave your message to the Club, who always listen with enthusiasm when your name is mentioned. My boy is here still, detailed on recruiting duty, quite well. I hope you are all well, and free from all endemic irritations such as Sir Thomas Brown refers- to when he says that " cholical persons will find little comfort in Austria or Vienna." With kindest remembrances to you all, Yours always, 0. W. H. From Lord Wensleydale. Ampthill, Fehruary 7th, 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 in- formation 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 ate now all at Vienna together, which is much more satisfactory! no doubt, to you and your friends. I hope fovL all found it as agreeable as we did on two different occasions when we spent some days there in 1835 I 1862.] IXTERNATION'AL QUESTIONS. 51> and 1853. To be sure you do not live among a free people, as you and 1 have been accustomed to do, but you live, as I have found, amongst 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 daresay 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 for ever! Your im- mediate 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 pro- voked 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 endeavour 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 relels. We lawyers feel rather inclined to be surprised that so much bad inter- national 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. IMost of them relied upon a dictum of Lord Stowell, not fully explained in our treatises on inter- national law, viz., that ambassadors were seizable whilst pro- ceeding 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. 60 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III. The last despatches of Earl Eussell, stating the legal argu- ment, are very good — all the legal parts the Solicitor-General's, Eoundell Palmer. This was mentioned last night in the House of Lords. I hope Avhat 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, AVensleydale. To his Second Daughter. Vieuna, February 16th, 1862. My daeling Maky, — You complain of not getting letters often enough, and you think I might write more than I do. But, my dear child, you must remember how little of interest we have to speak to you about, and how many correspond- ents. I have this moment counted the letters lying un- answered on my table. There are seventeen. And yet I write letters all day long. I do not complain, for I am so greedy to receive letters from America that I am very willing to do my part in the correspondence. You are where all our interests and all our thoughts are. Here, when I have told you that your mamma and Lily and I are well, and that Susie was jolly by the last accounts, I have said all. Our life is very humdrum. Once in a while we dine out, not very often, and the dinner is not an institution as in London. The hour is generally five, and it is all over by seven, for that is the hour at which the theatre begins, and everybody thinks it necessary to go, qt to make believe to go, either to the opera 18C2.] VIENNA THEATRES. CI or the theatre. Both these houses are very small for a large town, and all the boxes are taken by the season, so that it is only when some of our friends send us a box that we can go. In self-defence, when the season for hiring arrives, we must take one. The opera house is tolerably good, the singing so-so. The theatre, the Burg Theatre, as it is called, because it makes part of the Imperial castle or palace, is the funniest, shabbiest, ramshackle old place you can imagine. The chandelier would hardly give sufficient light for an ordinary saloon. There are two little rows of about a dozen oil lamps in it, and one with a few more. You can hardly see across the house, although it is very narrow and as straight as an omnibus. All your friends and acquaintances are in the boxes, and you can just discern their noble features glimmering through the darkness. En revanche the acting is excellent. Every part is well sus- tained in comedy and farce, and there are one or two rather remarkable actors. I have not yet seen a tragedy; we are sufficiently dismal in the world without weeping over fictitious woes. On the whole, there is something to my mind rather aristocratic and imperial in this very shabby dingy little theatre, with its admirable acting, with its boxes filled with Archdukes and Princes and Ambassadors. You can have gorgeously gilt, brand-new theatres anywhere in Paris or Buffalo, but you would find it difficult to find so select a set of actors and spectators. Lily has been to a few balls, all that have been given, the picnics — five of them subscription assemblies, like Almack's or Papanti's. The last one — the most brilliant of the season — at ]\[arquis Pallavicini's, she lost, because it was on a Sunday. To-morrow night we go to one at Prince Schwarzenberg's, which will be very fine, I doubt not, and, as they say, the last of the season. You see we do not lead very dissipated lives. We take the deepest interest in American affairs. In truth, we never think or talk of anything else. Your loving Papa. ^2 jrOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. To Br. 0. W. Holmes. Legation of the U.S. America, Vienna, February 2Gth, 1862. My deae Holmes, — You are the most generous and de- lightful of correspondents and friends. I have two long and most interesting letters of yours to acknowledge. The first of 7th January, the second of 3rd February. They are exactly the kind of letters which I most value. I want running commentaries on men and events produced on such a mind as yours by the rapidly developing history of our country at its most momentous crisis. I take great pleasure in reading your prophecies, and intend to be just as free in hazarding my own, for, as you so well say, our mortal life is but a string of guesses at the future, and no one but an idiot would be discouraged at finding himself sometimes far out in his calculations. If I find you signally right in any of your predictions, be sure that T will congratulate and applaud. If you make mistakes, you shall never hear of them again, and I promise to forget them. Let me ask the same indulgence from you in return. This is what makes letter-writing a comfort and journalism dangerous. For this reason, especially as I am now in an official position, I have the greatest horror lest any of my crudities should get into print. I have also to acknowledge the receipt of a few lines by Wendell. They gave me very great pleasure. I am delighted to hear of his entire recovery, and I suppose you do not object, so much as he does, to his being detained for a time from camp by recruiting service. I shall watch his career with deep interest. Just now we are intensely anxious about the Burnside expe- dition, of which, as you know, my nephew Lewis Stackpole is one. He is almost like my son. I feel very proud of his fine intellectual and manly qualities, and although it is a sore trial to his mother to part with him, yet I am sure that she would in future days have regretted his enrolment in the '•' stay-at-home rangers." That put me in mind to acknowledge the receipt of ' Songs in many Keys.' It lies on our drawing-room table, and is 1802.] 'SONGS IN MANY KEYS.' 63 constantly in our hands. I cannot tell you how much pleasure I derived from it. Many of the newer pieces I already know by heart, and admire them as much as you know I have always (lone their predecessors. The * Ballad ' is in a new vein for you, and is I think most successful. If I might venture to mention the separate poems by name which most please me, I should certainly begin with * Iris, her Book,' ' Under the Violets,* 'The Voiceless,' which are full of tenderness and music. Then the clarion ring of the verses for the centennial celebration of Burns has an immense charm for me, and so the trumpet tones of the * Voice of the Loyal North '; but I should go on a long time if I tried to express my honest and hearty admiration for the volume as fully as it deserves. I thank you most sincerely for it, and I assure you that you increase in fulness and power and artistic finish without losing any of your youthful freshness of imagination. I am glad that the Emperor had the sense to appreciate your * Vive la France.' I agree with him that it is "plain d' inspiration and exceedingly happy." I admire it the more because for the moment it communicated to me the illusion under the spell of which you wrote it. For of course France hates us as much as England does, and Louis Napoleon is capable of playing us a trick at any moment. I am obliged to reason like a Cosmopolite. The English have a right to hate America if they instinctively feel that the existence of a great, powerful, prosperous, democratic republic is a standing menace to the tenure of their own privi- leges. I think the instinct false, however, to a certain extent. Physical, historical, and geographical conditions make our democratic commonwealth a possibility, while they are nearly all wanting in England. I do not think the power or glory or prosperity of the English monarchy any menace to our insti- tutions. I think it an unlucky and unreasoning perverseness which has led the English aristocracy to fear our advance in national importance. I do not mean that, on the whole, the Government has behaved ill to us. Especially international dealings with us have been courteous and conciliatory. I like personally English ways, English character, Englishmen and 64 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. Ill . Englisliwomen. It is a great empire in arts and arms, and their hospitalities are very pleasant. Nevertheless I love my own country never so much as at this moment. Never did I feel so strong a faith in her destiny as now. Of John Bright we have already spoken, and of the daily and noble battle waged for us by the Daily News (which I hope you read) ; and now how must we all rejoice at the magnificent essay in. Fraser's Magazine by the acknowledged chief of English thinkers, John Stuart Mill ! It is awful to reflect that the crisis of our fate is so rapidly approaching. The ides of March will be upon us before this letter reaches you. We have got to squash the rebellion soon, or be squashed for ever as a nation — aut fer, aut feri. I do not pretend to judge military plans or the capacity of generals ; but, as you suggest, perhaps I can take a more just view of the whole picture of this eventful struggle at this great dis- tance than do those absolutely acting and suffering in the scene. Nor can I resist the desire to prophesy any more than you do, knowing that I may prove utterly mistaken. I say, then, our great danger comes from foreign interference. What will prevent that ? — Our utterly defeating the Confederates in some great and conclusive battle, or our possession of the cotton ports and opening them to European trade, or a most unequi- vocal policy of slave emancipation. Any one of these three conditions would stave off recognition by foreign Pow ers until we had ourselves abandoned the attempt to reduce the South to obedience. The last measure is to my mind the most important. The South has, by going to war with the United States Govern- ment, thrust into our hands against our will the invincible weapon which constitutional reasons had hitherto forbidden us to employ. At the same time, it has given us the power to remedy a great wrong to four millions of the human race, in which we had hitherto been obliged to acquiesce. We are threatened with national annihilation, and defied to use the only means of national preservation. The question is distinctly proposed to us. Shall slavery die or the Great Bepublic? It is most astounding to me that there can be 1862.] SLAVERY MUST BE ABOLISflED. 65 two opinions in the Free States as to the answer. If we do fall, we deserve our fate. At the beginning of the contest, constitu- tional scruples might be respectable. But now we are fighting to subjugate the South, that is slavery. AVe are fighting for the Union. Who wishes to destroy the Union ? The slave- holders. Nobody else. Are we to spend 1200 millions and raise 600,000 soldiers in order to 'protect slavery ? It really does seem to me too simple for argument. I am anxiously waiting for the coming Columbus who will set this Qgg of ours on end by smashing in the slavery end. We shall be rolling about in every direction until that is done. I do not know that it is to be done by proclamation. Kather perhaps by facts. Well, I console myself by thinking that the people, the American people at least, is about as wise collectively as less numerous collections of individuals, and that the people has really decreed emancipation and is only puzzling how to carry it into efi'ect. After all it seems to be a law of Providence that progress should be by a spiral move- ment, so that when we seem most tortuous we may perhaps be going ahead. I am firm in the faith that slavery is now wriggling itself to death. With slavery in its primitive vigour I should think the restored Union neither possible nor desirable. Do not understand me as not taking fully into account all the strategical considerations against prema- ture governmental utterances on this great subject. But are there any trustworthy friends of the Union among the slaveholders ? Should we lose many Kentuckians and Virginians who are now with us if we boldly confiscated the slaves of all rebels ? and a confiscation of property which has legs and so confiscates itself at command, is not only a legal, but would prove a very practical, measure in time of war. In brief, the time is fast approaching, I think, when " Thorough " should be written on all our banners. Slavery will never accept a subordinate position. The Grreat Kepublic and slavery cannot both survive. We have been defied to mortal combat, and yet we hesitate to strike. These are my poor thoughts on this great subject. Perhaps you will think them crude. I was much struck with what you quote from Mr. Conway, VOL. II. F 66 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. III. that if emancipation was proclaimed on the Upper Mississippi it would be known to the negroes of Louisiana in advance of the telegraph. And if once the blacks had leave to run, how many whites would have to stay at home to guard their dissolving property ? You have had enough of my maunderings. But before I conclude them, may I ask you to give all our kindest regards to Lowell, and to express our admiration for the 'Yankee Idyll' ? I am afraid of using too extravagant language if I say all I think about it. Was there ever anything more stinging, more concentrated, more vigorous, more just ? He has condensed into those few pages the essence of a hundred diplomatic papers and historical disquisitions and 4th July orations. I have very pleasant relations with all the "J. B.'s " ^ here. They are all friendly and well disposed to the North. I speak of the Embassy, which, with the Ambassador and dress, numbers eight or ten souls, some of them very intellectual ones. Shall I say anything of Austria? What can I say that would interest you ? That is the reason why I hate to write. All my thoughts are in America. Do you care to know about the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian (if L. N.^ has his way). He is next brother to the Emperor ; but although I have had the honour of private audience of many archdukes here, this one is a resident of Trieste. He is about thirty, has an adven- turous disposition, some imagination, a turn for poetry — has voyaged a good deal about the world in the Austrian ship of war, for in one respect he much resembles that unfortunate but anonymous ancestor of his, the King of Bohemia, with the seven castles, who, according to Corporal Trim, had such a passion for navigation and sea aifairs, " with never a seaport in all his dominions." But now the present King of Bohemia has got the sway of Trieste, and Ferdinand Maximilian has been resident there, and is Lord High Admiral and chief of the Marine Department. He has been much in Spain and also in South America. I have read some travels- — * Keise Skizzen ' — of his, printed, not published. They are not without talent, ' Cf. ' Jonathan to John,' in the ' Biglow Papers.' * Louis Napoleon. 1862.] ARCHDUKE FERDINAND MAXIMILIAN. 67 and he ever and anon relieves his prose jog-trot by breaking into a canter of poetry. He adores bull-fights, rather regrets the Inquisition, and considers the Duke of Alva everything noble and chivalrous and the most abused of men. It would do your heart good to hear his invocations to that deeply injured shade, his denunciations of the ignorant and vulgar, Protestants who have defamed him. " Du armer Alva ! weil du dem Willen deines Herren unerschiitterlich treu warst, weil die fest bestimmten Grundsiitze der Kegierung," etc., etc., etc. You can imagine the rest. (N.B. — Let me observe that the D. E. was not published until long after the 'Keise Skizzen ' were written.) Dear me, I wish I could get back to the 16th and 17th centuries ! If once we had the " rebels licked, Jeff. Davis hanged, and all," I might shunt myself back to my old rails. But alas ! the events of the 19th century are too engrossing. If Lowell cares to read this letter, will you allow me to make it over to him jointly, as Captain Cuttle says ? I wished to write to him, but I am afraid only you would tolerate my writing so much when I have nothing to say. If he would ever send me a line I should be infinitely obliged, and would quickly respond. We read the * Washers of the Shroud ' with fervent admiration. Always remember me most sincerely to the Club, one and all. It touches me nearly when you assure me that I am not forgotten by them. To-morrow is Saturday, and last of the month} We are going to dine with our Spanish colleague.^ But the first bumper of the Don's champagne I shall drain to the health of the Parker House friends. Mary and Lily join me in kindest regards to you and all yours ; and I am as always, Sincerely your friend, J. L. M. ' The Club dinner took place on that day. ' M. de la Torre Ayllon. p 2 68 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. From Dr. 0. W. Holmes. Boston, March Sth, 1862. My dear Motley, — I have been debating with myself whether to wait for further news from Nashville, the Burnside expedition, Savannah, or somewhere, before writing you, and came to the conclusion that I will begin this February 24th, and keep my letter along a few days, adding whatever may turn up, with a reflection thereupon. Your last letter, as I told you, was of great interest in itself, and for the extracts it contained from the letters of your correspondents. I lent it to your father and your brother Edward, and a few days ago to William Amory, at his particular request. Calling on old Mr. Quincy two days ago, we talked of you. He desired me most expressly and repeatedly to send his regards and respects. I think I am pretty near the words, but they were very cordial and distinguishing ones, certainly. He takes -^e greatest interest in your prosperity and fame, and you know that the greatest of men have not many nonagenarian admirers. It is nine weeks, I think, since Mr. Quincy fell and fractured the neck of the thigh-bone, and he has been on his back ever since. But he is cheerful, ready to live or die ; considers his later years as an appendix to the opus of his life, that he has had more than he bargained for when he accepted life. As you might suppose it would be at ninety, though he greatly rejoices at our extraordinary successes of late, he does not think we are " out of the woods," as he has it, yet. A defeat, he thinks, would take down our spirits as rapidly as they were raised. " But I am an old man," he says, " and to be sure an old man cannot help seeing the uncertainties and difficulties which the excitable public overlook in its exaltation." Never was such ecstasy, such delirium of excitement as last Monday, a week ago to-day, when we got the news from Fort Donelson. Why, to give you an instance from my own experience — when I, a grave college professor, went into my 18G2.] THE COURT IN VIENNA. 69 lecture-room, the class, which had first got the news a little before, began clapping and clapping louder and louder, then cheering, until I had to give in myself, and flourishing my wand in the air, joined with the boys in their rousing hurrahs, after which I went on with my lecture as usual. The almost universal feeling is that the rebellion is knocked on the head ; that it may kick hard, even rise and stagger a few paces, but that its 08 frontis is beaten in. The last new thing is the President's IMessage, looking to gradual compensated emancipation. I don't know how it will be received here, but the effect will be good abroad. John Stuart Mill's article in Fraser has delighted people here more than anything for a good while. I suppose his readers to be the best class of Englishmen. Yours always, 0. W. H. To his Second Daughter. Vienna, March 16th, 1862. Darling little Woggins, — Lily has told you something, I daresay, about this society. The young ladies are a power here. They are called "Comtessen," for of course no one is supposed to have a lower rank. They have been very civil to Lily, and this is thought a great wonder, for it is not the rule but the exception. But there is not much advance beyond the circumference of society. There is no Court this winter. When the Empress's health permits her to be in Vienna, there is one Court ball in the year, to which diplomates are asked, and two a week to which they are not asked. The society, by which, of course, I mean the creme de la crhne, is very small in number and much intermarried. The parties are almost like family parties ; but you must confine yourself to this society, for they never mix with what is called the second society. So far as manner goes, nothing can be more natural or high bred than that of the Viennese aristocracy. And there is no such thing as literary or artistic circles. In 70 MOTLEY'S LETTERS, [Chap. III. short, you must be intimate with the Pharaohs or stay at home. Now I have painted the picture, I think, truthfully. Lily came out in England, and has never been out in America. She longs to be there, and will go, if we can manage it, before next winter. If you should decide to come, however, she would stay, for you would get on much better with her assistance, as she already knows familiarly all the Comtessen. As for our- selves, we do not care much for society. The pleasantest things we have here are our occasional dinners. Most of our colleagues have invited us. I have not been able to pay my debts this year, as my apartments are not fit to give diplo- matic dinners in. Next winter I hope to clear oif the score. I think we have dined three times at Viennese houses — once at Prince Esterhazy's, once at Prince Liechtenstein's, and once at Baron Eothschild's. I must except our bankers, who ask us very often, and give very pleasant dinners. Everybody goes to the Burg Theatre every evening. The opera is not very good, but the house is better. Moreover, the Viennese are under the impression that they are going to have a new opera-house. The foundation is dug. Yesterday we invited our American monde to dine, to celebrate our victories, of which you may suppose our heads and hearts are full. The Americans are very few in number here. Besides Mr. Lippitt, Secretary of Legation, and Mr. Delaplaine, there were three young medical students, Kopes of Boston, Walcot of Salem, and Caswell of Providence, and the consul, Mr. Canisius, and Mr. Thayer, who has lived here a good while, a studious hermit kind of life, engaged in writing the life of Beethoven. We like him very much. We are intensely anxious for American news, and the stdamers in this stormy season make long passages. Your affectionate Papa. 18C2.] NO COMPROMISE. 71 To his Mother. Vienna, March IGlh, 1862. My dearest Mother. — Before this reaches you it is pro- bable that the great tragedy will have approached its fifth act, for the grapple with the Confederates on the Potomac can scarcely be deferred much longer. I feel awfully anxious when I think that this great struggle is perhaps even now taking place, although I have full confidence as to the issue. This secession was always a rotten, rickety concern, based entirely or mainly on the confident hope of assistance from England and France. The blunder of Captain Wilkes came very near giving them this advantage ; but since this alarm- ing matter was satisfactorily adjusted there has been no hope for the rebellion in Europe. France and England have made their minds up to await the issue of the present campaign. But I am much more anxious as to the possible policy of the Government. I live in daily dread of hearing that hideous word " compromise " trumpeted to the world. Slavery is bad enough as an enemy, but the Lord deliver us from it as a friend ! If we do not smash the accursed institution now that we have the means, we shall have the rebellion back again before we have been six months at peace, and we shall deserve our fate. However, I comfort myself with the reflection that revolutions of this kind do not go back- wards very often. The majority which elected Lincoln in 1860 is larger now than it was then, and I believe the 600,000 volunteers who have turned out from their peaceful homes to fight slavery and nothing else, will all come home determined abolitionists. Slavery has trampled upon the con- stitution, aimed its murderous blows against the very heart of our nation, turned a prosperous and happy land into a hell, plunged us over head and ears in debt, and for all these favours I do not think that we shall be for giving it anything but the coup de grace under its fifth rib. It is rather late in the day for it to talk about constitutional guarantees. Last March was the time for that. Compromise was killed at Sumter. \ 72 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. The carnival being ended there is an end to balls. There are now evening receptions, several in the week, and Lily rather enjoys them. She would like to make a visit to America, too, and will do so if it can be managed, although it is hard to isolate ourselves from our children for so long. Vienna is like another planet. One of Lily's partners asked her if Boston was near the river Amazon ? This was rather a geographical achievement for Vienna, as after all the Amazon is in America. Ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. From Br. 0. W. Holmes. Boston, April 27th, 1862, ' My dear Motley, — I saw Lowell day before yesterday, and asked him if he had written as you requested and as I begged him to do. He told me he had, and I congratulated you on having a new correspondent to bring you into intelligent relations with American matters, as seen through a keen pair of Boston eyes, and a new channel through which your intense sympathies can be reached. I trust that between us you can be kept pretty well supplied with that particular kind of knowledge which all exiles want, and which the newspapers do not give ; knowledge of things, persons, affairs public and private, localised, individualised, idiosyncratised, from those whose ways of looking at matters you know well, and from all whose statements and guesses you know just what to discount to make their "personal equation" square with your own. The general conviction now, as shown in the talk one hears, in the tone of the papers, in the sales of Government stocks, is that of fast-growing confidence in the speedy discomfiture of the rebels at all points. This very morning we have two rebel stories that New Orleans has surrendered, its forts having been taken after some thirty hours' attack. At the same time comes the story that the rebels are falling back from Corinth. . Both seem altogether probable, but whether true or not the \ 1802] ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NORTH. 73 feeling is very general now that we are going straight to our aims, not, perhaps, without serious checks from time to time, but irresistibly and rapidly. The great interior communica- tions of the rebels are being broken up. General Mitchell has broken the vertebral column of the Memphis and Charles- town railroad, and while McClellan with 130,000 men or more is creeping up to Yorktown with his mounds and batteries, we see McDowell, and Banks, and Burnside drawing in gradually and sweeping the rebels in one vast hattue before them. On the Mississippi, again, and its tributaries, our successes have made us confident. We do not now ask whether, but when. That truly magnificent capture of " No. 10 " has given us all a feeling that we are moving to our ends as fate moves, and that nothing will stop us. I think the cutting of that canal through the swamps and forests ranks with the miracles of this war, with the Monitor achievement, and with the Burnside exploit, which last was so heroically carried out in the face of storms such as broke up the Spanish Armada. As for the canal — no doubt we see things in exaggerated proportions on this side — but to me the feat is like that of Cyrus, when he drew off the waters of the Euphrates and marched his army through the bed of the river. So of the Monitor — " Minotaur" old Mr. Quincy said to me, " it should have been " — its appear- ance in front of the great megalosaurus or deinotherium, which came out in its scaly armour that no one could pierce, breathing fire and smoke from its nostrils ; is it not the age of fables and of heroes and demigods over again ? And all this makes me think of our " boys," as we used to call our men, who are doing the real work of the time — your nephews, my son, and our many friends. We have not heard so much of the cavalry, to which I believe Law- rence is attached. But Burnside ! how you must have followed him in the midst of storm, of shipwreck, of trial by thirst, if not by famine, of stormy landings on naked beaches, through Eoanoke, through Newbeme, until at last we find him knock- ing at the back door that leads to Norfolk, and read this very day that the city is trembling all over in fear of an attack from him, while Fort Macon is making ready at the 74 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. Ul. other end of his field of labour to follow Pulaski. I have heard of Lewis Stackpole ; at one time they said his knee troubled him, that he was not able to march as he would like ; but you must know more about this than I do. Of course, my eyes are on the field before Yorktown. The last note from my boy was on a three-cornered scrap of paper, and began, " In the woods, near the enemy." It was cheery and manly. Wendell came home in good health, but for his wound, which was well in a few weeks, but the life he led here was a very hard one — late hours, excitement all the time — and I really thought that he would be better in camp than fretting at his absence from it, and living in a round of incessant over- stimulating society. I think he finds camp life agree with him particularly well. Did you happen to know anything of Captain Bartlett, of the 20th ? I suppose not. He was made a captain when a junior in our college ; a remarkable military taste, talent, and air. He lost his leg the other day, when setting pickets before Yorktown. His chief regret was not being able to follow the fortunes of the army any longer. I meant to have told you that my boy was made a captain the other day. He does not care to take the place, being first lieutenant under his most intimate friend Hallowell. The two want to go into battle together, like Nisus and Euryalus. How our little unit out of tke six or seven hundred thousand grows in dimensions as we talk or write about it ! I wish I could give you an idea of the momentary phase of the public mind as X see its manifestations here, which are probably not unlike those elsewhere. I will tell you one thing which strikes me. People talk less about what is going on and more quietly. There is, as I said, a feeling that the curtain is like to drop pretty soon on the first act of the drama, that the military part of the play will be mainly over in a few months. Not extermination, nor pacification, per- haps, but ex^tinction of the hopes of the rebels as to anything they can do tyith great armies in the field, and the consequent essential break up of the rebellion. But a2:>res ? That, of course, is exercising those who have done croaking about the 1SC2.] REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR. 75 war. I dined at last week, with the Friday Club, and sat next . He was as lugubrious on what was to come after the war as he was a year ago with respect to its im- mediate danger. Then he could hardly boar to think that so accomplished an officer as General Lee was to be opposed to our Northern leaders. Yet who troubles himself very parti- cularly about General Lee nowadays ? He thinks there are to be such hatreds between North and South as have not been since the times of the Greek Eepublic. I suppose seventy years must be at the bottom of all this despondency — not that everybody does not see terrible difficulties. But let us fight this quarrel fairly out, not patch it up, and it will go hard but we will find some way of living together in a continent that has so much room as this. Of the precise mode no man knoweth. . . . Yours always, 0. W. H. To his Mother. Vienna, June dth, 1862. My dearest Mother, — I am pretty busy now with my History, and work on regularly enough, but of course I am dis- turbed by perpetual thoughts about our own country. I am convinced, however, that it is a mistake in us all to have been expecting a premature result. It is not a war ; it is not exactly a revolution ; it is the sanguinary development of great political and social problems, which it was the will of the Great Euler of the Universe should be reserved as the work of the generation now on the stage and their immediate successors. The more I reflect upon this civil war, and try to regard it as a series of historical phenomena, disengaging myself for the moment from all personal feelings or interests, the more I am con- vinced that the conflict is the result of antagonisms, the violent collision of which could no longer be deferred, and that its duration must necessarily be longer than most of us anticipated. In truth, it is almost always idle to measure a sequence of great historical events by the mere lapse of 76 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. time whicli does very well to mark the ordinary succession of commonplace human affairs. The worst of it is, so far as we are all individually concerned, that men are short lived, while man is immortal even on the earth, for aught that we know to the contrary. It will take half a century, perhaps, before the necessary conclusion to the great strife in which we are all individually concerned has been reached, and there are few of us now living destined to see the vast result. But it is of little consequence, I suppose, to the Supreme Disposer whether Brown, Jones, and Eobinson understand now or are likely to live long enough to learn what he means by the general scheme according to which he governs the universe in which we play for a time our little parts. If we do our best to find out, try to conform ourselves to the inevitable, and walk as straight as we can by such light as we honestly can get for ourselves, even though it be but a tallow candle, we shall escape tumbling over our noses more than half-a-dozen times daily. I look at the mass of the United States, and it seems im- possible for me to imagine for physical and geographical and ethnographical reasons that its territory can be permanently cut up into two or more independent governments. A thousand years ago this happened to Europe, and the result was the parcelling out of two or three hundred millions of human creatures into fifty or five hundred (it matters not how many) different nations, who thus came to have different languages religions, manners, customs, and histories. As I am not writing a historical lecture, and as I am a wonderful son who can always astonish his mother with his wisdom, it will be sufficient for my present audience to say that not one of the causes which ten centuries ago disintegrated and decomposed the European world with a territory about the size of the United States, and with essentially the same population, is present at this mon^ent in America. The tendency of the age everywhere, and the strongest instinct of the American people, is to consolidation, unification. It is the tendency of all the great scientific discoveries and improvements which make the age of utilitarianism at which we have arrived. I do not 1SG2.] THE UNION MUST SURVIVE. 77 believe the American people (of course I mean a large majority) will ever make such asses of themselves as to go to work in the middle of the nineteenth century and establish a Chinese wall of custom-houses and forts across the widest part of the American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and keep an army of 300,000 men perpetually on foot, with a navy of corresponding proportion, in order to watch the nation on the south side of the said Chinese wall, and fight it every half-dozen years or so, together with its European allies. The present war, sanguinary and expensive as it is, even if it lasts ten years longer, is cheaper both in blood and in money than the adoption of such a system ; and I am so much of a democrat (far more now than I ever was in my life) as to feel confident that the great mass of the people will instinctively perceive that truth, and act in accordance with it. There- fore I have no fear that it will ever acknowledge a rival sovereignty to its own. The Union I do not believe can be severed. Therefore I believe the war must go on until this great popular force has beaten down and utterly annihilated the other force which has arranged itself in plump opposition to it. The world moves by forces. The popular force — where land is half a dollar an acre and limitless in supply — for a century to come must prove irresis- tible. How long the conflict will last I know not, but slavery must go down and free labour prevail at last ; but those of us whose blood is flowing or whose hearts are aching (like Mrs. W. D 's, for instance, mother of heroes) may find it small consolation that the United States of 1900 will be a greater and happier power than ever existed in the world, thanks to the sacrifices of this generation. But we have only to accept the action of great moral and political forces even as we must instinctively those of physical nature. There, you see what I am reduced to in the utter lack of topics. Instead of writing a letter I preach a sermon. We are going on very quietly. There is nothing doing now. Vienna has decanted itself into the country, and we are left like " lees for the vault to brag of." The summer, after much preliminary sulking and blustering, seems willing to begin, and our garden is a 78 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. great resource. There is small prospect of a war in Europe. The poor Poles will be put down at last. What is called moral influence will be bestowed upon them by England and France as generously as the same commodity has been bestowed upon our slaveholders, and it will do about as much good. Fine words have small effect on Cossacks or parsnips. Give our love to the governor and to all the family far and near, and with a boundless quantity for yourself, I am, my dearest mother, Ever your most affectionate son, J. L. M. To Ms Second Daughter. Marien Villa, Voslau bei Wieu, June 22nd, 1862. Daeling kleine Maey, — Your letter of June 1st from Washington was most delightful. Every word of it was full of interest, and every sentiment expressed in it is very just and quite according to my heart. . . . The copy of your little note from the President touched me very much. I have the most profound respect for him, which increases every day. His wisdom, courage, devotion to duty, and simplicity of character seem to me to embody in a very striking way all that is most noble in the American character and American destiny. His administration is an epoch in the world's history, and I have no more doubt than I have of my exist- ence that the regeneration of our Kepublic for a long period to come will date from his proclamation calling out the first 75,000 troops more than a year ago. That proclamation was read " amid bursts of laughter by the rebel congress " ; but people do not laugh at Abraham Lincoln now in any part of the world, whatever else they may do or say. \^ Your affectionate P. 18G2.] THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE TEOPLE. 79 To his Mother. Legation of the United States, Vienna, June '60th, 1862. My dearest Mother, — It is a long time since I wrote to you, and I am only writing a little note at this moment, for I would not let this steamer go without a word of aflfection and greeting. But the life here is so humdrum, while yours on that side of the ocean is so crowded with great events, that it is always with reluctance that I sit down to write to any one. Our life here (Voslau) is very retired, and therefore very agreeable, for we can devote ourselves to our own pursuits, the principal part of which, as you may suppose, is reading the American journals. I try to work at my History, and have really succeeded in getting my teeth into the subject; but the great events of our own day in our country are so much more absorbing, that I find it difficult to make much progress. As for European politics, except in their bearing on our own affairs, they are pale and uninteresting to me, although so important for the Europeans themselves as to prevent their giving sufficient attention to the American war. The conse- quence is that public ignorance on that subject is amazing. I do not mean that we had any right to expect that they would sympathise with the great movement now going on in America. The spectacle of a great people going forth in its majesty and its irresistible power to smite to the dust the rebellion of a privileged oligarchy, is one so entirely contrary to all European notions that it is hopeless to attempt making it understood. All European ideas are turned upside down by the mere statement of the proposition which is at the bottom of our war. Hitherto the " sovereignty of the people " has been heard of in Europe, and smiled at as a fiction, very much as we smile on our side of the water at that other little fiction, the divine right of kings. But now here comes re- bellion against our idea of sovereignty, and fact on a large scale is illustrating our theoretic fiction. Privilege rebels, and the sovereign people orders an army of half a milliou to smash the revolt. 80 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III. Here is the puzzle for the European mind. Whoever heard before in human history of a rebellion, except one made by the people against privilege? That the people rising from time to time, after years of intolerable oppression, against their natural masters, kings, nobles, priests, and the like, should be knocked back into their' appropriate servitude by the strong hand of authority at any expense of treasure and blood, why this is all correct. But when the privileged order of the New World — the 300,000 slaveholders leading on their 3,000,000 dupes — rise in revolt against the natural and legal and constitutional authority of the sovereign people, and when that authority, after pushing conciliation and concession in the face of armed treason to the verge of cowardice, at last draws the sword and defends the national existence against the rebels, why then it is bloodshed, causeless civil war, and so on. .... One great fact has been demonstrated — the Ameri- cans, by a large majority, will spend any amount of treasure and blood rather than allow their republic to be divided. Two years ago we did not know this fact. Two years hence, perhaps, we shall learn another fact — that the single possi- bility of division, that the single obstacle to peace and union, is slavery, and that so long as slavery exists, peace is impos- sible. Whenever the wise and courageous American people is thoroughly possessed of this truth, our trouble will be over. I think Mr. Lincoln embodies singularly well the healthy American mind. He revolts at extreme measures, and moves in a steady way to the necessary end. He reads the signs of the times, and will never go faster than the people at his back. So his slowness seems sometimes like hesitation ; but I have not a doubt that when the people wills it, he will declare that will, and with the disappearance of the only dissolvent the dissolution of the Union will be made impos- sible. I have got to the end of my paper, and so with best love to my father and all the rest, I am, dear mother, most aJBfectionately yours, J. L. M. 18G2.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 81 To his Mother. Marien Villa, Viislau, August ISlh, 18G2. My dearest Mother, — It seems to me at times as if I could not sit out this war in exile. I console myself with reflecting that I could be of little use were I at home, and that I may occasionally be of some service abroad. The men whom I most envy are those who are thirty years of age and who were educated at West Point, or rather that portion of them who did not imbibo a love for the noble institution of slavery together with their other acquirements at that college. There is no doubt, I believe, that Louis Napoleon passes most of his time in urging the English Government to unite with him in interfering on behalf of the slave-dealing, negro- breeding confederacy, and that the agents of that concern have offered to go down and worship him in any way he likes, even to the promising of some kind of bogus abolition scheme, to take effect this time next century, in case he will help them cut the throat of the United States Government. Thus far the English Government have resisted his importunities. But their resistance will not last long. The only thing that saves us as yet from a war with the slaveholders, allied with both France and England, is the anti-slavery feeling of a very considerable portion of the British public. Infinite pains are taken by the agents of the slaveholders to convince the world that the North is as much in favour of slavery as the South, but the anti-slavery acts of the present Congress have given the lie to these assertions. Nevertheless, I am entirely con- vinced, not as a matter of theory but as fact, that nothing but a proclamation of emancipation to every negro in the country will save us from war with England and Franco combined. I began this note determined not to say a single word on the subject of the war, as if it were possible to detach one's thoughts from it for a moment. I continue to believe in IMcClellan's military capacity as on the whole equal to that of any of his opponents. I do not think that this war has de- veloped any very great military genius as yet. But it is not VOL. II. G 82 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [CiiAr. III. a military war, if such a contradiction can be used. It is a great political and moral revolution, and we are in the first stage of it. The coming man, whoever he may be, must have military genius united with intense faith in something. In the old civil wars of Holland, France, and England, the men who did the work were the men who either believed intensely in the Pope and the Inquisition, or who intensely hated those institutions ; who either believed in the Crown or in the people ; who either adored or detested civil and religious liberty. And in our war, supposing other nations let us fight it out, which they are not likely to do, the coming man is some tremendous negro seller with vast military capacity, or some John Brown with ditto. I have an abiding faith in the American people ; in its courage, love of duty, and determination to pursue the right when it has made up its mind. So I believe this con- spiracy of the slaveholders will yet be squashed, but it will not be till the people has made a longer stride than it has yet made. Pardon me for this effusion. Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. And these are times when every man not only has a right, but is urged by the most sacred duty to speak his mind. We are very tranquil exter- nally, speaking here in Yoslau, where we shall remain till the middle of October. God bless you, my dear mother. All send love to you and the governor, and I remain. Most affectionately, your son, J. L. M. , To his Second Daughter. Legation of the United States, Vienna, August 2Gth, 1SG2. My dakling little Maky, — I am writing to you a mere apology for a letter. I wrote a letter to your dear grand- mamma by the last steamer, and, I believe, to you, but I am not sure. I am writing at my office in town where I have the newspapers up to the 12th of August, which your mother and Lily have not yet seen. Here I have just read in them the details of\the late fight in Virginia, in which the Massachu- 18C2.] THE RICHMOND BATTLES. 83 setts 2nd seems to have so much distinguished itself, and to have suffered so severely. I see Avith great regret that my old friend and class-mate, Dr. Shurtleflf, has lost a son in the fight. The details are still meagre, but I have seen enough to feel sure that our men behaved brilliantly, and I can have no doubt of our ultimate success. I have just seen Hayward, whom I daresay you have seen in Hertford Street. He had had a long talk with Monsieur Duvergier d'Hauranne, one of Louis Philippe's old ministers, which gentleman had just heard the whole story of the Kichmond battles from the French princes. They described them exactly according to the accounts of the Northern newspapers, which they pro- nounced perfectly accurate, said that nothing could exceed the courage displayed pn both sides, and that the movement to James Eiver had been managed in such a very masterly manner by McClellan. All this I had no doubt of, but I like to hear what outsiders say to each other. Hayward also read me a note from Lord IMarch, Governor-General of Canada, who says that English officers present at the late battles, and since returned to Canada, pronounce the accounts given in the Northern papers as perfectly accurate. I have not a word to say of news. We dribble on in the even tenor of our Voslau ways. Hayward is coming out to dine to-morrow.^ And Saturday or Sunday we expect a visit of a few days from Mr. and Mrs. Hughes (Tom Brown) and Miss Stanley (Arthur Stanley's sister). We hope to have some comfort in talking with them, as Hughes is as staunch a friend to our cause as exists in Europe. Of course we never talk or think of anything else night or day. Good-bye and God bless you, my darling. I promise to write again next week. Your aifectionate Pai'a. • From Mr. Hayward's Letters, vol. ing that tJie restoration of the Union ii. p. 82. " I also passed a day with in its entirety was as sure as the sun in the Motleys at their villa, and found heaven." liim more utireasonahle than ever, vow- G 2 84 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III. From Br. 0. W. Holmes. Boston, 21, Charles Street, August 29th, 1862. My dear Motley, — I don't know how I can employ the evening of my birthday better than by sitting down and beginning a letter to you. I have heard of your receiving my last, and that you meant to reply to it soon. But this was not in the bond, and whether you write or not, I must let you hear from me from time to time. I know what you must endure with a non-conductor of a thousand leagues between you and this great battery, which is sending its thrill through us every night and morning. I know that every different handwriting on an envelope, if it comes from a friend, has its special interest, for it will give an impression in some way differing from that of all others. My own thoughts have been turned aside for a while from those lesser occurrences of the day which would occupy them at other times by a domestic sorrow, which, though coming in the course of nature, and at a period when it must have been very soon inevitable, has yet left sadness in mine and other households. My mother died on the 19th of this month at the age of ninety-three, keeping her lively sensibilities and sweet intelligence to the last. My brother John had long cared for her in the most tender way, and it almost broke his heart to part with her. She was a daughter to him, she said, and he had fondly thought that love and care could keep her frail life to the filling up of a century or beyond it. It was a pity to look on him in his first grief ; but time, the great consoler, is busy with his anodyne, and he is coming back to himself. My mother remembered the revo- lution well, and she was scared by the story of the redcoats coming along and killing everybody as they went — she having been carried from Boston to Newburyport. Why should I tell you this ? Our hearts lie between two forces. The near ones of home and family, and those that belong to the rest of the univetse. A little magnet holds its armature against the dragging c\f our own planet and all the spheres. I had hoiked that my mother might have lived through this 1862.] FORECASTS OF THE WAR. 85 second national convulsion. It was ordered otherwise, and with the present prospects I can hardly lament that she was spared the period of trial that remains. How long that is to be no one can predict with confidence. There is a class of men one meets with who seem to consider it due to their ante- cedents to make the worst of everything. I suppose may be one of these. I met him a day or two since, and lost ten minutes in talk with him on the side walk ; lost them, because I do not wish to talk with any man who looks at this matter empirically as an unlucky accident, which a little prudence might have avoided, and not a theoretical necessity. However, he said to me that the wisest man he knew — somebody whose name I did not know — said to him long ago that this war would outlast him, an old man, and his companion also, very probably. You meet another man, and he begins cursing the Government as the most tyrannical one that ever existed. " That is not the question," I answer. " How much money have you given for this war ? How many of your boys have gone to it ? How much of your own body and soul have you given to it ? " I think Mr. is the most forlorn of all the Jeremiahs I meet with. Faith, faith is the only thing that keeps a man up in times like these ; and those persons who, by temperament or underfeeding^ of the soul, are in a state of spiritual anaemia, are the persons I like least to meet, and try hardest not to talk with. For myself I do not profess to have any political wisdom. I read, I listen, I judge to the best of my ability. The best talk I have heard from any of our home politicians was that of Banks, more than a year and a half ago. In a conversation I had with him, he foreshadowed more clearly the plans and prospects, and estimated more truly the resources of the South than any one else with whom I had met. But prophets in America and Europe have been at a very heavy discount of late. Count Gasparin seems to me to have the broadest and keenest under- standing of the aims and ends of this armed controversy. If we could bo sure of no intermeddling, I should have no anxiety except for individuals and for temporary interests. If we have grown unmanly and degenerate in the north wind, I am willing 8G MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. that the sirocco should sweep us off from the soil. If the course of nature must be reversed for us, and the Southern Goths must march to the " beggarly land of ice " to overrun and recolonise us, I have nothing to object. But I have a most solid and robust faith in the sterling manhood of the North, in its endurance, its capacity for a military training, its plasticity for every need, in education, in political equality, in respect for man as man in peaceful development, which is our law, in distinction from aggressive colonisation; in human qualities as against bestial and diabolical ones ; in the Lord as against the devil. If I never see peace and freedom in this land, I shall have faith that my children will see it. If they do not live long enough to see it, I believe their children will. The revelations we have had from the Old World have shed a new light for us on feudal barbarism. We know now where we are not to look for sympathy. But oh ! it would have done your heart good to see the processions of day before yesterday and to-day, the air all aflame with flags, the streets shaking with the tramp of long-stretched lines, and only one feeling showing itself, the passion of the first great uprising, only the full flower of which that was the opening bud. There is a defence of blubber about the arctic creatures through which the harpoon must be driven before the vital parts are touched. Perhaps the Northern sensibility is pro- tected by some such encasing shield. The harpoon is, I think, at last through the blubber. In the meanwhile I feel no doubt in my own mind that the spirit of hostility to slavery as the cause of this war is speedily and certainly increasing. They were talking in the cars to-day of Fremont's speech at the Tremont Temple last evening. His allusions to slavery, you know what they must have been, were received with an applause which they would never have gained a little while ago. Nay, I think a miscellaneous Boston audience would be more like to cheer any denunciation of slavery now than almost any other sentiment. Wednesday evening, Septemher Srcl. — I have waited long enough. We get the most confused and unsatisfactory yet agitating rumours. Pope seems to be falling back on the 18C2.] ENTHUSIASM AT BOSTON. 87 capital after having got the worst of it in a battle on the 30th. Since that there has been little fighting so far as we know, but this noon we get a story that Stonewall Jackson is marching by Leesburg on Baltimore, and yesterday we learned that Cincinnati is in imminent danger of a rebel invasion. How well I remember the confidence that you expressed in General Scott — a confidence which we all shared ! The old General had to give up, and then it was nothing but McClellan. But do not think that the pluck or determina- tion of the North has begun to yield. There never was such a universal enthusiasm for the defence of the Union and the trampling out of rebellion as at this perilous hour. I am willing to believe that many of the rumours we hear are mere fabrications, I won't say to you be of good courage, because men of ideas are not put down by the accidents of a day or a year. Yours always, 0. W. H. To Br. 0. W. Holmes. Vienna, August 3l8t, 1862. My dear Holmes, — Bare — bare — bare of news, events, objects of the slightest interest to you or any one else, what need have I to apologise for silence ? Naked, but not ashamed, I involve myself in my virtue — while you — if like kind for- tune you will still wag your swift pen at me — si eelerem quails pennam — will find me ever grateful or even trying to be re- signed, if you do not. I have not written for about four months. Even to my little Mary I am obliged now to write themes instead of letters. By this mail I send her one " on the advantages of silence." If you should happen to meet her, ask her to show it to you that you may see to what a depth of imbecility your old friend has descended. I have yours of the 27th of April and the 20th of June. I am deeply grateful for them. I have just been reading them both over, and you will be glad to know that now, after the lapse of fifty 88 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III. years, which is about the distance from the first date at the rate we are liying at, there is no false colouring, no judgment turned inside out, no blundering prophecy, no elation, or no despondency which subsequent events have come to rebuke. Writing as you do to me out of the kindness of your heart and the fulness of your head, you willingly run the risk of making blunders for the sake of giving me, in your vivid and intense way, a rapid image of the passing moment. I strain my eyes across the Atlantic through the stereoscope you so kindly provide me, and for an instant or two I am with you. I think very often of your Wendell. He typifies so well to me the metamorphosis of young America from what it was in our days, Consule Planco. There, within less than a twelve- month after leaving college, the young poet, philosopher, artist, has become a man, rdbustus acri militia ^mer, has gone through such scenes as Ball's Bluff, Fair Oaks, and the seven days before Eichmond, and, even while I write, is still engaged, perchance, in other portentous events, and it is scarcely a year since you and I went together to the State House to talk with the Governor about his commission. These things would hardly be so startling if it was the mere case of a young man entering the army and joining a marching regiment. But when a whole community suddenly transmutes itself into an army, and the " stay-at-home rangers " are remembered on the fingers, and pointed at with the same, what a change must be made in the national character. "Pfui iiber den Buben, Hinter den Ofen, Hinter den Stuhlen, HintcT den Sophen," as the chiv^rous Koerner sang. I had a very well-written letter the other day from a young cousin of mine, Julius Lothrop by name, now serving as sergeant in the Massachusetts 24th. I need not say how I grieved to hear that Lowell had lost another nephew and a near relative of your wife too. You mentioned him in your very last letter as having gained health and strength by his campaigning. There is something most touching in the fact 1862.] REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR. 89 that those two youths, Putman and Lowell, both scions of our most honoured families, and both distinguished among their equals for talent, character, accomplishment, and yirtue, for all that makes youth venerable, should have been among the earliest victims of this infernal conspiracy of slaveholders. I know not if such a thought is likely to comfort the mourners, but it is nevertheless most certain that when such seed is sown the harvest to be reaped by the country will be almost price- less. Of this I entertain no doubt whatever. God knows I was never an optimist, but in the great result of this tremen- dous struggle I can foresee nothing but good. The courage and the determination of both sides being equal, the victory must be to the largest army and navy and the longest purse. What has so long held back the imprisoned power of the North, during all these dreary years of the slave domination of our republic was, after all, a moral principle. It was pushed to excess till it became a vice, but it was still the feeling of patriotism and an exaggerated idea of public faith. There is even a lingering band or two to be broken yet before the great spirit of the North is completely disenthralled. But I hope I am not mistaken in thinking that they have become weaker than packthread. To his Mother. Marien Villa, Voslau, September Slh, 18G2. My dearest Mother, — I wish it were possible for me to say anything that would interest you from this place. I should like to write you at least a note once a week to assure you of my affection ; but when I have said that, it seems that there was nothing left to say. I do not care to be always talking of the one great subject which occupies all our thoughts, because, in the first place, my own feelings and opinions are so different from those which you are most in the habit of hearing that you must sometimes fail to sympathise with me ; and, secondly, there is always such a difference in 90 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III. my position when writing from yours when reading. Our latest news leave the Union army concentrating on the Kappa- hannock, with McClellan uniting his forces with Pope and Burnside. And so all the slaughter and fever and digging of ditches and building of corduroy roads on that fatal penin- sula has been for nothing, and McClellan's army, what is left of it, is about where it was six months ago. Well, we are a patient and long-suffering people, and I admire the energy and courage and hopefulness of my country- men more than I can express, and I have as staunch a faith as ever in the ultimate result, although it may be delayed for a generation. I wish I had as much faith in our generals-in- chief. I know nothing of parties or men as motives, but certainly the peninsular campaign will never form a brilliant chapter in our history. I can only hope that the one opening on the Rappahannock may be more successful. But perhaps ere you read this a decisive battle may have been fought. At least I hope, when the next pull comes, we may not be on the retreat. Considering that McClellan took the field in the spring with those memorable words, " We have had our last retreat," one must allow that he has given the country enough of that bitter dose. Our men have certainly behaved nobly. You may suppose with what tearful interest we read of the Cedar Mountain battle, and saw the well-known and familiar names of the brave youths who have fallen. But it is such a pang to speak their names, and words of consolation to the mourners are such a mockery that it is as well to leave them unsaid. My heart thrilled when I read of Gordon's brigade, and especially of the devoted and splendid Massachusetts 2nd, to whom I had the honour of presenting the banner on that sunshiny afternoon about a year ago. Gordon seems to have behaved brilliantly. Poor Mr. Savage ! I hope he bears the painful captivity of his son well. The Russells are expected here soon, I believe. We are stagnant as usual here. I try to write, but it is hard work with one's thoughts so perpetually absorbed with our own war against tyrants more bloody than Philip or Alva, and an institution more accursed than the Spanish Inquisition. 18C2.] J. S, MILL ON THE WAR. 91 The ever-living present is so much more entrancing with its horrors than the past, which, thank God ! is dead and buried with its iniquities. We remain here till the middle of October, and shall go to town with heavy hearts, for in the winter we must go into the world and see society, for which we have little inclination. We have had the Hughes (Tom Brown) staying with us, and enjoyed the visit. He is as staunch an American as I am, and almost as much interested in the great struggle. Miss Stanley, sister of Canon Arthur Stanley, was with them. She was a nurse in the Crimea. They were on a rapid tour to Constantinople. Good-bye, my dear mother. Give my love to my father and my precious Mary and to all the family. Believe me, your ever affectionate J. L. M. From Mr. John Stuart Mill. September 17//*, 1862. My dear Sir, — I value the permission you gave me to cor- respond with you much too highly not to avail myself of it thus early, although I have very little to say that will be new, and at the same time interesting, to one whose thoughts are engrossed as yours must be. If you see Macmillan's Maga- zine, which has from the beginning been steadily on the right side in American affairs, you must have remarked the * Notes of a Journey in America,' which have been in the course of publication for some months, ending with a general summing up in the September number. This last paper especially appears to me excellent, and likely to do much good in England. The whole series has been reprinted in a volume, with the name of the writer, Mr. Edward Dicey, author of a recent book on Italy and Eome. You will probably see the Westminster Revietv of next month, which will contain an article of mine on the American question, apropos of Mt. Cairnes's book. It is hastily written, and slight, for such a subject, but "every little helps," as the nursery proverb says. I am not at all uneasy about public opinion here, if 92 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. only the Nortli is successful. The great number of well- meaning people and sincere enemies of slavery who have been led into disapproving of your resistance to the South, when carried to the length of war, have been chiefly influenced by thinking the re-conquest of the South impossible. If you prove it to be possible, if you bring the Slave States under your power, if you make use of that power to reconstitute Southern society on the basis of freedom, and if finally you wind up the financial results without breaking faith with any of the national creditors (among whom must be reckoned the holders of depreciated currency), you will have all our public with you, except the Tories, who will be mortified that what they absurdly think an example of the failure of democracy should be exchanged for a splendid example of its success. If you come well and honourably through one of the severest trials which a nation has ever undergone, the whole futurity of mankind will assume a brighter aspect. If not, it will for some time to come be very much darkened. I have read lately two writings of Northern Americans on the subject of England, which show a very liberal appreciation of the misdirection of English opinion and feeling respecting the contest. One is Mr. Thurlow Weed's letter, which was published in the newspapers, and in which those just and generous allowances are made for us which many of us have not made for you. The other is the Eev. Dr. Thompson's ' England during our War,' reprinted from the New Englander, which is even over-indulgent to our people, but too severe on our Government. I believe that our Government has felt more rightly all through than a majority of the public. We shall be at this address until the end of November ; afterwards at Blackheath Park, Kent. I need hardly say that if your occupations wuuld allow of your writing to me it would naturally give me great pleasure, but would make me better able to be of use to a cause which I have as much at heart as even yourself. U am, my dear sir. Very truly yours, J. S. Mill. 18C2.] THE LAWS OP WAR. 93 To his Second Daughter. Vienna, September 2Ut, 1862. Dearest little Mary, — Your last letters, 1st and 2ad September, reached us with promptness, and gave us the same mingled pain and pleasure that your letters always do. You are a dear darling to write to us so faithfully and conscien- tiously, and we look forward to our weekly budget from " our own correspondent " with great eagerness. You say in your last that Mrs. Lothrop's third son is going to the war. 1 cannot sufficiently admire their spirit and patriotism and her courage. I had such a nice, interesting, well-written letter from Julius at Newberne. I wish you would ask Mrs. Lothrop when she writes to thank him for it, and to say that I have not yet answered it simply because I have nothing agreeable or interesting to say from this part of the world. One of these days, when affairs are looking less gloomy, I shall take pleasure in sending an answer to his letter. Meanwhile I am delighted to hear of his promotion to a lieutenancy, and wish him every success. The most amazing part of the whole matter is that people should now go about talking to each other of the " consti- tution and the enforcement of the laws " exactly as if we were at peace. We are not in peace. We are in war. And the law of war is perfectly simple. It is to use all and every means necessary for overcoming the resistance of your enemy. Had Government issued a proclamation of universal freedom to all men in the exercise of its unequivocal and unquestioned rights as a belligerent at about the time when the " Young Napoleon" was burrowing in the Chickahominy Swamps, it would have done more towards overcoming the resistance of the enemy by cutting off the great source of their supplies than the wliole of that ignominious campaign in the peninsula, Avhich has brought us, in spite of the unparalleled heroism, endurance, patience, and unflinching courage of our soldiers, back to exactly the same point (to make the best of it) from which we started a year ago. Tell Dr. Holmes that I received 91 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III. his letter of the 4th September yesterday, and that it gave me inexpressible comfort. I shall write him next week. I agree with every word he says, and it gives me great pleasure to hear him say that the anti-slavery feeling is on the increase in Boston. Of one thing I feel perfectly certain, although everything else seems obscure as midnight. If Jeff. Davis gets half the country, he will get the whole. If we keep half, we shall keep the whole. I mean by "we" the anti-slavery party of the country. As to arming the slaves and drilling them as soldiers, I do not care so much about that, except as a means of preventing servile insurrections. Black men, as well as white men, are susceptible of military discipline, and soldiers in the army of whatever colour must be shot for massacre and murder. The very reason which always prevented me from being an abolitionist before the war, in spite of my anti-slavery senti- ments and opinions, now forces me to be an emancipationist. I did not wish to see the Government destroyed, which was the avowed purpose of the abolitionists. When this became the avowed purpose of the slaveholders, when they made war upon us, the whole case was turned upside down. The anti- slavery men became the Unionists, the slaveholders the Destructionists. This is so plain that no mathematical axiom is plainer. There is no way of contending now with the enemy at our gates but by emancipation. Poor Fletcher Webster ! I saw him on the common at the head of his regiment : he looked like a man and has died like one. I am beginning to think that they who are dying for their country are happier than those of us who are left. Another old schoolfellow of mine was killed too, Phil. Kearney (General Kearney) — the bravest of the brave. Good-bye, darling. My love to grandmamma and grandpapa and all the family. Your affectionate Papa. 18C2.] LINCOLN'S ANTI-SLAVERY PROCLAMATION. 95 From Mr. John Stuart Mill. Saint Virain, Avignon, October dUt, 18G2. I\[y dear Sir, — Allow me to thank you most warmly for your long and interesting letter, which, if it had been twice aa long as it was, would only have pleased me more. There are few persons that I have only seen once with whom I so much desire to keep up a communication as with you ; and the importance of what I learn from you respecting matters so full of momentous consequences to the world would make such communication most valuable to me, even if I did not wish for it on personal grounds. The state of aifairs in America has materially improved since you wrote by the defeat of the enemy in Maryland and their expulsion from it, and still more by Mr. Lincoln's anti-slavery proclamation, which no American, I think, can have received with more exultation than I did. It is of the highest importance, and more so because the manifest reluctance with which the Presi- dent made up his mind to that decided step indicates that the progress of opinion in the country had reached the point of seeing its necessity for the effectual prosecution of the war. The adhesion of so many governors of States, some of them originally Democrats, is a very favourable sign ; and thus far the measure does not seem to have very materially weakened your hold upon the border Slave States. The natural ten- dency will be, if the war goes on successfully, to reconcile those States to emancipating their own slaves, availing them- selves of the pecuniary offers made by the Federal Govern- ment. I still feel some anxiety as to the reception to be given to the measure by Congress when it meets, and I should much like to know what are your expectations on that point. In England the proclamation has only increased the venom of those who, after taunting you so long with caring nothing for abolition, now reproach you for your abolitionism as the worst of your crimes. But you will find that whenever any name is attached to the wretched effusions, it is always that of some deeply-dyed Tory — generally the kind of Tory to whom 96 motley's LETTEES. [Chap. III. slavery is rather agreeable than not, or who so hate your democratic institutions that they would be sure to inveigh against you whatever you did, and are enraged at being no longer able to taunt you with being false to your own prin- ciples. It is from these also that we are now beginning to hear, what disgusts me more than all the rest, the base doc- trine that it is for the interest of England that the American Republic should be broken up. Think of us as ill as you may (and we have given you abundant cause), but do not, I entreat you, think that the general English public is so base as this. Our national faults are not now of that kind, and I firmly believe that the feeling of almost all English Liberals, even those whose language is most objectionable, is one of sincere regret for the disruption Avhich they think inevitable. As long as there is a Tory party in England, it will rejoice at anything which injures or discredits American institutions: but the Liberal party — who are now, and are likely to remain, much the strongest — are naturally your friends and allies, and will return to that position when once they see that you are not engaged in a hopeless, and there- fore, as they think, an irrational and unjustifiable contest. There are writers enough here to keep up the fight, and meet the malevolent comments on all your proceedings by right ones. Besides Cairnes, and Dicey, and Harriet Martineau, and Ludlow and Hughes ; besides the Daily News, and Mac- millan, and the Star, there are now the Westminster and the London Bevieiv, to which several of the best writers have now gone over ; there is Ellison, of Liverpool, the author of ' Slavery and Secession,' and editor of a monthly economical journal, the Exchange ; and there are other writers, less known, who, if events go on favourably, will rapidly multiply. Here in France the state of opinion on the subject is most gratifying. All liberal Frenchmen seem to have been with you from the first. They did not know more about the subject than the English, but their instincts were truer. By the way, what did you think of the narrative of the campaign on the Potomac in the Eevue des Deux Mondes, of October 15th, by the Comte de Paris ? It looks veracious, and is certainly intelli- 18G2.] ACTION OP THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. 97 gent, and in general effect likely^ I should think, to be very useful to the cause. I still think you take too severe a view of the conduct of our Government. I grant that the extra official dicta of some of the ministers have been very unfortu- nate. But as a Government, I do not see that their conduct is objectionable. The port of Nassau may be all that you say it is, but the United States also have the power, and have used it largely, of supplying themselves with munitions of war from our ports. If the principle of neutrality is once accepted, our markets must be open to both sides alike, and the general opinion in England is (I do not say whether rightly or wrongly) that if the course adopted is favourable to either side, it is to the United States, since the Confederates, owing to the blockade of their ports, have so much less power to take advantage of the facilities extended equally to both. Then, again, if the Tuscarora was ordered away, the Sumter was so too. What you mention about a seizure of arms by our Government must, I feel confident, have taken place during the Trent difficulty, at which time alone, neither before nor after, has the export of arms to America been interdicted. It is very possible that too much may have been made of Butler's proclamation, and that he was more wrong in phraseology than substance. But with regard to the watchword said to have been given by Pakenham at New Orleans, I have always hitherto taken it for a mere legend, like the exactly parallel ones which grew up under our eyes in Paris, in 1848, respect- ing the Socialist insurrection of June. What authority there may be for it I do not know ; but if it is true, nothing can mark more strongly the change which has taken place in the European standard of belligerent rights since the wars of the beginning of the century, for if any English commander at the present time were to do the like, he could never show his face in English society (even if he escaped being broken by a court-martial) ; and I think we are entitled to blame in others what none of us, of the present generation at least, would be capable of perpetrating. You are perhaps hardly aware how little the English of the present day feel of solidarite with past generations. We VOL. II. H 98 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III. do not feel ourselves at all concerned to justify our prede- cessors. Foreigners reproved us with having been the great enemies of neutral rights so long as we were belligerents, and for turning round and stickling for them now when we are neutrals ; but the real fact is, we are convinced, and have no hesitation in saying (what our Liberal party said even at the time), that our policy in that matter in the great Continental war was totally wrong. But while I am anxious that Liberal and friendly Americans should not think worse of us than we really deserve, I am deeply conscious and profoundly grieved and mortified that we deserve so ill, and are making in conse- quence so pitiful a figure before the world, with which, if we are not daily and insultingly taxed by all Europe, it is only because our enemies are glad to see us doing exactly what they expected, justifying their opinion of us and acting in a way which they think perfectly natural, because they think it perfectly selfish. If you kindly favour me with another letter here, it is desirable that it should arrive before the end of November. After that time my address will be Blackheath Park, Kent. I am, my dear sir, Very truly yours, J. S. Mill. To Br. 0. W. Holmes. Vienna, November 2nd, 1862. My dear Holmes, — More and more does it become difficult for me to write to you. I am greedier than ever for your letters, but the necessary vapidity of anything I can send to you in return becomes more apparent to me every day. It seems to me that by the time one of my notes makes its way to you in Boston it must have faded into a blank bit of paper. Where there is absolutely nothing in one's surroundings that can interest a friend, the most eloquent thing would seem to be to hold one's tongue. At least, however, I can thank you most warmly for your last letter. You know full well how 1862.] INCIDENTS OP THE WAR. 99 interested I am in everything you can write, whether of specu- lation or of narration. Especially am I anxious to hear all that you have to say of Wendell's career. Of course his name among the wounded in the Battle of Antietam in- stantly caught our eyes, and though we felt alarmed and uncomfortable, yet fortunately it was stated in the first in- telligence we received that the wound, although in the neck, was not a dangerous one. I could not write to you, however, until I felt assured that he was doing well. I suppose Wendell has gone back to his regiment before this, and God knows whether there has not already been another general engagement in the neighbourhood of the Potomac. What a long life of adventure and experience that boy has had in the fifteen months which have elapsed since I saw him, with his Pylades, seated at the Autocrat's breakfast table in Charles Street ! Mary told me of his meeting with Hallowell, wounded, being brought from the field at the same time with himself, and of both being put together in the same house. We are fortunate in having a very faithful little chronicler in Mary, and she tells us of many interesting and touching inci- dents that otherwise might never reach us. She has also given us the details of the noble Wilder D wight's death. It is unnecessary to say how deeply we were moved. I had the pleasure of knowing him well, and I always appreciated his energy, his manliness and his intelligent cheerful heroism. I look back upon him now as a kind of heroic type of what a young New Englander ought to be and was. After all, what was your Chevy Chase to stir blood with like a trumpet ? What noble principle, what deathless interest was there at stake ? Nothing but a bloody fight between a set of noble gamekeepers on one side, and of noble poachers on the other ? And because they fought well and hacked each other to pieces like devils, they have been heroes for centuries. Of course you know of Cairnes's book, and of John Mill's article in the Westminster Review for October, and of the sustained pluck and intelligence of the two Liberal journals in England, the Daihj News and the Star. As for John Bright, I H 2 100 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. III. hope one day to see a statue raised to him in Washington. We must accept our position frankly. We are Mudsills beloved of the Eadicals. The negro breeders are aristocrats, and, like Mrs. Jarley, the pride of the nobility and gentry. Tell me, when you write, something of our State politics. It cannot be that these factionists can do any harm. But it is most mortifying to me that Boston of all the towns in the world should be the last stronghold of the pro-slavery party. I was interested in the conversation which you report. " How many sons have you sent to the war ? How much have you contributed? How much of your life have you put into- it ? " I hope there are not many who hold themselves quite aloof. For my own part I am very distant in body, but in spirit I am never absent from the country. I never knew before what love of country meant. I have not been able to do much for the cause. I have no sons to give to the country. In money I have contributed my mite. I hope you will forgive me for mentioning this circumstance. I do so simply that you may know that I have not neglected a sacred duty. In these days in our country of almost fabulous generosity, I am well aware that what I am able to give is the veriest trifle ; but as it is possible you might hear that I have done nothing,! take leave to mention this, knowing that you will not misunderstand me. I am not able to do as much as I ought. Your letters are intensely interesting. It isn't my fault if mine are stupid. Mary and Lily join me in sincerest regards to you and yours. Ever your old friend, J. L. M. To his Second Daughter. Vienna, 20 Favoriten Strasse Wieden, November 25th, 1862. Deaeest little Mary, — We jog on here much as usual. We are fortunate in our pleasant house and garden, so that the external physical influences are not so gloomy as they 1862.3 FRANCE AND AMERICA. 101 were last winter, but in other respects we are rather dismal, being so far away from the centre of all interest, our own beloved country. It is very probable that I shall not live to see the end of this great tragedy which seems to have hardly passed its first act. But you may do so, and when you do, you will see a great commonwealth, the freest and the noblest that ever existed in history, purged of the foul disorder which has nearly eaten away its vitals. This war is a purifying process, but it seems that a whole generation of youths has to be sacrificed before we can even see the end. When the news of the attempt of the French Emperor to interfere in our affairs in favour of the slaveholders reaches America, I hope it may open the eyes of our people to the •danger ever impending over them from abroad. You will see that this is distinctly intimated in the despatch of Drouyn de I'Huys. The party of peace is supposed] to have triumphed, and, of course, peace to the Europeans means the dismem- berment of the Eepublic and the establishment of the slave- holders' confederacy. I consider the 25,000 majority in glorious Massachusetts after the proclamation as a greater monument of triumph in the onward march of civilization on our continent than anything that has yet happened. I have somewhat recovered from the spleen and despondency into which I was first thrown by the first accounts of the elections in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. After all, when one makes an arithmetical calculation we see that the popular vote in the great States is very nearly balanced, and when we reflect that it was really a vote upon the emancipation proclamation, the progress is enormous. Two years hence there will be a popular majority for emancipation as large as there was for non-extension in 1860. This is true progress. Moreover our majority in Massachusetts is almost equal to the democratic majority in New York, Ohio, and Pennsyl- vania combined. The President's proclamation was just in time. Had it been delayed it is possible that England would have accepted the invitation of France, and that invitation was in reality to recognise the slaveholders' confederacy, and to make with. 102 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. it an alliance offensive and defensive. I am not exaggerating. The object is distinctly to unite all Enrope against us, to impose peace, and to forcibly dismember our country. Nothing has saved us from this disaster thus far except the anti-slavery feeling in England, which throughout the country, although not so much in high places, is the predominant popular instinct in England which no statesman dares confront. Thank God ! Sumner is re-elected, or is sure of it, I suppose, and Sam Hooper too. The " people " of Massachusetts have succeeded in electing five senators out of forty, thirty representatives out of a few hundred and half a Congress man.^ If McClellan had been an abolitionist together with his military talents, which are certainly very respectable, he would have been a great man. This is a great political and social revolution, and not an ordinary war. Good-bye, my darling. Your letters give us great pleasure. Mr. Sumner is a high-minded, pure-minded patriot, and his rejection by Massachusetts would be a misfortune and a disgrace. Mr. Hooper, too, is eminently qualified for his post, and I beg you to give him my most sincere congratulations at his re-election, which I at one time felt was rather doubtful. Ever thine in storm and shine and brine, Papagei. From Dr. 0. W. Holmes. December 15th, 1862. .... Mrs. Holmes, who is a judge, I can tell you (being President of the Industrial Association), tells me that your Mary is a most excellent worker and a most agreeable young lady. " She never stops, she goes right ahead," are the precise words of Mrs. President, who always means exactly what she says. Also Mrs. H tells me that Mary is looking particularly well. As I am in the vein of saying things that ought to please you, let me say that my heart always swells with pride, and a ' The Senators and Kepresentatives State by opponents of the national ad- were elected to the luegislatiire of the ministration. 18G2.] "iMERCANTILE MATERIALISM." 103 glitter comes over my eyes when I read or hear your denun- ciations of the enemies of liberty at home and abroad, and your noble pleas for the great system of self-government now on its trial in a certain sense — say rather now putting our people on trial to see whether they are worthy of it. There were many reasons why you might have lost your passion for a Eepublican Government. The old civilizations welcome you as an ornament to their highest circles — at home you of course meet in the upper political spheres much that is not to your taste. But you remain an idealist, as all generous natures do and must. I sometimes think it is the only absolute line of division between men — that which separates the men who hug the actual from those who stretch their arms to embrace the possible. I reduce my points of contact with the first class to a minimum. When I meet them I let them talk for the most part, for there is no profit in discussing any living question with men who have no sentiments, and the non-idealists have none. We don't talk music to those who have no ear. Why talk of the great human interests to men who have lost all their moral sensibilities, or who never had any? You know quite as well as I do that accursed under-current of mercantile materialism which is trying all the time to poison the fountains of the national conscience. You know better than I do the contortions of that detested horde of mercenary partisans who would in a moment accept Jeff. Davis, the slave trade, and a Southern garrison in Boston to get back their Post Ofiices, and their Custom Houses, where the bread they had so long eaten was covered with slime, like that of their brother serpents, before it was swallowed. The mean sympathisers with the traitors are about in the streets in many aspects : you can generally tell the more doubtful ones by the circumstance that they have a great budget of complaints against the Government — that their memory is exceedingly retentive of every reverse and misfortune, and that they turn the small end of their opera-glasses towards everything that looks encouraging. I do not think strange of this in old men — they wear their old opinions like their old clothes until 104 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IIL they are threadbare, and we need them as standards of past thought which we may reckon our progress by, as the ship wants her stationary log to tell her headway. But to meet young men who have breathed this American air without taking the contagious fever of liberty- — whose hands lie as cold and flabby in yours as the fin of a fish, on the morning of a victory — this is the hardest thing to bear. Oh, if the bullets would only go to the hearts that have no warm human blood in them ! But the most generous of our youth are the price that we must pay for the new heaven and the new earth, which are to be born of this fiery upheaval. ***** Let us keep up our courage for our country and ourselves. It is harder for you, I have no doubt, than for me at home, and getting the news two or three times daily. Many things that may sound ill do not worry me long, for I am a man of large faith, and though the devil is a personage of remarkable talents, I think the presiding Wisdom is sure to be too much for him in the end. We are nervous just now and easily put down ; but if we are to have a second national birth, it must be purchased by throes and agonies, harder perhaps than we have yet endured. I think of you all very often ; do remember me and my wife (who is giving all her time to good deeds) most kindly to your wife and daughters, Yours always in faith and hope, 0. W. H. To Ids Mother. Vienna, December 22nd, 1862. My deaeest Mothee, — It is long since I have written, and, indeed, I have been far from well for some time. Nothing- serious or which can cause anxiety, but making me uncom- fortable and almost incapable of writing. I cannot, however, let the Christmas-tide pass over without sending you my dearest and best greetings and wishes for health and happi- ness. Thank God, however, I entertain the hope of living to 18G2.] TIIK CROWN TRINCESS OF PRUS8IA. 105 see the day when even in Boston there will be no pro-slavery party, because when there is no longer slavery there can no longer be a party to support it. . . . The young Crown Princess of Prussia (Princess Eoyal of England) was here for three days a little while ago. The morning after her arrival, I received a note from my colleague the Prussian Minister, in whose house she was staying, inform- ing me she was very desirous of making my acquaintance, liaving been lately reading my works, etc., and requesting me to call that morning. This I accordingly did, and was received very kindly by the young Princess and her husband, and spent a very agreeable half-hour with them quite alone. She is rather petite, has a fresh young face, with pretty features, fine teeth, and a frank and agreeable smile, and an interested, earnest, and intelligent manner. Nothing can be simpler or more natural than her style, which I should say was the perfection of good breeding. She was in close mourning. She said many complimentary things about my writings, and indeed I may say that I heard from others, Lord Bloomfield and Baron Werther, for instance, that she was one of my most enthusiastic readers. I say this because I think it will please you. She had also been reading Froude, whom she much admired. I told her that he was a friend of mine, and that I too enter- tained the highest opinion of him as a historian, although he had by no means converted me to his faith in Henry VIII. The Princess was evidently disposed to admire that poly- gamous party, and was also a great adorer of Queen Eliza- beth. Whence I concluded that she had not read my last two volumes, as she would hardly have expected entire sym- pathy from me in this respect. I told her that although I had great respect for Queen Elizabeth's genius and accom- plishments and energy, I was not one of her thick and thin admirers. She spoke of Carlyle's last work — I mean his History of Frederick the Great. I said that Carlyle's other works seemed to me magnificent, wonderful monuments of poetry and imagination, profound research, and most original humour. But that I thought him a most immoral writer, from 106 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. III. his exaggerated reverence for brute force, which, he was so apt to confound with wisdom and genius. A world governed a la Carlyle would be a pandemonium. The young Prince is tall, blond, soldierly, intelligent, with frank agreeable manners. Baron Werther told me last night that I ought to feel myself complimented, as I was the only person outside of the Imperial family whom the Princess had seen in Vienna, except the English Ambassador and Lady Bloomfield. We have very pleasant bright winter weather here, never much above or below the freezing point. The Vienna climate in not unlike that of Boston, only very much mitigated. It is dry, clear, with a respectable cold in winter and tolerable heat in summer. I am sorry to say it does not suit me very well. I mean that it has that electrifying irritating effect of the Boston atmosphere upon me, which does not put me in good working trim. However, I am determined that the new year shall find me hard at work on Volume III. We all send love to you and my father and all at home. Good-bye, God bless you, my dearest mother, and all the blessings of the season attend you and all. Write when you can, your letters always give me great pleasure. I shall not let so long an interval elapse again without sending at least a note. Ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. To his Second Daughter. Vienna, December, 1862. My deaeest little Maey, — Your last letter was very pleasant to us — I have so high a respect for General Wads- worth. I hardly know a man in the whole country by whose course I have been so electrified as I was by his. Nothing can be nobler or more heroic than his career, ever since the breaking out of the war. Certainly these are times that prove the metal men are made of, and not only does his character but his intellect shine forth most brightly since the great 1862.] ELECTIONS IN AMERICA. 107 events in which he has been taking part have revealed what was in him. The few speeches which he made in the late canvass seemed to me of the highest order of eloquence. It is some good fruit at least of these unhappy times that we leam to know our contemporaries. In piping times of peace I should not have thought of James Wadsworth other than the agreeable man of the world, the liberal man of fortune, the thriving landlord, and now he turns out a hero and a statesman. We were inexpressibly shocked and grieved to hear of the death of sweet, dear, and beautiful Mrs. d'Hauteville. How much of loveliness and grace and gentle, intelligent, virtuous womanhood is buried in that grave ! What a loss to her family who adored her, to so many friends who admired her and loved her, to her son far away on the field of danger ! Cer- tainly, we live in tragic days. You may live to see tranquil and happy ones ; but it is not probable that we of this gene- ration will do so. The great slave revolution will, I think, take almost the span of one generation to accomplish itself thoroughly. This partial pro-slavery reaction in the North has, I fear, protracted the contest. I say partial, because on taking a wide view of the field, I find really that the anti- slavery party has made enormous progress this year. The States of Pennsylvania and Ohio were almost evenly balanced on a general election taken immediately after the President's emancipation proclamation. Massachusetts gave 20,000 major- ity to the anti-slavery party ; and although the city of New York was pro-slavery, as it always has been, yet the State, the really American part of the four millions of the inhabitants, voted by a great majority for Wadsworth. Then the result of the Missouri election outweighs all the pro-slavery triumphs in any other State. If I had been told five years ago that that great Slave State would, in the year 1862, elect five emancipa- tionists out of the nine members of Congress, and that eman- cipation would have a strong majority in each House of the Missouri Legislature, I could not have believed in such a vision This is one of the revolutions that does not go backwards. "Die Welt ist rund und muss sich drehen" I 108 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. III. suppose the din about McClellan's removal goes on around you. I take little interest in the matter. It is in vain to try- to make a hero of him. But there is so much that is noble and generous and magnanimous in his nature, so much dignity and forbearance, and he is really so good a soldier, that it seems a pity he could not have been a great man and a great commander. We are humdrumming on as usual. Yesterday we dined at our colleague's, the Dutch Minister, Baron Heeckeren. This is our only festivity for the present. I am glad the Hoopers have been so kind as to invite you to Washington again. It is a great privilege for you, and I am very grateful to them. Always remember me most kindly when you see them. I owe Mr. Hooper a letter, which I shall immediately answer. Ever your most affectionate Papagei. 18G3.] VIENNA. 109 CHAPTER IV. VIENNA (1863) — continued. Letter to Lady W. Kussell — Exclusivenoss of Viennese Society — The Throne of Greece — Baron Sina — "Variua" — Letter from Mr. J. S. Mill — The early- settlers in New England and in Virginia — The Alabama — Northern Buccessea — Prof, Goldwin Sraitli and Dr. Whewell on the war — Growth of anti-slavery feeling in England — Meeting at Liverpool — Duke of Argyll's speech — The Times and its influence — Failings of the American body politic — Vienna Salons compared witli English Society — European sympathy with the United States — Letter from Mr. Bright — English jealousy of America — Revulsion of public feeling — Rumours of French intervention — Baron Sina — Adelina Patti — Exclusiveness of the Austrian aristocracy — Letter from Baron von Bismarck on the vexations of a Minister — Tlie German people — Rumours of European War — Letter to Lady W. Russell — Dulness of Viennese Society — The Polish question — Secret societies in Warsaw — The climate of Vienna — Hon. E. Twisleton — News of the surrender of Vicksburg and battle of Gettysburg — General Lee's position — Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico — Letter to Dr. O.W. Holmes — The recent victories — Dr. O. W. Holmes' oration — The drought in Vienna — Elections in America — Louis Napoleon's scheme of a Congress of Sovereigns — European complications — The lessons of war — General Grant. To Lad]) Wm. Bussell. Vienna January 7th, 1863. Dear Lady William, — I was on the point of writing to you on the very morning on which I received your kind note. Most fervently do I return your New Year's wishes, and I pray that there may be healing and strength for you in the coming year. How often do we think of you and talk of you. How ardently do I wish that I could transport myself to Audley Square, and take my humble corner among the troops of friends that cluster around your little cream bottle. Alas ! for perfidious Albion, " Felix Austria " makes me no amends for her loss. I might live here for the rest of the century, and never take root, while I am still bleeding from my eternal extirpation from your hostile but congenial soil. The Aus- trians are charming people — sing, play, and dance divinely — but they don't like strangers, I fancy. These may disport themselves on the periphery, but — so my colleagues say — rarely become naturalised in the interior. You they adore ; but how 110 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. IV. could they help that ? All delight to talk of you ; and, indeed, my only art, four me faire valoir, is to boast of your friendship. I am thinking of having an official card engraved thus : — Mons. M . Ami de Milady W. Kussell, No. 20 Favoriten Strasse. I hope that you won't object to my putting this little halo around my head. I can't say that I have done my part, and have been thus far but the merest " looker-on in Vienna." My heart is always heavy within me. Do you know the Minister of the departed Otho the Great at this Court — Baron Sina, the Vienna billionaire ? Why doesn't Lord Palmerston make him King of Greece ? Best of references from his last place — speaks Greek and German, belongs to the Greek Church, salary no object, etc., etc. The Alfred coup is much admired here. Whether the annexation of Greece to the Ionian Islands is much to the [taste of this Government, may be doubted. Also the theory that kings may be discharged like butlers, with a fortnight's notice, which Lord John has been so calmly laying down, doesn't meet with favour. But then Austria is only beginning to be a constitutional country. I wonder if you know the house which we have taken. It is a pleasant one, entre cour ef jardin, and the garden is a very large one. It is a separate house, too, which I like so much better, having no profanum mdgus under the same roof. I wish I wasn't so stupid. I am afraid that you will deprive me of my family name — Varius. Horace couples my epical ancestor with Virgil as his best friends : " Varius SinuesssB Virgiliusque Occurrunt ; animse, quales neque candidiores Terra tulit." By the way, Sinuessa, which seems to have been the seat of the Roman branch of my family, was in Campania, and famous for its wine. I hope this letter will have better luck than those I wrote from Rome, which seem to be "spurlos ver- schwwnden." Once more I pray the New Year to bring you its choicest blessings. Most sincerely yours, \ Vakius Miserbimus.^ • " Varius V was the name by which Lady William Eussell as a translation Mr. Motley wi^^ usually addressed by of his name. 18C3.] TIIK "AI.ADAMA." Ill From Mr. John Stuart Mill. Blackbeath Park, Kent, January 26th, 1863. Dear Sir, — You may imagine better than I can tell you, how much your letter interested me. I am obliged to you for the information respecting the first settlers in New England, I did not know that there were so many people of family among them, though I knew there were some. And I was quite aware that the place which the refuse went to was Virginia — all the popular literature of the century following shows that colony to have been the one regarded as the Botany Bay of that time. But my argument did not turn upon this, nor was I thinking of race and blood, but of habits and principles. New England, as I understand it, was essen- tially a middle-class colony; the Puritans, in the higher classes, who took part in its foundation, were persons whose sympathies went in a different channel from that of class or rank. The Southern colonies, on the contrary, were founded upon aristocratic principles, several of them by aristocratic men as such, and we know that the greatest of them, Virginia, retained aristocratic institutions till Jefferson succeeded in abolishing them. Concerning the Alabama, most people of sense in this country, I believe, are reserving their opinion until they hear what the Government has to say for itself. My own first impression was, that the Government was not bound, nor even permitted, by international rules to prevent the equipment of such a vessel, provided it allows exactly similar liberty to the other combatant. But it is plain that notion was wrong, since the Government has shown by issuing an order, which arrived too late, that it considered itself bound to stop the Alabama. What explanation it can give of the delay will be shown when Parliament meets ; and what it ought to do now in consequence of its previous default, a person must be better acquainted than I am with international law to be able to judge. But I expect to have a tolerably decided opinion on the subject after it has been discussed. 112 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. IV. I write you in much better spirits than I have been in since I saw you. In the first place, things are now going in a more encouraging manner in the West. Murfreesboro is an important as well as a glorious achievement, and from the general aspect of things I feel great confidence that you will take Vicksburg and cut off Arkansas and Texas, which then, by your naval superiority, will soon be yours. Then I exult in (what from observation of the politics of that State I was quite prepared for, though not for the unanimity with which it has been done) the passing over of Missouri from slavery to freedom — a fact which ought to cover with shame, if they were capable of it, the wretched creatures who treated Mr. Lincoln's second proclamation as waste paper, and who described the son of John Quincy Adams as laughing in his sleeve when he professed to care for the freedom of the negro. But I am now also in very good heart about the progress of opinion here. When I returned I already found things better than I expected. Friends of mine, who are heartily with your cause, who are much in society, and who speak in the gloomiest terms of what the general feeling was a twelvemonth ago, already thought that a change had commenced ; and I heard every now and then that some person of intellect and influ- ence, whom I did not know before to be with you, was with you very decidedly. You must have read one of the most powerful and most thorough pieces of writing in your defence which has yet appeared, under the signature "Anglo-Saxon," in the Daily Neivs — that letter is by Goldwin Smith, and though it is not signed with his name, he is willing (as I am authorised to say) that it should be known. Again, Dr. Whewell, one from whom I should not have expected so much, feels, I am told, so strongly on your side, that people complain of his being rude to them on the subject, and he will not suffer the Times to be in his house. These, you may say, are but individual cases. But a decided movement in your favour has begun among the public, since it has been evi- dent that your Government is really in earnest about getting rid of slavery. I have always said that it was ignorance, 1863.] ANTI-SLAVERY PEELING IN ENGLAND. 113 not ill-will, which made the majority of the English public go >vrong about this great matter. Difficult as it may well be for you to comprehend it, the English public were so ignorant of all the antecedents of the quarrel, that they really believed what they were told, that slavery was not the ground, scarcely even the pretext, of the war. But now, when the public acts of your Government have shown that at last it aims at entire slave emancipation, that your victory means this, and your failure means the extinction of all present hope of it, many feel very diflferently. When you entered decidedly into this course, your detractors abused you more violently for doing it, than they had before for not doing it, and the Times and Saturday Review began favouring us with the very arguments, almost in the very language, which we used to hear from the West Indian slave-holders to prove slavery perfectly consistent with the Bible and with Christianity. This was too much — it overshot the mark. The anti-slavery feeling is now thoroughly raising itself. Liverpool has led the way by a splendid meeting, of which the Times suppressed all mention. But you must have seen a report of this meeting ; you must have seen how Spence did his utmost, and how he was met; and that the object was not merely a single demonstration, but the appointment of a committee to organise an action on the public mind. There are none like the Liverpool people for making an organisation of that sort succeed, if once they put their hands to it. The day when I read this, I read in the same day's newspaper two speeches by Cabinet Ministers : one by Milner Gibson, as thoroughly and openly with you as was consistent with the position of a Cabinet Minister; the other, by the Duke of Argyll, a simple anti-slavery speech, denouncing the pro- slavery declaration of the Southern Bishops ; but his delivery of such a speech at that time and place had but one meaning. I do not know if you have seen Cairnes's lecture, or whether you are aware that it has been taken up and largely circulated by religious societies, and is in its fourth edition. A new and enlarged edition of his great book is on the point of publica- VOL. IL I 114 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV. tion, and will, I liave no doubt, be very widely read and powerfully influential. Foreigners ought not to regard the Times as representing the British nation. Of course a paper which is so largely read and bought and so much thought of as the Times is, must have a certain amount of suitability to the people that buy it. But the line it takes on any particular ques- tion is much more a matter of accident than is supposed. It is sometimes better than the public, and sometimes worse. It was better on the Competitive Examinations and on the Eevised Educational Code, in each case owing to the acci- dental position of a particular man who happened to write in it — both which men I could name to you. I am just as fully persuaded as if I could name the man, that the attitude it has long held respecting slavery, and now on the American question, is equally owing to the accidental interests or sympathies of some one person connected with the paper. The Saturday Review, again, is understood to be the property of the bitterest Tory enemy America has — Beresford Hope. Unfortunately these papers, through the influence they obtain in other ways, and in the case of the Times very much in consequence of the prevailing notion that it speaks the opinions of all England, are able to exercise great power in perverting the opinions of England whenever the public is sufficiently ignorant of facts to be misled. That whenever engaged in a wrong line, writers like those of the Times go from bad to worse, and at last stick at nothing in the way of perverse and even dishonest misrepresentation, is but natural to party writers everywhere ; natural to those who go on day after day working themselves up to write strongly in a matter to which they have committed themselves and breathing an atmosphere inflamed by themselves; natural, moreover, to demagogism both here and in America, and natural, above all, to anonymous demagogism, which, risking no personal infamy by any amount of tergiversation, never minds to what lengths it goes, because it can always creep out in time and turn roun^ at the very moment when the tide turns. An^ong the many lessons which have been impressed on me 1863.] FAILINGS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. 115 by wkat is now going on, one is a strong sense of the aoUdaritd (to borrow a word for which our language has no short equi- valent) of the whole of a nation with every one of its members, for it is painfully apparent that your country and mine habitually judge of one another from their worst specimens. You say that if England were like Cairnes and me, there would be no alienation ; and neither would there if Americans were like you. But I need not use soft words to you, who I am sure detest these things as much as I do. The low tricks and fulsome mob flattery of your public men and the bullying tone and pettifogging practice of your different Cabinets (Southern men chiefly, I am aware) towards foreigners, have deeply disgusted a number of our very best peoj)le, and all the more so because it is the likeness of what we may be coming to ourselves. You must admit, too, that the present crisis, while it has called forth a heroism and constancy in your people which cannot be too much admired, and to which even your enemies in this country do justice, has also exhi- bited on the same scale of magnitude all the defects of your state of society, the incompetency and mismanagement arising from the fatal belief of your public that anybody is fit for anything and the gigantic pecuniary corruption which seems universally acknowledged to have taken place, and, indeed, without it one cannot conceive how you can have got through the enormous sums you have spent. All this, and what seems to most of us entire financial recklessness (though for myself I do not pretend to see how you could have done anything else in the way of finance), are telling against you here, you can hardly imagine how much. But all this may be, and I have great hopes that it will be, wiped out by the conduct which you have it in your power to adopt as a nation. If you persevere until you have subdued the South, or at all events all west of the Mississippi, if, having done this, you set free the slaves, with compensation to loyal owners (and according to the advice of Mr. Paterson in his admirable speech at Liver- pool), settle the freed slaves as free proprietors on the unoccupied land, if you pay honestly the interest on your I 2 116 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. lY. own national debt, and take measures for redeeming it, in- cluding the debt without interest which is constituted by your inconvertible paper currency ; if you do these things, the United States will stand very far higher in the general opinion of England than they have stood at any time since the war of independence. If, in addition to this, you have men among you of a calibre to use the high spirit which this struggle has raised, and the grave reflections to which it gives rise, as means of moving public opinion in favour of correcting what is bad and of strengthening what is weak in your institutions and modes of feeling and thought, the war will prove to have been a permanent blessing to your country such as we never dared hope for, and a source of inestimable improvement in the prospects of the human race in other ways besides the great one of extinguishing slavery. If you are really going to do these things you need not mind being misunderstood — you can afford to wait. Believe me, dear sir, Yours very truly, J. S. Mill. To his Second Daughter. Vienna, February, 17 th, 1863. My deakest little Mary, — I hope that you will accept this note from me as the family contribution for to-day. I assure you when you know Vienna as well as we do, you will agree that to screw out a letter once a week is a Kunst- stucJc to be proud of. I can't very well write to you, as I write to the State Department, about the movements in Montenegro, the Polish insurrection, or the Prussian-French treaty of commerce, although I daresay these things would amuse you about as much as they do the people at Washington just now, where they have so much other fish to fry. To-day is the last day of the Carnival, which we celebrate by remaining calmly within doors in the bosom of our respected family. The great ball at Prince Schwartzenberg's took place last J863.] VIENNA SALONS. 117 Sunday^ so that we were obliged respectfully but firmly to decline. Soon begins the season of " Salons." Now if there is one thing more distasteful to me than a ball, it is a salon. Of course I don't object to young people liking to dance, and the few balls in the great houses here are as magnificent festivals as could be got up anywhere, and Lily had always plenty of partners and danced to her heart's content, notwith- standing that nearly all the nice youths of the French and English Embassies have been transplanted to other realms. But I think that no reasonable being ought to like a salon. There are three topics — the Opera, the Prater, the Burg Theatre ; when these are exhausted, you are floored. Con- versazioni where the one thing that does not exist is con- versation, are not the most cheerful of institutions. The truth is, that our hostile friends, the English, spoil me for other society. There is nothing like London or England in the social line on the Continent. The Duke of Argyll writes to me pretty constantly, and remains a believer in the justice of our cause, although rather desponding as to the issue ; and Mr. John Stuart Mill, who corresponds with me regularly, and is as enthusiastic as I am, tells me that the number of men who agree with him in wishing us success is daily increasing. Among others he mentioned our old friend, the distinguished Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity (with whom we stayed three days at Cambridge when I received my degree there), who he says is positively rude to those who talk against the North. He won't allow the Times to come into the house. Well, I hope the recent and remarkable demonstrations iu England will convince the true lovers of union and liberty in America where our true strength lies, and who our true lovers are. We have given four diplomatic dinners. The last was five days ago. Sixteen guests, beginning with Count Kechberg and the Prince and Princess Callimaki (Turkish ambassador), and ending with a French and Belgian attache or two. The French and English ambassadors and secretaries dined with us the week before. I think we shall give no more at present, unless we have a smaller one, to which we shall invite the Ilothschild of the period, as we have had several good dinners il8 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. IV. at his house. I am yery glad that you are to dine with Mrs. Amory to meet General McClellan. We feel very grate- ful to Mr. and Mrs. Amory and S for their kindness to you. Pray never forget to give all our loves to them. Did Mrs. Amory ever get a letter I wrote her ? Its date was May 12th. Pray remember us most kindly to Mr. and Mrs. Ritchie. I am so glad that you have been seeing so much of them lately. It is impossible for you not to be fond of them when you know them. Give my love also to Miss " Pussie," and to my Nahant contemporary, who I hope con- tinues on the rampage as delightfully as ever. You will tell us of course what impression General McClellan makes upon you. Personally there seems much that is agreeable, almost fascinating about him. I only saw him for a single moment, but was much impressed by his manner. I wish it had been his destiny to lead our armies to victory, for I don't see that we have any better man. But no one man will ever end this war except he be an abolitionist heart and soul, and a man of military genius besides. Things have gone a million miles beyond compromise. Pray tell me what you learn of Hooker ? We all join in kindest love to you, my darling, and to your grandmamma and grandpapa, and all at home. Your ever affectionate P. G. To his Mother. Legation of the United States, March 3rd, 1863. My dearest Mother, — As I have now made up my mind that our war is to be protracted indefinitely, I am trying to withdraw my attention from it, and to plunge into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries again. While I am occupying myself with the events of a civil war which lasted eighty years, and engaged and exhausted the energies of all the leading powers of Europe, perhaps I may grow less impatient with military operations extended over a much 1863.] ENGLAND— POLAND— EUSSI A. 119 larger and less populated area, and which have not yet con- tinued for two years. Attention in Europe, I am happy to say, is somewhat diverted from our a£fairs by the events which are taking place in Poland. Meetings are held day by day all over England, in which the strongest sympathy is expressed for the United States Government, and detestation for the slaveholders and their cause, by people belonging to the working and humbler classes, who, however, make up the mass of the nation, and whose sentiments no English ]\Iinistry (Whig or Tory) dares to oppose. As for Poland, I suppose the insurrection will be crushed, although it will last for months. I don't believe in any intervention on the part of the Western Powers. There will only be a great deal of remonstrating, and a great talk about liberty and free institutions on the part of that apostle of liberty and civilization, Louis Napoleon. I feel very much grieved that our only well-wisher in Europe, the Russian Government, and one which has just carried out at great risks the noblest measure of the age, the emancipation of 25,000,000 slaves, should now be contending in arms with its own subjects, and that it is impossible for us to sympathise with our only friends. The Government here keeps very quiet. Ever your most affectionate son, J. L. M. From Mr. John Brigld. Rochdale, March dth, 1863. My dear Mr. Motley, — I should have written to you sooner, but I have been a week away from town and from home in consequence of the death of my father-in-law at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and for a week past I have been unable to sit down to write owing to a violent cold, with cough and feverishness, which has made me incapable of any business of exertion. Your letter gave me much pleasure, and I know not that 120 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV.. there is anything in it on your great question that I do not agree with. I am glad to find that you have observed the change of feeling which has taken place in this country, and I hope it has not been without effect in the United States. Coining down from the War of Independence and from the war of 1815, there has also been in this country a certain jealousy of yours. It has been felt by the ruling class that your escape from George III. and our aristocratic Govern- ment had been followed by a success and a progress of which England could offer no example. The argument could not be avoided, if Englishmen west of the Atlantic can prosper without Crown, without Lords, without Church, without a great territorial class with feudal privileges, and without all this or these can become great and happy, how long will Englishmen in England continue to think these things neces- sary for them? Any argument in favour of freedom here,, drawn from your example, was hateful to the ruling class ; and therefore it is not to be wondered at that a great disaster happening to your country and to its constitution should not be regarded as a great calamity by certain influential classes here. Again, the rich, made rich by commerce, are generally very corrupt — the fluctuations of politics suddenly influence- their fortunes, and they are more likely to take the wrong side than the right one. Thus, in London, Liverpool, and Manchester, on the Stock Exchange and the commercial exchanges, are found many friends of the South, from the stupid idea that if the North would not resist, peace would of necessity be restored. But, apart from these classes, the mind of the nation is sound, and universally among the working classes there is not only a strong hatred of slavery, but also a strong affec- tion for the Union and for the Kepublic. They know well how literally it has been the home of millions of their class, and their feelings are entirely in its favour. The meetings lately held have not generally been attended by speakers most likely to draw great audiences, and yet no building has been large enough to contain those who have assembled. The effect of these meetings is apparent in some 18G3.] REVULSION OF FEELING IN ENGLAND. 121 of our newspapers, and on the tone of Parliament. In the House of Commons there is not a whisper about recognition or mediation in any form, and so far I see no sign of any attempt to get up a discussion on the part of any friends of the South. I am not certain just now that the most cunning and earnest friends of the South are not of opinion that it is prudent to be quiet on another ground besides that of a public disinclination to their cause ; they think the South has more to hope now from dissensions at tlie North, than from European sympathy ; and they believe that nothing would so rapidly heal dissensions at the North as any prospect of recognition or interference from France or England. I gather this from what I heard a short time ago from a leading, perhaps, the leading. Secessionist in the House of Commons. So far as England is concerned, every idea of interference in any way seems to be quite abandoned. A real neutrality is the universally admitted creed and duty of this country, and I am convinced that there is a widespread dissatisfaction with the tardy action of the Government by which the Alabama was allowed to get out to sea. Two days before Parliament met I made a speech to a meeting mainly of working men in this town. The object of the meeting was to vote thanks to the New York merchants and others for their contributions to our distressed operatives. I spoke to show them how hostile the pretensions of the South, not only to negro freedom, but to all freedom, and, especially, to explain to them the new theory that all diffi- culties between capital and labour would be got rid of by making all labour into capital, that is, by putting my work- men into the position of absolute ownership now occupied by my horses ! The people here understand all this. Cheap newspapers have done much for them of late, and I have no fear of their going wrong. But, seeing no danger here, what can be said for your own people ? The democratic leaders in some of the States seem depraved and corrupt to a high degree. It seems incredible that now, after two years of war, there should be anybody in 122 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV the North in favour of slavery, and ready rather to peril and to ruin the Union than to wound and destroy the great cause of all the evil ; yet so it is, and doubtless the Government is weakened by this exhibition of folly and. treason. Military successes will cure all this — but can they be secured ? Time has allowed the South to consolidate its military power and to meet your armies with apparently almost equal forces. To me it seems that too much has been attempted, and that, therefore, much has failed. At this moment much depends on Vicksburg ; if the river be cleared out, then the conspiracy will be cut into two, and the reputation of the Administration will be raised. If, again, Charleston be captured, the effect in Europe will be considerable, and it will cause much dis- heartenment through the South ; but if neither can be done, I think the North will be sick of its Government, if not of the war, and it will be difficult to raise new forces and to continue the war. Another year must, I think, break down the South, but something must be done and shown to make it possible for Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward to conduct this contest through another campaign. I cannot believe in the notions of the New York Times as to French intervention. The Mexican mess is surely enough for the appetite of Louis Napoleon. Perhaps the story is got up to give more unity to the Northern mind. I can trace it no further than this. Your cause is in your own hands. I hope Heaven may give you strength and virtue to win it. All mankind look on, for all mankind have a deep interest in the conflict. Thank you for all your kind words to myself. I shall always be glad to have a letter from you. Ever yours sincerely, John Bright. 1863.] ADELINA PATTI. 123 To his Mother. Vienna, March 2Sth, 1863. My dearest Mother, — .... As to your making yourself out so very old, I can't admit that when I see, for example, Lord Palmerston, who is ever so many years older than you, in his eightieth year in fact, shouldering the whole British Empire, and making a joke of it. Our climate, too, so trying to the young, I believe to be exceedingly beneficial to those more advanced in years. Only do go to Nahant next summer ; I am sure that the air and sight of that sea-beaten promontory is to you an elixir of youth. I have little to say of our goings on here. Lent, which has succeeded a dancing carnival, has been pretty well filled up every evening with soirees. Baron Sina, the Minister of the defunct kingdom of Greece, an enormously wealthy man, has given a series of evening parties, in which there was always music by the Italian operatic artists now performing in Vienna. We had Patti last week, who sang delightfully. She has made quite a furore in this place. We have only heard her at the theatre once. She is not at the Imperial Opera, where we have a box, but at a smaller one, and the price is alto- gether too large, as one is obliged to subscribe for the whole engagement. I hope to get a box, however, for next Saturday night, when she is to play Lucia. And this will be sufficient for us. We dined with a large party three days ago at the same Baron Sina's expressly to meet Patti. We had pre- viously dined with her at Baron Rothschild's. She is a dear, little unsophisticated thing, very good, and very pretty and innocent. She considers herself as an American, and sang * Home, sweet home,' after dinner the other day, because she said she was sure we should like to hear it, and she sang it most delightfully. Last Wednesday night we gave a great squash of our own. It was our first attempt in the evening party line, and we were a little nervous about it. You know you don't send out written invitations, and receive answers. You merely send a 124 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. LChap. IV. couple of days before a verbal invitation through a servant, without any chance of a reply. At a quarter before ten there were not a dozen people in our rooms, and we began to feel a little fidgety, although we knew the regular habits of the people. But in ten minutes the house was crowded. It was considered a most successful squeeze. All the Liechtensteins, Esterhazys, Trautsmannsdorffs, and the other great families of Vienna, together with nearly the whole diplomatic corps were present, and seemed to amuse themselves as well as at other parties. Talking the same talk with the same people, drinking the same tea and lemonade, and eating the same ices as at other houses, there is no reason why they should not have amused themselves as well. The young ladies are a power in Vienna. At every "rout," or evening reception, they always have one of the rooms to themselves, which is called the " Comtessen Zimmer " (no young lady in this society being supposed to be capable of a lower rank than Countess), and where they chatter away with their beaux, and sometimes arrange their quadrilles and waltzes for the balls of a year a-head. Nothing can be more charming than the manners of the Austrian aristocracy, both male and female. It is perfect nature combined with high breeding. A characteristic of it is the absence of that insolence on the one side and of snob- bishness on the other which are to be found in nearly all other societies. This arises from the fact that the only passport to the upper society is 'pedigree, an unquestionable descent on both sides of the house from nobility of many generations. Without this passport a native might as well think of getting into the moon as getting into society. Therefore the society is very small, not more than three hundred or so, all very much intermarried and related ; everybody knows everybody, so that pushing is impossible, and fending ofif unnecessary. The diplomatic corps move among it, of course, officially. They are civil to us, and invite us to their great parties, and come to our houses. As a spectacle of men and women, and how they play their parts, as Washington Irving used to say, I have no objection to spending my evenings thus for a small 1863.] THE AUSTRIAN ARISTOCRACY. 125 portion of the year. It does not interfere with my solid work during the daytime. English society is very interesting, because anybody who has done anything noteworthy may be seen in it. But if an Austrian should be Shakespeare, Galileo, Nelson, and Kaphael all in one, he couldn't be admitted into good society in Vienna unless he had the sixteen quarterings of nobility which birth alone could give him. Naturally it is not likely to excite one's vanity that one goes as a Minister where as an individual he would find every door shut against him. But in the way of duty it is important to cultivate social relations where one is placed, and in these times I am desirous that the American Lega- tion should be in a line with other missions. Fortunately, evening entertainments only cost the wax candles and the lemonade. There is not much in this letter, my dear mother, to interest you. But I thought it better to talk of things around me instead of sending my disquisitions about American affairs, in regard to which I am so unfortunate as to differ from those whom you are in the habit of talking with. Best love to my father and all at home. Ever your most affectionate son, J. L. M. From Baron von Bismarck. Berlin, April nth, 1863. My dear Motley, — Du hast mir eine grosse Freude gemacht durch deinen Brief vom 9., und ich werde Dir sehr dankbar sein, wenn Du Wort hiilst to write oftener and longer. I hate politics, aber wie Du sehr richtig sagst, like the grocer hating figs, ich bin nicht desto weniger genothigt, meine Gedanken unabliissig mit jenen Figs zu befassen. Auch in diesem Augenblicke, wahrend ich Dir schreibe, habe ich die Ohren davon voll. Ich bin genothigt ungewohnlich, abge- schmackte Reden aus dem Munde ungewohnlich kindischer und aufgeregter rolitiker anzuhoren, und habe dadurch einen 126 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. ' [Chap. IV. Augenblick unfreiwilliger Musse, die ich nicht besser beniit- zen kann, als indem ich Dir von meinem Wohlbefinden Nachricht gebe. Ich liabe niemals geglaubt, dass ich in meinen reifen Jahren genothigt werden wiirde, ein so un- wiirdiges Gewerbe wie das eines parlementarischen Ministers zu betreiben. Als Gesandter hatte ich, ob schon Beamter, doch das Gefiihl ein Gentleman zu sein. Als Minister ist man Helot. Ich bin heruntergekommen und weiss doch selber nicht wie. Ap"il 18. — So weit schrieb ich gestern, dann schloss die Sitzung ; 5 Stunden Kammer bis 3 Uhr, dann 1 Stunde reiten, 1 Stunde Yertrag bei Sr. Majestat, 3 Stunden auf einen lang- weiligen Diner, old important Whigs, dann 2 Stunden Arbeit, schliesslich ein Souper bei einem Collegen, der es mir libel genommen hatte, wenn ich seinen Fisch verschmaht hatte. Heute friih kaum gefriihstiickt, da sass mir Karolyi schon gegeniiber ; ihn losten ohne Unterbrechung Danemarck, England, Portugal, Kussland, Frankreich ab, dessen Bot- schafter ich ein Uhr darauf aufmerksam machen musste, dass es fiir mich Zeit sei in das Haus der Phrasen zu gehn. In diesem sitze ich nun wider, hore die Leute Unsinn reden, und beendige meinen Brief ; die Leute sind Alle dariiber einig, unsere Vertrage with Belgien gut zu heissen, und doch sprechen 20 Bedner, schelten einander mit der grossten Hef- tigkeit, als ob jeder den Andern umbringen wollte ; sie sind liber die Motive nicht einig, aus denen Sie iibereinstimmen, darum der Zank ; echt Deutsch, leider, Streit um des Kaisers Bart, querelle d'AUemand ; Etwas davon habt Ihr Anglo- Saxon Yankees auch. Wisst Ihr eigentlich aber genau, warum Ihr so wiithend Krieg mit einander fiihrt ? Alle wissen Es gewiss nicht ; aber man schlagt sich con amore todt, das Geschaft bringt's halt so mit sich. Eure Gefechte sind blutig, unsere geschwatzig ; diese Schwatzer konnen Preussen wirklich nicht regieren, ich muss den Widerstand leisten, sie haben zu wenig Witz und zu viel Behagen, dumm und dreist. Dumm in seiner Allgemeinheit ist nicht der richtige Ausdruck ; die Leute sind einzeln betrachtet, zum Theile recht gescheut, meist unterrichtet, regelrechte deutsche Universitatsbildung, \ 1863] VEXATIONS OP A MINISTER. 127 aber von der Politik iiber die Kirchthiirm-Interessen hinaua, wissen sie so wenig wie wir als Studenten davon wussten, ja noch weniger in auswiirtiger Politik sind sie auch einzeln genommen Kinder ; in alien iibrigen Fragen aber werden sie kindiscli, so bald sie in Corpore zusammen treten, massenweit dumm, einzeln verstiindig. When over-reading my letter just before I go to meet in my bed " tired nature's sweet restorer," I find that under the noisy distractions of parliamentary bullying I have written down a suite of dull commonplaces, and I was about to bum it, but considering the difficulty in this dreary sort of life of finding out an undisturbed moment, and a more sensible dis- position of mind, I think, like Pontius Pilate, " Quod scripsi, scripsl." These drops of my own ink will show you at least that my thoughts, when left alone, readily turn to you. I never pass by old Logier's House, in the Friedrichstrasse, with- out looking up at the windows that used to be ornamented by a pair of red slippers sustained on the wall by the feet of a gentleman sitting in the Yankee way, his head below and out of sight. I then gratify my memory with remembrance of " good old colony times when we were roguish chaps." ^ (Poor) Flesh is travelling with his daughter, I do not know where in this moment. My wife is much obliged for your kind remem- brance, and also the children. The little one wrenched his foot in tumbling down a staircase, and my daughter in bed with a sore throat, but no harm in that. They are well after all. Gott sei Dank. Nun leb herzlich wohl. Ich kann so spat am Abend eine so unorthographische Sprache wie eng- lisch nicht liinger schreiben. Aber bitte versuche Du es bald wieder. Deine Hand sieht aus wie Krahenfiisse, ist aber sehr leserlich ; meine auch ? Dein treuer alter Freund, V. Bismarck. ' In 1888, Prince Bismarck, iu his time that ho had loarut it from his great speech to the German Reichsrath, " clear deceased friend, John Motley." quoted this Eong, adding at the same 128 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV. (Translation.) From Baron von Bismarck. Berlin, April nth, 1863. My dear Motley, — You have given me a great pleasure with your letter of the 9 th, and I shall be very grateful to you if you keep your promise to write oftener and longer. I hate politics, but, as you say truly, like the grocer hating figs, I am none the less obliged to keep my thoughts increasingly occu- pied with those figs. Even at this moment while I am writing to you my ears are full of it. I am obliged to listen to parti- cularly tasteless speeches out of the mouths of uncommonly childish and excited politicians, and I have therefore a moment of unwilling leisure which I cannot use better than in giving you news of my welfare. I never thought that in my riper years I should be obliged to carry on such an unworthy trade as that of a parliamentary Minister. As Envoy, although an official, I still had the feeling of being a gentleman ; as (parlia- mentary) Minister one is a helot. I have come down in the world, and hardly know how. A^yril 18th. — I wrote as far as this yesterday, then the sitting came to an end ; five hours' Chamber until three o'clock ; one hour's report to His Majesty, three hours at an incredibly dull dinner, old important Whigs, then two hours' work ; finally, a supper with a colleague, who would have been hurt if I had slighted his fish. This morning, I had hardly break- fasted, before Karolyi was sitting opposite to me; he was followed without interruption by Denmark, England, Portugal, Russia, France, whose Ambassador I was obliged to remind at one o'clock that it was time for me to go to the House of phrases. I am sitting again in the latter ; hear people talk nonsense, and end my letter. All these people have agreed to approve our treaties with Belgium, in spite of which twenty speakers scold each other with the greatest vehemence, as if each wished to make an end of the other ; they are not agreed jbout the motives which make them unanimous, hence, alas ! jjj^egular German squabble about the Emperor's beard ; 18C3.] THE GERMAN PEOPLE. 129 yuerelle (V Allemand. You Anglo-Saxon Yankees have something v)f the same kind also. Do you all know exactly why you are waging such furious war with each other? All certainly do not know, but they kill each other con amore, that's the way the business comes to them. Your battles are bloody ; ours wordy ; these chatterers really cannot govern Prussia. I must bring some opposition to bear against them ; they have too little wit and too much self-complacency — stupid and audacious. Stupid, in all its meanings, is not the right word ; considered individually, these people are sometimes very clever, generally educated — the regulation German University culture ; but of politics, beyond the interests of their own church tower, they know as little as we knew as students, and even less ; as far as external politics go, they are also, taken separately, like children. In all other questions they become childish as soon as they stand together in corpore. In the mass stupid, individually intelligent. [Letter continues in English until last sentence.] Now, an affectionate farewell. I can't go on writing such an unorthographic language as English so late at night, but please try it yourself soon again. Your hand looks like crane's feet, but is very legible. Is mine the same ? Your faithful old friend, V. Bismarck. To his Mother. Vienna, May 12th, 1863. My dearest Mother, — Since Easter brought an end to the Lenten entertainments which succeeded the Carnival, there has been absolutely nothing going on in the social world. To-morrow there is a ceremony at the Chapel of the Imperial Palace, the presentation of the cardinal's hat by the Emperor to our colleague here, the Internuncio, who has just been car- dinalised by the Pope. I wish it had taken place yesterday, for then I might have a topic for my letter, besides having got through the bore of witnessing it. VOL. II. K 130 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV. There is mucli talk about war in Europe, but I can hardly believe it will come to blows. I don't exactly see how France or England is to get any benefit from the war. The Crimean war was different. Without it, it is probable that Kussia would have got Constantinople, which England, of course, can never stand. France would like to fight Prussia and get the Ehine provinces, but England couldn't stand that, nor Austria either, much as she hates Prussia. So it would seem difficult to get up a war. As for Austria's going into such a shindy, the idea is ridiculous. To go to war to gain a province is conceivable ; to do so expressly to lose one, is not the disinterested fashion of European potentates. As for the Poles, nothing will satisfy them but complete independence, and in this object I don't believe that France or England mean to aid them. So there will be guerrilla fighting all summer. Blood will flow in Poland, and ink in all th& European Cabinets very profusely, and the result will be that Russia will end by reducing the Poles to submission. At least this is the way things look now ; but " on the other hand," as editor Clapp used to say, there is such a thing as drift, and kings and politicians don't govern the world, but move with the current, so that the war may really come before the summer is over, for the political question (to us& the diplomatic jargon) is quite insoluble, as the diplomatic correspondence has already proved. There, I have given you politics enough for this little letter, and no^v I have only to say how much love we all send to you and the governor. I hope this summer will bring warmth, and comfort, and health to you. Give my love to my little Mary. Our news from America is to April 29th, and things look bright on the . Mississippi. I hope to hear good accounts from Hooker, but Virginia seems a fatal place for us. Good-bye, my dearest mother. Ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. 18(53] POLAND. 131 To Lady William Russell. Vienna, May dUt, 1863. Dear Lady William, — If I have not written of late, it is simply and purely because I am so very stupid. I don't know whether you ever read a very favourite author of mine — Charles Lamb. He says somewhere, "I have lived to find myself a disreputable character." Now I don't know (nor very much care) whether I am disreputable or not, but I am conscious of being a bore, both to myself and others. It has been growing steadily upon me. I always had a natural tendency that way, and the development in the Vienna atmo- sphere has been rapid. As I know you hate bores worse than anything else human (if they are human), I have been disposed to suppress myself. What can I say to you about Vienna ? I don't wish to say anything against people who have civilly entreated me, who are kindly in manner, and are certainly as well-dressed, as well-bred, as good-looking as could be desired. A Vienna salon, with its " Comtessen Zimmer " adjoining, full of young beauties, with their worshippers buzzing about them like great golden humble-bees, is as good a specimen of the human tropical-conservatory sort of thing as exists. But I must look at it all objectively, not subjectively. The society is very small in number. As you know, one soon gets to know every one — gets a radiant smile from the fair women and a pressure of the hand from the brave men ; exchanges a heartfelt word or two about the Prater, or the last piece at the Burg ; groans aloud over the badness of the Opera and the prevalence of the dust, und damit Punhtum. Your friend. Prince Paul, is better of late. But he has been shut up all the winter. A few nights ago we saw him at the Opera. You are at the head-quarters of intelligence, so you know better than I do whether you are going to war about Poland. I tal^e it for granted that no sharper instrument than the pen will be used by the two " great Powers," and that they will shed nothing more precious than ink this year, which can be manufactured very cheap in all countries. At any K 2 132 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV. rate, people talk very pacifically here, except in the news- papers. The Due de Gramont has gone to Carlsbad to drink the waters for six weeks — the first Secretary of his Embassy is absent. Lord Bloomfield has gone into the country. Count Eechberg has been ailing for some weeks ; and meantime we are informed this morning by telegraph that engineer oflScers in London and Paris have arranged the plan of the campaign. Finland is at once to be occupied, a great battle is to be fought, in which the Allies are to be victorious, after which St. Petersburg is to be immediately captured — simple eomme honjour. The newspapers give you this telegram, all of them exactly as I state it. Ah ! if campaigning in the field were only as easy and bloodless as in the newspapers. But the poor Poles are shedding something warmer than ink, and I can't say it seems very fair to encourage them to go on, if you are going to help them with nothing harder than fine phrases, which have small effect on Cossacks, or what is called in the jargon of the day " moral influence " (whatever it may be) is no doubt a very valuable dispensation, but gunpowder carries nearer to the mark. There seems something very grand in this occult power, called the Committee of Public Safety, at Warsaw, a new Vehmgericht. I am told that General Berg, on being asked the other day by Grand Duke Constantino if he had made any discoveries yet as to the people who composed the Com- mittee, replied in the affirmative. " Who are they ? " said the Grand Duke. " Let me first tell you who don't belong to it," said the General. " I don't for one. Your Imperial Highness does not, I think, for another ; but for all the rest of Warsaw I can't say." A comfortable situation for a Grand Duke ! This invisible Committee send as far as Vienna for recruits, and men start off without a murmur, go and get themselves shot, or come back again, as the case may be, and nobody knows yho sent for them or how. I have heard of several instances of this occurring in high and well-known families. I am just now much interested in watching the set- to between Crown and Parliament in Berlin. By the way, Bismarck Schonhausen is one of my oldest and most intimate 1863.] THE CLIMATE OF VIENNA. 133 friends. We lived together almost ia the same rooms for two years — some ages ago, when we were both juvenea imherhes, and have renewed our friendship since. He is a man of great talent and most undaunted courage. We have got a little parliament here, which we call the Beichsrath, and are as proud as Punch of it. It has worked two years admirably well, only the Opposition members, who make up two-thirds of it, never come, which makes it easier for the Administration. My wife and daughters join me in warmest regards and most fervent wishes for your happiness and restoration to health, and I remain Most sincerely and devotedly yours, Varius Variorum. To his Mother. Vienna, June 16th, 1863. My dearest Mother, — Now that Mary is gone, you will not hear regularly through her once a week that we are all well and going on as usual. If her arrangements were carried out, she must now be six days out from Boston, and will be due in Liverpool in six days more, so that next week we shall be anxiously looking for the telegram announcing the steamer's arrival. We have awful weather. A dry, cold, pitiless, howling whirlwind has been sweeping over Vienna for the last four or five days. To say that our June is a severe March would be to slander that blustering month unjustly. I never knew such hideous weather. If it would rain, I shouldn't mind, but it rarely rains here. The Vienna climate has much resemblance to that of Boston, particularly in the matter of wind. The winter is not half as severe, but, en revanche^ 1 never knew such glacial weather in mid June at home. Five such days as we have passed through, with the prospects of five more, are more savage than six months of the worst east wind that ever swept up Boston Bay. You see I am weak-minded enough to find nothing to talk 134 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. IV. about but the weather. We have just had the pleasure of having Mrs. Parkman, and her children, and Edward Twisleton here for a few days. They were with us to dinner or in the evening nearly every day, and it was a great satisfaction, so rarely do we have any old friends in this out-of-the-way place. She, you know, is a woman of remarkable intelligence and character, and her children are uncommonly well-educated and well-mannered. Poor Twisleton we had not seen since his wife's death, whom we saw much in England and liked exceedingly. He is saddened much, but not changed ; it was very agreeable to talk with him about American matters, for he is as good an American as I am, and thoroughly under- stands the subject, besides being a man of talent and great attainments. They are gone now. He is on his way to England. She will join Mrs. Cleveland in Schwalbach, so that if Mary and Lily keep to their present plan of going to that place to meet Mary and bring her back, while Susie and I keep house at home, they will meet again in a few weeks. The Clevelands are expected in Schwalbach July 18th. Ever your most affectionate son, J. L. M. To his Mother. Vienna, July 1th, 1863. My deaeest Mothee, — .... Lily is my assistant secre- tary of legation, and does an immense deal for me, being able, by her thorough knowledge of languages, to accomplish more work than most young gentlemen of her age would be competent to. The daughter of the French Ambassador is about Susie's age, and the two daughters of the Spanish Minister are also her contemporaries, and the four are very intimate and see each other perpetually. Not a week passes but Susie passes the day with the Gramonts, or they come and play in our garden. The little D'Ayllons have now gone to Voslau (where we were last year), but I think that Susie will soon make them a visit. Meantime they exchange letters 1863.] VICKSBURG— GETTYSBURG. 135 I should think every day. What they find to put in them is ■difficult to imagine Everything is calm just now. Almost all Vienna has turned itself out of town, and we are left blooming alone. To-day we all four go out to dine with the Bloomfields, who have a pleasant villa for the summer about an hour's drive from here. It is very pleasant for us when the relations between our Government and that of England and France are so threatening and disagreeable, that our personal intercourse with the English and French Ambassadors and their families <5an be so agreeably maintained. Nothing can be more amiable and genial than both Lord Bloomfield and the Due de Gramont, and nothing but kind words and offices have ever passed between us. Your aflfectionate son, J. L. M. To his Wife} Monday, July 20tA, 18G3. My deakest Mary, — Hurray ! I have just got the telegram. Vicksburg surrendered on the glorious 4th. " Good," as Turner Sargent says. The details are, of course, wanting. "NVe shall not receive the papers containing the Gettysburg battle history until Thursday. There can be no doubt, how- ever, that Lee has been tremendously licked. Meade occu- pied his head-quarters after the battle, and has since been pursuing him for sixty miles. Meade seems to me to be a trump, the man we have been looking for ever since the war began. What a tremendous responsibility it was for him to be placed at the head of the army at the eleventh hour, in the very face of the chief rebel general and their best army ! So far as we can yet judge, he has acted with immense nerve, rapidity, skill; and I think has achieved a very great success. To us who know the > During a short abaence to meet their second daughter on her return from America. See p. 140. 136 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. IV. country the telegram says simply, " Lee, after losing 30,000 men (probably 15,000), is trying to get off into Virginia as fast as he can. He may offer battle if he can't get across the Potomac before Meade catches him. If not — not, and if not, why not ? " I have never felt so sanguine about our affairs since the very beginning. To be sure I never believed^ as you know, in the fudge about Baltimo're and Washington, but one couldn't help the fidgets when all the world in Europe was sounding the rebel trumpets in such a stunning way. Now, if Lee is able to do us much damage, all I can say is, that I shall be very much astonished. I suppose he will get back to Winchester, and so to the Eappahannock, with a good deal of bacon and other provender, and then claim a great victory. There is no meaning^^at all in that bit in the tele- gram about Buford and Kilpatrick's cavalry being repulsed. Obviously they were only reconnoitring in force to find out where the enemy was, and it could only have been an insig- nificant skirmish, such as happens daily. If there is any truth in the story about " Vice-President " Stephens wishing^ to come to Washington, it must have been something about negro troops. Now that we must have taken in Pennsylvania and Vicksburg at least 20,000 prisoners, I do hope the President will issue an unmistakable edi(;t about that hanging officers of black troops. There couldn't be a better time. Devotedly and affectionately, J. L. M. To his Wife. Vienna, July 2ith, 1863. Deaeest Maet, — I wrote yesterday and said that I would write again to-day, thinking you would like to listen to the words of wisdom, after I had had time to digest a little the magnificent news we have just received. But after all I haven't much to say. For the details are entirely wanting. The papers only reach to 8th from Boston, and 7th from New 1863.] GENERAL LEE'S POSITION. - 137 York, the later is of course by telegraph. We must wait a week to know exactly what has happened, and how large the success is. But isn't it one of the most striking and pictur- esque things imaginable that Lee's great invading army, after being thoroughly thrashed on the 2nd and 3rd July, should have moved off in rapid retreat on the 4th July, and that, on the same famoiis anniversary, Vicksburg, the great fortress and stronghold of the Mississippi, should have surrendered to the United States troops ? Suppose that Lee at the present moment has got 70,000 men at Hagerstown, where we know that he has fortified him- self, and that is the very utmost that one can even imagine him to have ; why Meade by this time must have at least 150,000, after deducting all his losses in the battles. And the militia are streaming in by thousands a day. Government can send him (and I believe has sent him) every soldier they can dispose of from Washington, Baltimore, Fort Munroe, and the peninsula. Our resources of food and ammunition are bound- less, and I don't see how Meade can help cutting off the enemy's supplies. I pore over the map, and I don't see how Lee can help being in a trap. I will say no more, especially as about the time when you read this you will be getting the telegram to the 15th, which may prove that I have made an ass of myself. I send Sumner's letter, written apparently before hearing of any of these great victories. I also send Holmes's oration, which I haven't yet had time to read. No doubt it is magnificent, and I prefer to read it at leisure. I have another copy in the daily. He sent me this one. I also send a paper or two, which please preserve, as I file them. I went to the D'Ayllons' yesterday and brought home Susie. Love to Mrs. Cleveland and Lillie and my chickens. Ever lovingly yours, J. L. M. 438 ■ MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV. To Ms Mother. Vienna, September 22nd, 1863. My dearest Mother, — Here in this capital the great in- terest just now is about the new Mexican Emperor. The Arch- duke Maximilian is next brother to the Emperor of Austria, and about thirty years of age. He has been a kind of Lord High Admiral, an office which, in the present condition of the Imperial navy, may be supposed to be not a very onerous occupation. He was Governor-General of Lombardy until that kingdom was ceded to Victor Emmanuel, and he is con- sidered a somewhat restless and ambitious youth. He has literary pretensions too, and has printed without publishing several volumes of travels in various parts of the world. The matter is not yet decided. It is, I believe, unquestionable that the Archduke is most desirous to go forth on the adven- ture. It is equally certain that the step is exceedingly unpopular in Austria. That a Prince of the House of Hapsburg should become the satrap of the Bonaparte dynasty, and should sit on an American throne which could not exist a moment but for French bayonets and French ships, is most galling to all classes of Austrians. The intrigue is a most embarrassing one to the Government. If the fatal gift is refused, Louis Napoleon of course takes it highly in dudgeon. If it is accepted, Austria takes a kind of millstone around her neck in the shape of gratitude for something she didn't want, and some day she will be expected to pay for it in something she had rather not give. The deputation of the so-called notables is expected here this week, and then the conditions will be laid down on which Maximilian will consent to live in the bed of roses of Montezuma and Yturbide. I still entertain Si faint hope that the negotiations may be protracted, and that something may interrupt them before they are concluded. The matter is a very serious and menacing one to us. Foriiunately our President is as honest and upright a man as ever\ lived, and there is no Minister of Foreign Affairs living to compare in ability with Seward. I think he will steer us clear of war, and a foreign war is the only thing 18G3.] THE MEXICAN QUESTION. 139 •which can save the rebellion from extermination. No paper published of late has given me such unalloyed pleasure as the President's letter to the Illinois Kepublican Com- mittee. The transparent honesty and unsophisticated manli- ness of his character breathes through every line. Happy the people who can have so homely and honest a chief, when others live under Louis Napoleons and Jeflf. Davises ! Good-bye, my dearest mother. All send best love to father and yourself and all the family, and I remain Ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. To Br, 0. W. Eolmes. Vienna, September 22nd, 1863. Mt dear Holmes, — I am perfectly aware that I do not -deserve to receive any letters or anything else from you. You heap coals on my head, and all I can say is that I hope you have several chaldrons on hand for me of the same sort. JPour on. I will endure with much gratitude and without shame. Your last letter was not to me but to two young women under my roof, and gave them infinite delight, as you may well suppose, as well as to Mary and myself. I shall, however, leave the answering of that letter to them. The youngest of the two is not the less welcome to us after her long absence from the domestic hen-coop ; she has so much to say of you and yours, and of all the kindness you heaped upon her, and of all the thousand matters belonging to you all. Your last letter to me bears date June 7th. It is much occupied with Wendell's wound at Fredericksburg, and I thank you for assuming so frankly that nothing could be more interesting to us than the details which you send us. I trust sincerely that he has now fully recovered. Colonel Holmes has most nobly won his spurs and his advancement. I am always fond of citing and daguerreotyping him as a specimen of the mob of mercenaries and outcasts of which the Union army is composed. You may be sure I do him 140 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. IV- full justice, and even if I allow it to be supposed that there are within our ranks five hundred as good as he, it is an in- ference which can do the idiots no harm who suppose the slave- holding rebels to be all Sidneys and Bayards. When you wrote me last, you said on general matters this ; " In a few days we shall get the news of the success or failure of the attacks on Port Hudson and Vicksburg. If both are suc- cessful, many will say that the whole matter is about settled." You may suppose that when I got the great news I shook hands warmly with you in the spirit across the Atlantic. Day by day, for so long we had been hoping to hear the fall of Vicksburg. At last, when that little concentrated telegram came announcing Vicksburg and Gettysburg on the same day and in two lines, I found myself alone. Mary and Lily had gone to the baths of Schwalbach to pick up the stray chicken with whom you are acquainted. There was nobody in the house to join in my huzzas but my youngest infant. And my conduct very much resembled that of the excellent Philip II. when he heard of the fall of Antwerp, for I went to Susie's door screeching through the keyhole, "Vicksburg is ours ! " just as that other jpere de famille, more potent, but I trust not more respectable than I, conveyed the news to his Infanta {vide for the incident, an American work on the * Netherlands,' I., p. 63, and the authorities there cited). It is contemptible on my part to speak thus frivolously of events which stand out in such golden letters as long as America has a history. But I wanted to illustrate the yearniug for sympathy which I felt. You who were among people grim and self-contained usually, who I trust were falling on each other's necks in the public streets and shout- ing with tears in their eyes and triumph in their hearts, can picture my isolation. I have never faltered in my faith, and in the darkest hours, when misfortunes seemed thronging most thickly upon us, I have never felt the want of anything to lean against ; but I own I did feel like shaking hands with a few hundred people when I heard of our 4th of July, 1863, work, and should like to have heard and joined in an Ame- rican cheer or two. Well, there is no need of my descanting 1863.] DR. O. W. HOLMES' ORATION. 141 longer on this magnificent theme. Some things in this world may be better left unsaid. You and I at least know how we both feel about Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and I shall at least not try to add to the eloquence of these three words, which are destined to so eternal an echo. I wonder whether you or I half-a-dozen years ago were sufficiently up in geography to find all the three places on the map. And now let me thank you a thousand times for your oration. It would have been better for me to write on the first impulse perhaps, when I had first read it, but on the whole I think not. I felt no doubt that I should like it better and better after each reading, and so after devouring it in the very mistily printed journal which you sent, and next day in the clearer type of the respectable daily, I waited till the neat pamphlet which I knew was coming should arrive. Well, I have read it carefully several times, and I am perfectly satisfied. This I consider very high praise, because I had intense expectations both from the hour and the man. If I had had the good luck to be among the hearers — for I know how admirably you speak, and the gift you have of holding your audience in hand by the grace and fervour of your elocution as apart from the substance of your speech — I know how enthusiastic I should have been. There would have been no louder applause than mine at all the many telling and touching points. The whole strain of the address is one in which I entirely sympathise, and I think it an honour to Boston that such noble and eloquent sentiments should have resounded in ears into which so much venom has from time to time been instilled, and met with appreciation and applause. Unless I were to write you a letter as long itself as an oration, I could not say half what I would like to say, and this is exactly one of the unsatisfactory attributes of letter-writing. It is no substitute for the loose disjointed talk. I should like nothing better than to discuss your address with you all day long, for, like all efi'usions of genius, it is as rich in what it suggests as in what it conveys. What I liked as well as anything was the hopeful, helpful way in which you at start- ing lift your audience with you into the regions of faith, and 142 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. IV, rebuke the " languid thinkers " for their forlorn belief, and the- large general views which after that ascent you take of the^ whole mighty controversy than which none in human history is more important to mankind. Then I especially admire the- whole passage referring to the Saracenic conflict in Christian civilization. Will you allow me to say that I have often and often before reading your oration fallen into the same view of moralising, and that, when the news of the Battle of Gettysburg reached me, I instantly began to hope it might prove more de- cisively our Battle of Tours than I fear, magnificent victory as it was, it has proved ? Your paragraphs about the Moors are brilliant and dashing sketches. I must confess, however, that you seem to me far too complimentary about the slaveholders. Perhaps it may h& my ignorance, but I have always been sceptical as to what you call " the social elegances and personal graces of their best circles." Is it not a popular delusion to extend the external charms of a few individuals, or possibly a very small number of families, over a whole class ? I ask in ignorance merely. It has been my lot to see a good deal of European aristocracies, and, without abating a jot of my reverence for and belief in the American people, I have never hesitated to say that a conservatory of tropical fruit and flowers is a very brilliant, fragrant, and luxurious concern. Whether it be worth while to turn a few million freehold farms into one such conservatory is a question of political arithmetic which I hope will always be answered in one way on our side of the water. Non equidem invideo, miror magis. Another passage which especially delighted me was your showing up of neutrals. Again, you will pardon me if I have often thought of Dante's *' cattivo goto " in this connection. You will not object to this sympathetic coincidence, I hope. But I must pause, because, as I said before, I could go on talking of the oration for an hour. You can have no doubt whatever that it is triumphantly successful and worthy to take its place among your collected works. Do you wish higher praise ? How is it, I often ask, that people, although they may differ from you in opinion on such grave matters as you have thus. \ 1863.] ELECTIONS IN AMERICA. 143- publicly discussed, can be otherwise than respectful to your sentiments ? I have not much to say of matters here to interest you. We have had an intensely hot, historically hot, and very long and very dry summer. I never knew before what a drought meant. In Hungary the suffering is great, and the people are killing the sheep to feed the pigs with the mutton. Here about Vienna the trees have been almost stripped of foliage ever since the end of August. There is no glory in the grass nor verdure in anything. In fact we have nothing green here but the Archduke Maximilian, who firmly believes that he is going forth to Mexico to establish an American empire, and that it is his divine mission to destroy the dragon of democracy and re-establish the true Church, the Eight Divine, and all sorts of games. Poor young man I Ever sincerely yours, J. L. M. To his Mother. November llth, 18G3. My deabest Mother, — .... I shall say nothing of our home affairs save that I am overjoyed at the results of the elections in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, without being at all surprised. As to Massachusetts, of course I should as soon have thought of the sun's forgetting to rise as of her joining the pro-slavery Copperheads. The result of the elec- tions in Missouri and Maryland has not yet reached me, but I entertain a strong hope that the latter State has elected an emancipation legislature, and that before next summer the accursed institution will be wiped out of " my Maryland." The elections I consider of far more consequence than the battles ; or rather the success of the anti-slavery party and its steady increasing strength make it a mathematical certainty that, however the tide of battle may ebb and flow with varying results, the progress of the war is steadily in one direction. The peculiar institution will be washed away, and with it the only possible dissolvent of the Union. 144 MOTLEY'S LIlTTEKS. Chap. IV. We are in a great mess in Europe. The Emperor of the French, whom the littleness of his contemporaries has con- verted into a species of great man, which will much amuse posterity, is proceeding in his self-appointed capacity of European dictator. " His last dodge is to call a Congress of Sovereigns, without telling them what they are to do when they have obeyed his summons. All sorts of tremendous things are anticipated, for, when you have a professional con- spirator on the most important throne in Christendom, there is no dark intrigue that doesn't seem possible. Our poor people in Vienna are in an awful fidget, and the telegraph wires between London, St. Petersburg, and Paris are quivering hourly with the distracted messages which are speeding to and fro, and people go about telling each other the most insane stories. If Austria doesn't go to the Congress out of deference to England, then France, Russia, Prussia, and Italy are to meet together and make a new map of Europe. France is to take the provinces of the Rhine from Prussia, and give her in exchange the Kingdom of Hanover, the Duchy of Brunswick, and other little bits of property to round off her estate. Austria is to be deprived of Venice, which is to be given to Victor Emmanuel. Russia is to set up Poland as a kind of kingdom in leading-strings, when she has finished her Warsaw massacres, and is to take possession of the Danubian Principalities in exchange. These schemes are absolutely broached and believed in. Meantime the Schles- wig-Holstein question, which has been whisking its long tail about through the European system, and shaking war from its horrid hair till the guns were ready to fire, has suddenly taken a new turn. Day before yesterday the King of Denmark, in the most melodramatic manner, died unexpectedly, just as he was about to sign the new constitution, which made war with the Germanic Confederation certain. Then everybody breathed again. The new King would wait, would turn out all the old Ministers, would repudiate the new constitution, would ^hake hands with the German Bund, and be at peace, when, loM just as the innocent big- wigs were making sure of this consummation so devoutly wished, comes a telegram that 1863.] THE LESSONS OP WAR. 145 His new Majesty has sworn to the new constitution and kept in the old IMinisters. Our weather has become grey, sullen, and wintry, but not cold. There has hardly been a frost yet, but the days are short and fires indispensable. The festivities will begin before long. Thus far I have been able to work steadily and get on pretty well. Ever your most affectionate son, J. L. M. To his Mother. Vienna, December IQth, 1863. My dearest Mother, — I received your letter of 25th November a few days ago, and am delighted to find you giving a good account of your health. As you say that you can find satisfaction in my stupid letters, I send you to-day another little note. Pray don't think it affected on my part when I say that I have literally nothing to write about. We had the pleasure of a brief visit last week of a couple of charming bridal pairs, Irving Grinnell (son of my excellent friend, Moses Grinnell) and his pretty, sweet little wife, who was, I believe, a Howland ; and Fred Hauteville and his bride, a daughter of Hamilton Fish, of New York — very elegant, high-bred, and handsome. It was almost a painful pleasure to us to see Fred, for it brought more vividly to our memories his beautiful and most interesting mother, whose life was ended so sadly, just as it might have been gladdened by such a daughter. Still, although our regrets for his mother were re-awakened, we were most happy to see the son, and to find how manly and high-spirited, and at the same time modest and agreeable, he seemed to be. Ah, this war is a tremendous school-mistress, but she does turn our boys into men. And, if all this cam- paigning has caused many tears to flow, it seems to me I had rather my son had died in the field fighting for the loftiest and purest cause, than that he had remained in the sloth and VOL. n. ' L 146 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IV. the frivolity which form the life of too many who stay at home. I am determined to say nothing of political matters save to repeat my conviction, firm as the everlasting hills, that the only possible issue of the war is the reconstruction of. the Union and the entire abolition of slavery, and such a glorious consummation is as sure as that the sun will rise to-morrow. We are all well, and send much love to the governor and yourself and all the family. The little Schleswig-Holstein fuss is in a fair way of being settled. Ever your most affectionate son, J. L. M. To his Mother. December 29th, 1863. My dearest Mother, — We wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. We are very well satisfied with recent American news. In a military point of view, thank Heaven ! the " coming man," for whom we have so long been waiting, seems really to have come. So far as I can understand the subject, Ulysses Grant is at least equal to any general now living in any part of the world, and by far the first that our war has produced on either side. I expect that when the Vicksburg and Tennessee cam- paigns come to be written, many years hence, it will appear that they are masterpieces of military art. A correspondent of a widely circulated German newspaper (the Augsburg Gazette), very far from friendly to America, writing from the seat of war in Tennessee, speaks of the battle of Chattanooga as an action, which, both for scientific combination and bravery in execution, is equal to any battle of modern times from the days of Frederick the Great downwards. I am also much pleased with the Message, and my respect for the character and ability of the President increases every day. It was an immense good fortune for us in this emergency to have a man in his responsible place whose integrity has never been impeached, so far as I know, by friend or foe. The ferment in Europe does not subside, and I cannot understand how the 1863.] DANGER OP WAR IN EUROPE. 147 German-Danish quarrel can be quietly settled. I rather expect to see a popular outbreak in Copenhagen, to be sup- pressed, perhaps, by foreign powers ; but that Denmark will be dismembered seems to me very probable. However, I have no intention of prophesying as to events to be expected during the coming year. Ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. \ L 2 148 MOTLEY'S LETTERS, [Chap. Y CHAPTER y. VIENNA (1864) — continued. Festivities at Vienna — The war drawing to a close — The Danish war — ^Letter to the Duchess of Argyll — Colonel Robert Sliaw — A Court dinner — The Empress— Letter to Lady W. Russell — Tlie Schleswig-Holstein aifair — Emperor Maximilian — The Honourable Julian Fane — Letter from Mr. E. Everett — The East Tennessee Fund — Change of feeling in America — Letter from Baron von Bismarck — Death of Mr. Motley's father — Death of Mr. Julius Lothrop — Grant's Richmond campaign — The Alabama and Kear- sarge — Letter to Lady W. Russell — At work on the ' History ' — Death of General Wadsworth — Letter from Mr. J. R. Lowell — Editorship of the North American Bevieio — An appeal for contributions — Political prospect in America — The sinking of the Alabama — The Vienna conferences — Lincoln and Grant — The repulse at Petersburg — A dinner with Bismarck — King of Prussia's visit to Vienna — Candidates for the Presidency — Excluded from the Vienna Archives — The " Women's League " — First principles of com- merce— The ebb and flow of gold — Paper currency — National economy — Peace conferences at Vienna — McClellan's candidature — Count Spiegel — Condition of the Austrian peasantry — Tour to Gmunden and Ischl — Salzburg — Venice — Breakfast with Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg — The Comte de Paris — His sympathy with the North — Work" on the ' History ' — Intention of writing History of Thirty Years' War — The Prater — The Opera^ — Lincoln President the second time — Belief in democracy — Winter in Vienna — Letter from Mr. J. R. Lowell — The Norik American Beview againi — Prospects of the end of the war. To his Mother. January 27th, 1864. My DEAREST Mother, — Since I last wrote I have had the- pleasure of receiving your kind letter of 28th December. Although I regret to find that you are still so much a sufferer from neuralgia and rheumatism, it is a great satisfaction that your eyesight is so much improved, and that you are able ta read as much as you like. X Fortunately you have it in your power to see all the new books, whereas we are obliged very much to do without them. Vienna is probably the city in the world where the least reading is done in proportion to the population, and the most dancing. Yet, strange to say, in the upper society there are J8G4.] THE WAR DRAWING TO A CLOSE. 149 but very few balls this Carnival. Lily wrote you an account of ours, and on the following week there was a ball at the French Ambassador's, the Due de Gramont. The society is so small that this seems to suffice. I shall add but little concerning our festivity. It was a tremendous undertaking in the prospect, and IMary excited my special wonder by the energy and completeness with which she superintended the arrangements. Our head-servant, being an incapable donkey, was an obstruction rather than a help, and the only real lieutenant that she had was , who was all energy and intelligence. Lily, who thoroughly understands ihe society of Vienna, was, of course, all in all in regard to the actual business of the ball, and we had an excellent and amiable ally in young Prince Metternich, who was the managing director. Well, at least we are rewarded for the trouble and expense by success, for I cannot doubt, so much we have heard about it, that it gave very great satisfaction to the said upper three hundred, that noble Spartan band who so heroically defend the sacred precincts of fashion against the million outsiders who in vain assail it. I have said more about this trifling matter than you may think interesting. But, to say the truth, I preferred that exactly in this state of our affairs the house of the American Minister should be one whose doors were occasionally open, rather than to be known as a trans- Atlantic family who went everywhere but who were ■never known to invite a soul within their walls. For me personally it is harder work than writing a dozen despatches. There is, I think, but little of stirring intelligence to be expected from the United States before March or April, but I have settled down into a comfortable faith that this current year 1864 is to be the last of military operations on a large scale. To judge from the history of the past two and a half years, it will not take another twelvemonth for our forces to get possession of what remains of rebel cities and territory, or, at any rate, to vanquish the armed resistance to such an extent, that what remains of the insurrection will be reduced to narrow and manageable compass. In another year or two, I am now convinced, there will be neither slaveholders nor 150 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. V. rebels — which terms are synonymous. The future will be more really prosperous than the past has ever been, for the volcano above in which we have been living in a fool's paradise of forty years, dancing and singing, and imagining ourselves going ahead, will have done its worst, and spent itself, I trust for ever. In Europe affairs are looking very squally. The war has almost begun, and the first cannon-shot I suppose will be heard on the Eider before the middle of February. At least, from the best information I can gather from German,. Danish, and other sources, the conflict has become inevitable. If diplomacy does succeed in patching up matters in the next fortnight, it will show better skill in joiner's work than it ha& manifested of late years in any other occasion. We have, at least the advantage of being comparatively secure from inter- ference. January Zlst. — I shall bring the * United Netherlands ' to an end by the end of this year. But how I shall feel when I come out of that mine where I have been delving so many years I can scarcely imagine. I shall feel like a man who has worked out his twenty years in the penitentiary, and who would on the whole prefer to remain. Good-bye, my dearest mother, and, with my most earnest prayers for your health and happiness, I am your affectionate son, J. L. M. To the Duchess of Argyll. Vienna, February 7th, 1864. Dear Duchess of Argyll, — We get on very well m Vienna. We have an extremely pleasant house with a large garden. Many of our colleagues are very kind and agree- able ; your ambassador most especially so — high-minded,, honourable, sympathetic, good-tempered, amiable. Every- body respects and loves him for his fine qualities of mind and character. Lady Bloomfield is very charming and accom- plished, and has but one fault in the world. She has been away from us three or four months, and we all miss her very much. 1864.] COLONEL ROBERT SHAW. 151 I have purposely avoided speaking of the one topic of which my mind is always full, because when I once begin I can never stop, and I become an intolerable bore. I am glad you spoke of Colonel Shaw. His father and mother are intimate friends of ours, and I have had a touching letter from Mr. Shaw since his son's death. I knew the son, too, a beautiful, fair-haired youth, with everything surrounding him to make life easy and gay. When I was at home in 1861 I saw him in camp. He was in the same tent with one of my own nephews, both being lieutenants in what has since become a very famous regiment — the Massachusetts 2nd. I had the honour of presenting their colours to that regiment, and saw them march out of Boston 1040 strong. Since that day they have been in countless actions, some of the bloodiest of the war. A large proportion of its officers, all of them young men of well-known Boston families, have been killed or severely wounded; and in the last papers received I read that the regiment, reduced to about two hundred, has returned on a few weeks' furlough and to recruit its numbers, having re- enlisted — like most of the other regiments whose term expires this year — for three years longer, or for the duration of the war. I believe that they would serve for twenty years rather than that our glorious Eepublic should be destroyed. But be assured that the Government of the United States is firm as the mountains. Young llobert Shaw is a noble type of the young American. Did you see the poem to his memory in the January number of the Atlantic ? It is called * Memoriae positum,' and is, I think, very beautiful. The last verse is especially touching. It is by llussell Lowell, one of our first poets, as you know. The allusion is to his two nephews who were killed in Virginia. A third nephew (he has no sons). Colonel Lowell, of the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry, is in active service in Meade's army. He lately married a sister of Colonel Shaw, and she is with him now. Shaw fought all through the campaigns of Virginia, in the Massachusetts 2nd, until he took the command of the Massachusetts 54th (colonel). His was a beautiful life and a beautiful death. 152 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. I shall say no more. My wife and daughters join me in sincerest remembrances and best wishes for the Duke and yourself and all your household. I beg to remain, dear Duchess of Argyll, Most truly yours, J. L. M. I wish you would whisper to the Duke that he owes me a letter, and that if he should ever find time to write I will write a short letter in return. To his Mother. Viennn, March 16th, 1864. My dearest Mother, — I hardly know what to say likely to amuse you. Vienna has been dull this winter to an unex- ampled extent, and the spring is still duller — parties and dinners being reduced to a minimum. Week before last Mary atid I had the honour of being bidden to dine with the Emperor and Empress. Perhaps it may amuse you to hear how a dinner at Court is managed, although it is much like any other dinner-party. The gentlemen go in uniform of course (military or diplomatic), the ladies in full dress, but fortunately not in trains. We were received in one of the apartments of the palace called the Alexander Eooms, because once inhabited by the Czar Alexander I. There were three other members of the diplomatic corps present, the Portuguese Minister and his wife, and the Minister of one of the lesser German Courts. There were some guests from the Vienna aristocracy, besides some of the high palace functionaries, ladies\ and gentlemen, in attendance. After the company, about i\wenty-eight in all, had been a little while assembled, the Emperor and Empress came in together, and, after ex- changing a few words with one or two of the guests, proceeded to the dining-room, followed by the rest of the company. Each of us before reaching the reception-room had received a 1804.] A COURT DINNER. 153 card from an usher signifying exactly where we were to place ourselves at table. Thus on my card I was told to sit on the left of Viscountess Santa Quiteria, the wife of my Portuguese •colleague as aforesaid. Mary was directed to be seated on the right of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. So everybody was •enabled to march to their places without any diflBculty or embarrassment. The Emperor and Empress sat side by side in the middle of a long table. On his left was the Portu- guese lady ; on the Empress's right was the Grand, Duke of Tuscany. During dinner, the Emperor conversed very agreeably with the lady next him and with me on topics such as generally come up at a dinner table, and he asked many questions about manners and customs in America. He has rather a grave face, but his smile is frank and pleasant, and his manner has much dignity ; his figure is uncommonly good, tall, slender, and stately. Mary had much conversation about Florence, the Pitti Palace and the Gardens of Boboli, with the deposed potentate her neighbour. The lady on my left, Countess Konigsegg, the principal mistress of the robes, was very agree- able and one of the handsomest persons in Vienna; and altogether the dinner passed oflf very pleasantly. After we had returned to the drawing-room the circle was formed^ and the Emperor and Empress as usual went round separately, entering into conversation with each of their guests. He talked a good while with me, and asked many questions about the war with much interest and earnestness, and expressed his admiration at the resources of a country which could sustain for so long a time so vast and energetic a conflict. I replied that we had been very economical for a century, and we were now the better able to pay for a war which had been forced upon us, and which if we had declined we must have ceased to exist as a nation. I ventured to predict, however, that this current year would be the last of the war on any considerable scale. The Empress, as I have often told you before, is a wonder of beauty — tall, beautifully formed, with a profusion of bright brown hair, a low Greek forehead, gentle eyes, very red lips, 154 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. V.. a sweet smile, a low musical voice, and a manner partly timid, partly gracious. She certainly deserves a better Court poet than I am ever likely to become. Both the Emperor and Empress asked very kindly about the health of the girls, who, as they knew, had been seriously ill. The party lasted about two hours. We arrived at the Palace a little before half-past five and were at home again soon after half- past seven. I have written this thinking it might interest you more than if I went into the regions of high politics. Next Sunday (Easter Sunday) the Archduke Maximilian accepts the imperial crown of Mexico, and within two or three months he will have arrived in that country. Then our diffi- culties in this most unfortunate matter will begin. Thus far the Austrian Government on the one side, and the United States- Government on the other, have agreed to wash their hands of it entirely. But when the new " Emperor " shall notify his- succession to the Washington Government, we shall perhaps, be put into an embarrassing position. I remain ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. To Lady William Russell. Vienna, March nth, 1864. Deae Lady William, — A thousand thanks for your letter,, which gave us inexpressible delight, not alone for its wit and its wisdom, which would have made it charming to read, even if it had been addressed to any one else, but because it brings- a fresh assurance that we are not quite forgotten yet by one of whom we think and speak every day. I should write oftener, dear Lady William, but for two reasons. One, that I am grown such a dull and dismal eremite, although always in a crowd, that I consider it Polizei widrig to expose any one to the contagion of such complaints ; secondly, because yours is an answer to my last, after the interval of a year, and I never venture to write a second letter till the first one has been com- pleted by its answer. It is an old superstition of mine, that 1864.] LONDON AND VIENNA. 155^ a correspondence can't go on one leg. I always think of letters in pairs, like scissors, inexpressibles, lovers, what you will. This is a serious statement, not an excuse, for I have often wished to write, and have been repelled by the thought. It was most charitable of you therefore to send me one of your green leaves fluttering out of the bowers of Mayfair as the first welcome harbinger of spring, after this very fierce winter : " Frigora mitescunt zephyris : ver proterit sestas." How well I remember that sequestered village of Mayfair,. and the charming simplicity of its unsophisticated popula- tion ! " Auch ich war in Arcadien geboren." I too once hired a house in Hertford Street, as you Avill observe. Would that I could walk out of it to No. 2, Audley Square, as it was once my privilege to do! I infer from what you say, and from what I hear others say, that you are on the whole better in regard to the consequences of that horrible accident in Eome, and I rejoice in the thought that you are enjoying so much, notwithstanding, for a most brilliant planetary system is plainly revolving around you, as the centre of light and warmth. I am so glad you see so much of the Hughes's. They are among our eternal regrets. I echo everything you say about both, and am alternately jealous of them, that they can see you every day, and almost envious of you for having so- much of them. So you see that I am full of evil passions. Nevertheless I shall ever love perfidious Albion for the sake of such friends as these, notwithstanding her high crimes and misdemeanours towards a certain Eepublic in difficulties which shall be nameless. What can I say to you that can possibly amuse you from this place ? Perhaps I had better go into the haute politique. We live- of course in an atmosphere of Schlesivig-Holsteinismus, which is as good as a London fog in this dry climate. I don't attri- bute so much influence as you do to the "early associations with Hamlet on the British mind." Rather do I think it an ancient instinct of the British mind to prefer a small power in that important little peninsula, that it may be perpetually under the British thumb. For myself, I take great comfort 156 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. V. in being comparatively indifferent to the results of the contest. As to its being decided on the merits, that is of course out of the question. A war about Poland was saved, after a most heroic effusion of ink in all the chanceries of Europe, by knocking Poland on the head. And a war about Denmark may be saved by knocking Denmark on the head. As to the merits of Schleswig-Holstein, are there any ? Con- sidered as private property, those eligible little estates may be proved to belong to almost anybody. Early in the 9th century the sandbanks of the Elbe were incorporated in the Germanic Empires, while those beyond the Eider were under the suzerainty of Denmark. In the first half of the 11th century all Schleswig was Danish, and at the beginning of the 13th, Holstein, including Liibeck and Dittmarsch, was incor- porated in the Kingdom of Denmark. Then there were revolutions, shindies of all kinds, republics, que sais-je f Then came 1460, the election of King Christian I. of Denmark as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. There is much virtue in the hyphen. The patent of that excellent monarch is extant, written in choice platt Beutsch, by which he declares the hyphen eternal. The provinces shall remain eternally to- gether, undivided, says the patent. What a pity the King too couldn't have been eternal! The ton Eoi d'Yvetot himself couldn't have settled matters in his domain more comfortably for all future times. But I forbear. Who can help approving the pluck with which little Denmark stands up to her two gigantic antago- nists ? But I am afraid there has been too much judicious bottle-holding. Anyhow, it is amusing to watch the chaos in the Councils at Frankfort. The Diet is at its last gasp. Everybody has a different proposition or " combination " to make every day ; everybody is defeated, and yet there are no conquerors. The Bund means mischief, and wriggles about, full of the most insane excitement, to the thirty- fourth joint of its tail, but can do no harm to any one. Decidedly the poor old Bund is moribund. What do you think Qf your young friend Maximilian, Montezuma I. ? I was neVer a great admirer of the much admired sagacity of 186*,] MAXIMILIAN, EMPEROR OP MEXICO. 157 Louis Napoleon. But I have been forced to give in at last. The way in which he has bamboozled that poor young man is one of the neatest pieces of escamotage ever performed. If he does succeed in getting the Archduke in, and his own troops out, and the costs of his expedition paid, certainly it will be a Kunststuch. The Priest-party, who called in the French, are now most furiously denouncing them, and swear that they have been more cruelly despoiled by them than by Juarez and his friends. So poor Maximilian will put his foot in a hornets* nest as soon as he gets there. Such a swarm of black venomous insects haven't been seen since the good old days of the Inquisition. Now irritare crabrones is a good rule, and so Max is to have the Pope's blessing before he goes. But if the priests are against him, and the Liberals are for a Eepublic, who is for the Empire ? Meantime he has had smart new liveries made at Brussels, to amaze the Mexican heart. Likewise he has been seen trying on an imperial crown of gilt pasteboard, to see in the glass if it is becoming. This I believe to be authentic. But I am told he hasn't got a penny. Louis Napoleon is squeezing everything out of him that he may have in prospect. In one of the collections of curiosities in Vienna there is a staff or sceptre of Montezuma, but I believe his successor is not even to have that, which is I think unjust. The celebrated bed of roses is, however, airing for him, I doubt not. I put into this envelope a wedding card of Kechberg and Bismarck,^ which has been thought rather a good joke here, so much so as to be suppressed by the police. It has occurred to me too that it might amuse you to look over a few of the Vienna Punches. Figaro is the name of the chief Witzhlatt here, and sometimes the fooling is good enough. The caricatures of Kechberg are very like ; those of Bismarck, less so. Julian Fane has been shut up a good while, but I am happy to say is almost himself again. I saw him a few days ago, and he bid fair to be soon perfectly well, and he is as handsome and fascinating as ever. Dear Lady William, can't you send me your photograph ? You promised it me many times. W& ' Caricntare of the time. 158 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. V 'have no picture of you of any kind. We should like much to have your three sons. We have one of Odo, however. Like- wise we should exceedingly like to have one of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, if you think you could get it for us, with his : autograph written below. He once promised it. Will you remember us most sincerely and respectfully to him, and prefer this request? I shall venture also to ask you some- limes to give our earnest remembrances to Lord and Lady Palmerston. We never forget all their kindness to us. But, if I begin to recall myself to the memory of those I never forget, I should fill another sheet, so I shall trust to you to do ■this to all who remember us. And pray do not forget us. Most sincerely yours, J. L. M. From Mr. Edward Everett. Boston, A'pril IWi, 1864. My dear Mr. Motley, — I received your welcome letter of "the 22nd March a few days ago with the generous contribution to the East Tennessee Fund. I could not resist putting a few sentences of your letter into the newspapers, with the announcement of your donation, a liberty which I hope you will forgive. Commencing with the anonymous gift of three dollars from the teacher of one of our public schools, it has, without the slightest organisation for the collection of funds, nearly reached the sum of ^83,000, all spontaneously sent, like your own liberal subscription, to my address, at one time at the rate of four or five thousand dollars a day. The event confirmed your anticipation that I should receive here, by means of telegraphic communications in Europe, the news of the Archduke's acceptance of the Mexican crown before your letter could reach me. I fear it will prove a <}rown of thorns to his Imperial Highness, and that he and his Archduchess will wish themselves well back from the some- what mythical " halls of the Montezumas " to the more sub- \ 1864.] BISMARCK. 159 stantial splendours and comforts of Miramar. Mr. Seward has certainly managed the delicate affair with discretion, as he has many others. Our House of Representatives have, by a unanimous vote, passed a resolution couched in moderate terms but of pretty significant import. What effect it will have depends upon other events of still more immediate gravity. I presume, if the Great Powers of Europe are drawn into a ivar on the Schleswig-Holstein question, we shall not be any longer taunted with urging war for insignificant causes. It is three years to-morrow since the bombardment of Sumter. In that brief space the country has lived generations. I know no better proof of this than that Mr. Reverdy Johnson, Attorney- General in Mr. Tyler's cabinet, made a speech in the Senate the other day, in favour of an amendment of the constitution prohibiting slavery, and that the only party contests in Mary- land and Missouri are between the friends of gradual and immediate emancipation. In fact, in IMaryland even that contest can hardly be said to exist. Mr. Mayor Swann and my friend Kennedy, who last autumn led the opposition to ]\Ir. H. W. Davis, the Radical candidate, have accepted their defeat with a good grace and come out for immediate eman- cipation. Praying my kindest remembrance to your wife, I remain, my dear Mr. Motley, with great regard. Sincerely yours, Edward Everett. From Baron von Bismarck. Berlin, May 23rd, 1864. Jack my Dear, — Where the devil are you, and what do you do that you never write a line to me ? I am working from morn to night like a nigger, and you have nothing to do at all — you might as well tip me a line as well as looking on your feet tilted against the wall of God knows what a dreary colour. I cannot entertain a regular correspondence ; it 160 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. happens to me that during five days I do not find a quarter of an hour for a walk ; but you, lazy old chap, what keeps you from thinking of your old friends ? When just going to bed in this moment my eye met with yours on your portrait, and I curtailed the sweet restorer, sleep, in order to remind you of Auld Lang Syne. Why do you never come to Berlin ? It is- not a quarter of an American's holiday journey from Vienna,, and my wife and me should be so happy to see you once more in this sullen life. When can you come, and when will you ? I swear that I will make out the time to look with you on old Logier's quarters, and drink a bottle with you at Gerolt's, where they once would not allow you to put your slender legs upon a chair. Let politics be hanged and come to see me. I promise that the Union Jack shall wave over our house, and conversation and the best old hock shall pour damnation upon the rebels. Do not forget old friends, neither their wives, as mine wishes nearly as ardently as myself to see you, or at least to see as quickly as possible a word of your handwriting. Sei gut und komm oder schreibe. Dein, V. BiSMAECK. Haunted by the old song, ' In good old Colony Times.' To Ms Mother. Vienna, May 25th, 1864. My dearest Mother, — The sad news of my dear father's death reached me just before the departure of the last American post from this place. I did not write then because I felt so intensely anxious to hear as to your own health, and as to the efiect of this terrible blow upon you, that I waited until I should hear more. Mary had a very kind and sympathetic letter from her Aunt Susan, in which we learned particulars as to the sad event and as to your own condition and inten- tions for the summer, which we wished very much to hear. 1864.] DEATH OF MK. MOTLEY'S FATHER. 161 God grant, my dearest, dearest mother, that you may bear bravely up against this earthly termination of a bond which has lasted for so great a portion of your life. May He grant too that you may be long spared to us, and that your feeble health may yet be invigorated, and that your naturally excel- lent constitution may get the better of the chronic ailments which have caused you so much suffering ! Alas ! I cannot express how much pain it has given me to be an exile from home at this moment. How deeply do I regret to have lost the privilege of being with my father, which the rest have had, and of listening to his dying words ! But it was fated that I should never find employment of any kind at home, and the occupations of my life since I became a worker have compelled me to reside abroad. No one appreciated more than I did the excellent qualities of mind and character which distinguished my father. I always thoroughly respected and honoured his perfect in- tegrity, his vigorous and uncommon powers of mind, his re- markable vein of wit and native humour, with which all who knew him were familiar, his large experience, his honourable prudence, his practical sagacity, and his singular tenderness of heart. 1 can say to you now, what it was diflScult for me to write before, that it has always been a cause of sincere pain, at times almost of distress, that I could find no sympathy with him in my political sentiments. In this great revolutionary war now going on in our country, in which the deepest principles of morality and public virtue are at stake, and in which the most intense emotions of every heart are stirred, it would have been an exquisite satisfaction to me could I have felt myself in harmony with him whom as my father I truly honoured, whose character and mind I sincerely respected, but whose opinions I could not share. You may believe that it was a great pain that I could never exchange written or spoken words with him on the great subject of the age and of the world, and I therefore formed the resolution of always addressing my letters to you, in order that I might not seem to say lo him what might cause controversy between us. I supposed that he VOL. TI. M 162 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Cuap. V. would probably read or not, as he chose, what I wrote to you, and that he could not be annoyed by my speaking without restraint on such occasions. As to concealing my opinions, that neither he nor you would have wished me to do. And, as to doubting whether I am right or not in the feelings which I have all my life entertained as to the loathsome insti- tution which has at last brought this tremendous series of calamities upon our land, I should as soon think of doubting the existence of God. Therefore I was obliged to be silent to him, and I have often expressed the regret which that silence caused me. I could easily understand, however, that his age, and the different point of view from which he regarded political subjects, made it not unnatural that he should hold with tenacity to opinions which he had formed with delibera- tion and acted upon intelligently during a long lifetime. As I cannot yet come to you, I am very glad that I can at least send Lily as a representative of my love and of all our love. She left us a few days ago with Mrs. Wadsworth, and their passages are taken for the 23rd July, from Liverpool. I hope that my dear sister Annie can find a corner for her in her pleasant house at the " corner," so that she can be with you for a time. I do hope, my dearest mother, that you will be able ere long to write a line to me. A very few words will be a great blessing to me and to all of us. Tell me how you feel in body and in mind. Susan describes you as angelically calm and gentle and affectionate, but it is impossible for you to be otherwise. You have been so all your life. I have no wish to say anything of ourselves, save that we are well. Good-bye, and God bless you and keep you, my ever dearest mother. All send most tender and affectionate remembrances, good wishes, and love. Give my best love to Annie and to all the others, and believe me Your most affectionate son, J. L. M. 18G4.] JULIUS LOTHROP. 163 To hii Moilier. Vienna, June 15th, 1864. My dearest Mother, — I hardly know whether it will in- terest you much to hear from me. Our last letters describe you as very feeble, but as having borne the journey to Dedham, on the whole, very well. I still cherish the hope that the country air and summer weather will bring healing to you. Oh, that I could come to you and be with you, as is the blessed privilege of the rest of the family ! I feel as if I were almost an outcast, to be separated from you now that you are so suf- fering and so depressed by my dear father's loss. If I were not in Europe at a post of duty and utterly unable to leave it, I should not remain an hour longer on this side of the water. Europe has long since ceased to have attractions for me, and I have perpetually regretted that my literary profession, and, subsequently, my present occupation, have made me and my children exiles. All three of them long for home, and they envy the others who can see and help to nurse and watch over their dear grandmother. I feel happy that you are comfortably lodged with Annie, and most sincerely do I rejoice that she has so providentially recovered her health and strength, and is able to take such tender and loving care of you. I do hope that I may receive a letter to-morrow from some member of the family, which may give a cheerful account of your health. Poor Mrs. Lothrop ! What a terrible blow to lose her young, gallant, excellent son, just as he was rising to distinction and increased usefulness ! Well, I would rather have a dead son like Julius Lothrop, than living ones who keep themselves safe from all danger, and manifest themselves incapable of feeling or comprehending the grandeur and the nobleness of the struggle in which all that is courageous, manly and heroic, or intelligent, is bound up heart and soid. We are intensely, breathlessly waiting for the next news. We have nothing later than June 1st, and that left the two great armies confronting each other within half-a-dozen miles of Eichmond, with a battle already begun. M 2 164 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. I shall say no more, for an hour or two may bring a telegram of four days later, with terrible or encouraging news. Thus far, Grant has proceeded with extraordinary energy and talent, and one tries to beat down the busy devil who tries to whisper fears which are rather born of past disasters than of anything unpromising in the actual circumstances. If I consulted reason only and not the dismal experience of the past, I should be very sanguine as to the results of the present campaign. Certainly, if Grant can take Eichmond, and Sherman occupies Atlanta, the slave confederacy falls never to hope again. It seems to me that Grant is the man whom we have been waiting for ever since the war began. I will say no more, lest what I am saying seem nonsense when you are reading it in the light of subsequent events. Good-bye : may God bless you and watch over you, my dearest mother ! All send love, and I am. Most affectionately, your son, J. L. M. To Ms Mother. Vienna, June 27th, 1864. My deakest Mother, — Of public matters, the war between Germany and Denmark begins again to-day, and it must soon be decided whether England is able to keep out of the busi- ness or not. The sinking of the Alahama by the plucky little Kearsarge will occasion great glee everywhere at home, and I can almost hear the shouts of delight at this distance. In Europe every- body is exceedingly vexed. All newspapers, except the very few Liberal ones of England and France, gnash their teeth with fury at the defeat of Semmes, but console themselves with the personal escape of the much-admired hero, and with the facts as they represent them, that the Kearsarge was an immensely superior vessel, iron-clad, and with three times as many guns, and so on and so on. Of personal matters there is not much to say. I rarely stir \ 1864.] AT WORK ON THE 'HISTORY.' 165 from home. Most fortunately for me the four hundred people who make up the Vienna world go out of town by the Ist ot June, so that I have my whole time for work and have no social occupations of any sort. Occasionally Mary and the girls go into the country to pass a quiet day with the D'Ayllons, the Gramonts, and the Bloomfields. Thus far I have not accompanied them. Next week we shall probably make a visit to a very hospitable Austrian family, Count Spiegel, whose daughters are very intimate with our girls, and who wish them to see their fine old chateau. But my life is passed mainly in my library and garden. As I can't be in America and with you, my dearest mother, the best thing for me is to be occupied. I am sorry to say that I no longer work with the same interest and passion for my work as before. The sixteenth cen- tury palls before the nineteenth. All join in love and dearest remembrances to you, and I remain, my dearest mother. Ever most affectionatelv, your son, J. L. M. To Lady William Russell. Vienna, . June 29th, 1864. Dear Lady William, — You are always so kind in saying that you like occasionally to hear from us, and it is always such an exquisite pleasure, when one of your green leaves come fluttering in this direction, that I should long ago have replied to your last kind and delightful greeting of the last day of April, but for reasons. We have had domestic afflic- tion. Since I last wrote, my father has died, and my mother, who is an angel among women, is so infirm that I dread every day to open my letters from home, and yet I am an exile and cannot leave my post. I shall say no more, nor would I have said so much, but I trust to your heart, for I know how tender and truthful it is, especially in regard to the most sacred tie between human beings, that of parents and child. I am leading the life of a hermit, and try to occupy myself 166 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. with, the sixteenth century. I have written a volume or so since I have been here, but I always feel like a circus rider, trying to bestride two horses at once. One of my steeds is called the sixteenth, the other the nineteenth, century, and both go at a tremendous pace. My daughter Lily has left us. She is on her way to make a visit in America with our friend Mrs. Wadsworth, and we are most desolate without her. She was my second secretary of legation, and a most efficient one — the pillar of my house ; and it seems tumbling about our ears now she is gone. She is the very light of our eyes. Poor child ! she doesn't go home for amusement, but she is deeply interested in her Vaterland. The very day after their arrival in Paris came the news that General Wadsworth was killed, the bravest of the brave, the noblest of the noble, a man of princely fortune, heroic sentiments, the most generous and genial of friends. We shall soon all of us have more dead friends than live ones. But this is an age of tragedy. My daughter will probably pass through London on her way to the steamer at Liverpool. She will certainly find her way to your door, and I hope you will smile upon her for a moment, for her own sake, and for ours. My wife joins me in kindest and most affectionate regards and good wishes, and I remain most sincerely and devotedly Yours, Vaeius. To Ms Mother. July 11th, 1864. .... I shall be disappointed if when this letter arrives Sherman has not taken Atlanta, and Grant taken or destroyed Petersburg. Tell my darling Lily, who of course will see you long before you see this, that she must pardon me for not writing by this post. Mary has done so, however, and probably told her about my friend Bismarck. He is at present Prime Minister of Prussia, and is here to negotiate a peace with Denmark. We were very intimate in our youth, and have always kept up 18G4.] 'THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.' 167 the association, having renewed our old friendship six years years ago at Frankfort, where he was Prussian Envoy at the Diet. He dined with us yesterday en famille, asking me to have no one else except Werther, the Prussian Minister here, that we might talk of old times, and be boys again. Tell Lily that he regretted, he said, very much not seeing her, having heard so much in her praise from Baron Werther, and many others. I regret it, too, excessively. Lily will tell you all about him politically. He is as sincere and resolute a monarchist and absolutist as I am a republican. But that doesn't interfere with our friendship, as I believe that Prussia is about as likely to become a republic as the United States to turn into a military monarchy. The aspect of things is more pacific just now in Europe, but the peace is not yet made. Good-bye, and God bless you, my dearest mother. Give my love to Annie and to all the family, and to my darling Lily. Ever most affectionately, vour son, J. L. M. From Mr. J. R. Lowell. Cambridge, July 2Sth, 18G4. My dear Motley, — I write you on a matter of business. You may have heard that Norton and I have undertaken to edit the North American — a rather Sisyphian job, you will say. It wanted three chief elements to be successful. It wasn't thoroughly, that is, thick and thinly, loyal, it wasn't lively, and it had no particular opinions on any particular subject. It was an eminently safe periodical, and accordingly was in great danger of running aground. It was an easy matter, of course, to make it loyal — even to give it opinions (such as they were), but to make it alive is more difficult. Perhaps the day of the quarterlies is gone by, and those megatheria of letters may be in the mere course of nature withdrawing to their last swamps to die in peace. Anyhow, here we are with our megatherium on our hands, and we must strive to find what will fill his huge belly, and keep him alive a little longer. You see what's coming. Pray imagine all the fine 168 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chai-. V. speeches and God-bless-your-honours, and let me proceed at once to hold out the inevitable hat. Couldn't you write us an article now and then ? It would be a great help to us, and you shall have carte hlanche as to subject. Couldn't you write on the natural history of that diplomatic cuttlefish of Schleswig-Holstein without forfeiting your ministerial equa- nimity ? The creature has be-muddled himself with such a cloud of ink that he is almost indescernible to the laic eye. Or on recent German literature? Or on Austria and its resources ? Or, in short, on anything that m^-y be solemn in topic, and entertaining in treatment. Our pay isn't much, but you shall have five dollars a page, and the object is in a sense patriotic. If the thought be dreadful, see if you can't find also something pleasing in it as Young managed to do in ' Eternity.' Imagine the difference in the tone of the * Review.' If you are a contributor, of course it will always bo "Our amiable and accomplished minister at the Court of Vienna, who unites in himself," etc., etc., etc. ; or else, " In such a state of affairs it was the misfortune of this country to be represented at Vienna by a minister as learned in Low Dutch as he was ignorant of high statesmanship," etc., etc. I pull my beaver over my eyes and mutter " Bewa-r-re ! " etc. But, seriously, you can help us a great deal, and I really do not care what you write about if you will only write. As to our situation here, you are doubtless well informed. My own feeling has always been confident and it is now hopeful. If Mr. Lincoln is re-chosen, I think the war will soon be over. If not, there will be attempts at negotiation, during which the rebels will recover breath, and then war again with more chances in their favour. Just now every thing- looks well. The real campaign is clearly in Georgia, and Grant has skilfully turned all eyes to Virginia by taking the command there in person. Sherman is a very able man, in dead earnest, and with a more powerful army than that of Virginia. It is true that the mercantile classes are longing for peace, but I believe the people are more firm than ever. So far as I can gee, the opposition to Mr. Lincoln is both selfish and factious, but it is much in favour of the right side ■\ 1864.] THE TROSPECT IN AMERICA. 109 that the democratic party have literally not so much as a single plank of principle to float on, and the sea runs high. They don't know what they are in favour of— hardly what they think it safe to be against. And I doubt if they will gain much by going into an election on negatives. I attach some importance to the peace negotiation at Niagara (ludi- crous as it was) as an indication of despair on the part of the rebels, especially as it was almost coincident with Clanricarde's movement in the House of Lords. Don't be alarmed about Washington. The noise made about it by the Copperheads is enough to show there is nothing dangerous in any rebel movements in that direction. I have no doubt that Washington is as safe as Vienna. What the Fremont de- fection may accomplish I can't say, but I have little fear from it. Its strength lies solely among our German Kadicals, the most impracticable of mankind. If our population had been as homogeneous as during the revolutionary war, our troubles would have been over in a year. All our foreign trading population have no fatherland but the till, and have done their best to destroy our credit. All our snobs too, are Secesh. But I always think of Virgil's "Pur a noi converik vincer la punga . . . se non — tal ne s'oflferse." We have the promise of God's Word and God's nature on our side. IMoreover I have never believed, do not now believe, in the possibility of separation. The instinct of the people on both sides is against it. Is not the " coup de grace " of the Alabama refreshing ? That an American sloop of war should sink a British ship of equal force, manned by British sailors and armed with British guns in the British Channel ! There is something to make John Bull reflect. Now do write something for us, if you can, and, with kindest remembrances to Mrs. Motley, Believe me always. Cordially yours, J. K. Lowell. 170 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. To Ms Mother. Vienna, August 3rd, 1864. My deaeest Mothee, — Just now we are rather a small family. Mary is making a little visit to our friends, the Ayllons, at Voslau, so that we are but three just now to keep the pot boiling. The prominent topic of the last week has been the peace negotiations between the two great German Powers (Prussia and Austria) and Denmark. The prelimi- naries were signed yesterday, and the armistice prolonged for six weeks. In short the peace is made. This is all the commentary I shall make to-day on the Schleswig-Holstein history. To me the most interesting part of these Vienna Conferences was that they brought my old friend Bismarck to this place. He thinks it about as possible to transplant what is called parliamentary government into Prussia, as Abraham Lincoln believes in the feasibility of establishing an aristocracy in the United States. I venerate Abraham Lincoln exactly because he is the true honest type of American Democracy. There is nothing of the shabby genteel, the would-be-but-couldn't-be fine gentleman ; he is the great American Demos, honest, shrewd, homely, wise, humorous, cheerful, brave, blundering occasionally, but through blunders struggling onward towards what he believes the right. I have a great faith in Grant ; I think he is the man we have been wanting for these three years, but I don't feel absolutely certain. But this I will say, that, if he takes Richmond before Christmas, his Yicksburg and Virginia campaigns will prove him the greatest general now living. But this is a great if, I confess. Still, I think he will do it. Good-bye, my dearest mother. I am delighted to hear of you as improvi^ng in health and spirits. Try to write me half a dozen lines when you can. It is such a pleasure to see your handwriting.V Ever your affectionate son, J. L. M. 18C4.] A DINNER WITH BISMARCK. 171 To his Eldest DaugJiter. Vienna, August 16th, 1864. My dearest Lily, — "We have a telegram this morning, date August 6th, telling us that Grant has been repulsed at Peters- burg This time I really believe we have had a defeat, notwithstanding that the telegraph says so, because I have been feeling these three days, ever since the attack was in progress, that it could not result otherwise. Since the days of Fort Donelson, few attacks made in front upon entrenchments by either belligerent have succeeded. It seems to me that they cannot succeed ; and, if anything could stagger my pro- found faith in Grant, it would be many repetitions of such assaults. If he can't make Lee attack him — which I always thought would be his game — I shall be disappointed The only ripple we have had on our surface is when the bold Bismarck made his appearance. Your mother has told you about him, and it was the greatest delight to me to see him again. He and Werther dined with us one day en famille, and we drank three bottles of claret (not apiece) ; but we sat until half-past nine at table, much to'the amazement of the servants ; for what well-conducted domestic in Vienna can tolerate any remaining at table after the finger-bowls ? Of course, the Fremdenhlatt and all the other journals announced next morning that " Sir Motley," the American Envoy, had given a " gala dinner " to Minister Bismarck, Count Kechberg, the Danish Plenipotentiary, and a string of other guests, most of whom I have not the pleasure of knowing by sight. En revanche, three days afterwards, as I believe your mother has informed you, we did give a dinner of a dozen, and the jour- nals conscientiously stated next morning that Baron Werther had given a " gala dinner " to M. de Bismarck, adding a list of convives^ not one of whom were of the party. Ever your aflfectionate P. 172 MOTLEY'S LETTERS, [Chap. V. To Ms Eldest Daughter. Vienna, August 2'6rd, 1864. My deaeest Lily, — We have had little of stirring in- terest since you left. The girls with their mother go pretty often to the Duchesse de Gramont's Thursday afternoons at Baden, and occasionally to the Spiegels' Saturdays. But I always back out. I cannot stand society, and my social duties are trampled underfoot. The incident of the week is the advent of the King of Prussia. He came Saturday night. On Sunday evening the diplomatic corps were invited to a theatrical exhibition at the Schloss Theatre in Schdnbrunn. As this was a mere act of business, not of amusement, of course we went. We drove out after dinner, arriving at 8 p.m. No- body wore uniform but the military individuals. We entered at once into the theatre, a pretty little affair, rather freshly decorated, and, as compared with the dingy old Burg Theatre, quite brilliant. No expense had been spared in candles and lamp oil. The imperial box occupies the space exactly in front of the stage ; on the seats on the right (there are no boxes) were the dips, the ladies in front. On the left the long rows of Schwartzenbergs, Liechtensteins, Esterhazys, and other swells. Below there was a pit full of attaches, officers of the guard, and similar blooming plants. The great Strauss, placed on high amid his tuneful choir, directed the orchestra. The imperial party consisted of the Empress, with our Hoher Gast on the right, in an Austrian colonel's white uniform. His S.E.A.M. looked much as usual; and there were a few archdukes sprinkled about, among whom the pensive is the only one I recollect. The play was ' Biirgerlich und Komantisch,' which I never saw before and trust never to see again. It was wonderfully slow, although all the best actors and actresses were in it — Wolter, Baudius, those corpulent amoureux Baumeister and Sonnenthal, and Beckmann, Meixner, and the rest. " And if the king liked not our comedy : why then belike he liked it not perdy.' And if he didn't, his Majesty and I were both of 18Gi.] THE KING OF PRUSSIA IN VIENXA. 173 a mind. When half our dreary task was done, we were all (that is the chief dips, male and female) taken into a kind of drawing-room, at one side of which we were stood up like ninepins to be bowled down by their various Majesties. The King of Prussia had his first innings — a tall, sturdy, goodhumoured-faced elderly man. Werther introduced us one after another, quite promiscuous. My interview was a short one. He said, " Ah, I have heard of you from my daughter- in-law. You are an author." I didn't contradict him. Then he asked if it was long since I had seen her. I being more than usually weak-minded and hard of hearing understood him to ask how long since I left America. But being not quite sure said interrogatively, " L'Amerique ? " He replied, " Non, ma hellefille." To which I said, " A few months since " — it being I believe about two years and a half. However, Werther was already goading him on to the next man, so our in- terview terminated, and all I can say is that if his Majesty did not set me down for an idiot he is not the king I took him for. In about three quarters of an hour we were dismissed to hear the rest of the play, and then all sent home supperless to bed. We reached the Husarzewski Palace at 11 p.m. very hungry and exhausted (having dined at three), and I imme- diately sent for a pot of beer and drank my own health in solitary state. Then went to bed. This is the beginning and end of the diplomatic body's participation in the festivities. I only had a glimpse of Bismarck. He promised certainly to come to see us if the King stayed two days more. But I think it very doubtful whether I shall see him. However, when he was here the other day, he came three times, and dined with us twice. Your affectionate Papagei. If your dear grandmother should seem in any way surprised or hurt that we went to Court, you must explain that a minister and his wife go to such ceremonies as part of their official duties, and that it would be considered here a violation of the proprieties to be absent except in the case of a very recent domestic affliction. Certainly it was not a merry-making. 174 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chai>. V. To Ms Mother. Vienna, Aurjust 31st, 1864. My deakest Mother, — The question — as it will appear to all men a few years hence — to be decided at the November election is simply, Shall the Union be restored with slavery or without slavery ? I am very glad at any rate that the question is distinctly and broadly placed so that there is no dodging the issue. Thank God, we have done with humbug on the slavery question. Mr. Lincoln and his supporters have planted them- selves firmly on the Abolition platform, in favour of amend- ing the constitution so as to prohibit slavery for ever in the United States. And if he is elected the constitution will be so amended within a couple of years, and the war will be over as soon. On the other hand, the great meeting for McClellan in New York has come out most nobly for slavery ; and, if he gets the nomination at Chicago, we know all of us that in voting for him we are voting for slavery. I do not by any means deny the possibility of his election. I do not expect it, but I dread it more than I can express. God bless you ! Give my love to Annie and all the family. Ever your most affectionate son, J. L. M. To Ms Eldest Daughter. Vienna, September 7th, 1864. My deakest Lily, — Your long nice letter to Mary came yesterday, only fifteen days old, the Persia having made a short passage as usual. It was delightful to get so many and fresh details ; we have read it over several times. Mary arrived the day before ; otherwise her letter would have been broken open before sending it to Voslau. She has, however, finished her month's visit to the dear D'Ay lions, and is now relieved by the Storenfried, whose departure from this esta- 18C4.] EXCLUDED FROM THE VIENNA ARCHIVES. 175 blishinent is always regretted by me, in spite of her noise, and because (if for no other reason) we are now obliged to decide for ourselves every afternoon whether we will drive to Dorn- bach, the Prater, or Schonbrunn, and whether or not we will go to the Opera. All these matters being decided by her usually with great promptness, our existence is simplified. Last night we drove over to Weidlingau, for the very first time this summer, except the day we all four dined there, and found nobody there as company but Mrs. Y , who is staying with Lady Bloomfield ; the Cramers, of course — the Callimakis, by the way, are supposed to have departed for ever ; Don T 31 , C.E., M.P., of his Serene Majesty Maximilian I. of aVIexico. Pretty little B has had his hair, not cropped, but almost shaven, and looks very funny, with his delicate cameo features and his format echappe coiffure. De I'A said, as I was expressing my wonder, " He wants to shave, and so has to shave his head ! " At which B was wroth, and smote the chaflfer, for in truth " his having no beard is still a younger brother's revenue." Everybody asks very kindly after you, and you are still very freshly remembered. As for us, we miss you more and more daily, and yet I am glad you have gone, for this Vienna exist- ence is a very mummifying process." Your mother is seriously contemplating a visit to the Spiegels in Moravia. The three. Count and Countess Spiegel and Miss T , dined with us last week, and were very cordial in their invitation. Also Count Waldstein came to me the other day, and urged our coming to Hungary for a visit. But there is no chance of my going. I have just had a great disappointment, by the way. Three or four days ago I marched down to the Archives, intending then and there to begin a long course of study during the remainder of my stay in Vienna. The Archivist, a very civil little dried- up old gentleman, who has obviously occupied his present position ever since the Thirty Years* War, and professed great willingness to assist me in every way, observed, however, that a written form was necessary before I could go in and read. I had already spoken to Count Kechberg three months before, who said I had only to refer the Archivist to him. I now went 176 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. to Baron Meysenbug to request him to draw up the order, when what was my horror to find that it was an ancient and im- mutable law that no member of the diplomatic corps could have the entrance of the Archives. I tried in vain to assault, undermine, and flank the position. All in vain — I am ex- cluded, and I am ready to knock my head against the walls of the Foreign Office in despair. I shall say no more on the subject to-day. Perhaps yet I may find some loophole, but I doubt. I observe what you say about the Women's League, and I feel disposed to say a few words about it. It is, and always will be, a mystery to me why we, who are the most intelli- gent and practical and earnest community in the world, have always refused to study the first principles of political economy. It is now about eighty years since Adam Smith published the * Wealth of Nations,' a book of which Burke says (I think without exaggeration) that it has done more for human happiness than all the labours of all the statesmen and legislators of whom there is authentic record. And yet, so far as the American people is concerned, Adam Smith might never have written a line ; and one can scarcely read a speech or a public document in our country without seeing the old fallacies which he destroyed, and which nevertheless flourish as greenly as ever on our side of the Atlantic. People are eternally talking of the " balance of trade," and of " pre- venting the export of specie," and of having the "exports larger than the imports, in order to make commerce profit- able," exactly as they used to do in Europe in the last century, but as no one could talk in this hemisphere without showing that he had not taken the trouble to look even at the rudiments of political economy. All trade being a barter of commodities, an equilibrium is the necessary condition to which it always tends. One year with another, or two years or so as it may be, the exports and the imports must balance themselves. A sum of gold and silver (the only commodity universally recognised as money or universal medium of exchange) is shoved to and fro to adjust this balance, which never can be long unadjusted. 18G4.] THE EBB AND PLOW OP GOLD. 177 Thus if the imports have been very much in excess of the exports during a considerable period of time, the necessity of paying the difiference causes the sending out of some millions of specie week after week and month after month. This very export, diminishing the volume of the currency, makes (as is popularly said) money tight, and therefore causes prices to fall. Goods and produce becoming gradually less valuable in proportion to the precious metals as the latter go on diminishing in quantity, a point is ultimately reached at which it is cheaper again to export goods than gold. At the same time, prices having reached so low a grade, it is not desirable to import goods from abroad, for they would be imported at a loss. Therefore gold begins to come back in pay for the increased exports and in place of the dimin- ished imports. The tide has turned again, and the ebb and flow is as regular as any natural phenomenon, when you compare periods of a few years with each other. I don't mean to write a long chapter of political economy, but it is really painful to hear this perpetual talk about the imports exceeding the exports, and about keeping precious metals in the country, as if gold alone was wealth, and as if in our present condition of having an inconvertible paper cur- rency, the premium on gold (as it is called), was the result of over importation. What I have been saying all along about the laws of trade supposes of course a currency of gold and silver mixed with paper convertible into specie at the will of the bearer. So long as a country has this indispensable requisite to commercial health, there can be no such thing as a pre- mium on gold, and the difference of exchange can never be more than a very few per cent, between countries so situated. But we are not in a condition of national health, but in the very crisis and delirium of a most terrible fever, the issue of which as I believe most firmly will be a longer national life and more vigorous constitution than we at one time dared to hope for. Nevertheless we are in a diseased condition. One of our most dangerous symptoms and to be most anxiously watched is exactly this inconvertible paper currency. Government has issued some six hundred millions of it in VOL. II. N 178 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chat. V. addition to the three or four hundred millions emitted by the banks. As specie payments have long since been suspended, gold has no more to do with our currency than lead or pewter. If five hundred millions of it should be imported into New York to-morrow, it would not make any material difference in the value of the paper currency. It would not enter into the circulation any more than five hundred millions worth of diamonds and emeralds would do, and would not make us any richer or more comfortable in any way than the diamonds and emeralds, or the same amount of broadcloth or Brussels lace. Gold goes out and comes in quite irrespectively of the depreciated condition of our currency, and in obedience to the great tidal law of which I have already spoken. If any proof of this were required (which is not the case, for these are among the axioms, not the demonstrations), you may have it in any newspaper. At this moment I read in the last American journals that gold is at 157 premium, and yet the exchanges are in our favour. Any merchant will tell you at this moment that it is cheaper to buy a bill of exchange at the current price in the market than to buy gold to send abroad. The truth is we are perpetually confounding two sets of phenomena essentially distinct. At this very moment, therefore, gold, although (in common parlance) at 157 pre- mium, ought not to be exported, and as a matter of fact it is not to be exported. I observe in the English papers of late that the packets bring no specie, or very little, and I suppose that very soon they will take specie to America. Yet that will not reduce the premium on gold, which is simply owing first to the enormous inflation of the currency, and secondly to the fear that with the prolongation of the war and with the difficulty of obtaining loans from the people. Government will be compelled to resort to still farther in- flation. This very fear it is which makes cowards of us all, and with good reason. A paper dollar is now worth forty cents. With a fresh issue of currency its value would fall to thirty, twenty, or what you will, just as in the blessed Confederacy. 1864.] THE WOMEN'S LEAGUE. 179 In place of a regular and voluntary contribution of the people in the shape of a loan, there is always the fear faute de mieux of this forced loan in the shape of more greenbacks. Now what is the remedy for this ? Plainly a determination on the part of the people to economise in every possible way, and to lend (each individual as much as he or she can possibly spare) to the Government, in tens, fifteens, or fifty thousands. And this brings me to the application of my long parable. The Women's League might produce incalcu- lable benefit. If all women would resolve to abstain from all useless expenditure, would sustain each other in buying no silk gowns, no laces, no jewels, no luxurious furniture, no kid gloves at all, and if the men would pledge themselves to a similar economy, in abstaining from all unproductive consumption, whether of wine, tobacco, horses, or whatever, and would agree to lend each man or woman his savings to the Government, so long as the war shall last, by investing in the new loans as fast as offered, the aggregate thus saved from wasteful consumption for the national exchequer would be very considerable, and the spectacle would be a very noble one. Now as it seems to me, and I say it with the most pro- found respect, the usefulness of this League, which might produce immense benefit, is nipped in the bud by one fatal error. As I understand it, the women of America propose not so much to economise and to deny themselves luxuries of dress, furniture and so on, as simply to buy those articles of native manufacturers, instead of the foreign ones. Now I have just explained that the idea of affecting the price of gold by such a process is a mere delusion. In so far as it means economy and abstention, the plan is good, because those who abstain from unproductive consumption will have more to give away, and we know how ready our men and our women are to give away. The generosity of a national character was never exemplified in any country or age as it has been in ours during the war, and one is the more anxious, therefore, that this noble sentiment should be turned to the best account. Now to abstain from buying a silk N 2 180 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. V. gown or French gloves abroad, and then to buy them, not any better and at a probably higher price, from a native manufacturer, is to become poorer and to have the less to give or lend to Government. You tax yourselves, not for your noble soldiers and sailors, not to make the burthen of the Government lighter, but simply for the benefit of the native manufacturer. The League (thus in my poor opinion misdirected), instead of accomplishing the noble purpose which the leaguers intend, will result merely in an advantage to our home manufacturers at the expense of the people and the Government. It might be said that I for one ought to be pleased at this, as much of my property is invested in manufactures, but that I believe is a consideration foreign from the nature of every honest man in America. How I wish some one or other would take the lead in some such movement as this suggested : a woman's League to wear calicoes and cotton stockings, and to lend all their surplus savings to Government. But to attempt affecting the market quotation of gold, by buying the American fabrics instead of foreign ones is, as I have already hinted, like attempting to regulate the rising and setting of the sun, which is governed by an immutable law. So far as it accomplishes anything as at present arranged I should think it would make people less able to help Government in its need. There can be no doubt that silks, gloves, laces, and so on, are manufactured much cheaper in Europe than in America. Therefore, if they are to be bought at all, they should be bought where they are cheapest, if unproductive consumption is to be kept within any limits. I have said all this because the subject interests me deeply. But I need not Avarn you to be very modest, backward even, in expressing these opinions or quoting them as mine. They are not mine. They are simply derived by me, as one of their humblest and least accomplished disciples, from the teachings of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and the other great thinkers on the most important subject of the age. I have no objection to your occasionally reading what I have thus said to those who from old friend- shito will look with indulgence on what I thus say from 18C4.] PEACE CONFERENCES AT VIENNA. 181 patriotism and with the most perfect respect for and sympathy with the noble women to whom our country is so much indebted ever since the war began. I would go on much longer, but this is a letter not a treatise. God bless you, my darling. Give my love to your dear grandmamma, Aunt Annie, and the whole family. Ever thine affectionately, J. L. M. To his Mother. Vienna, September IZth, 1864. Mt dearest Mother, — It is a dreary, rainy day, one of about eighty-two or three out of which our ninety days of so-called summer have been composed. Now, having got into autumn, and having given up the summer to its fate, we are not getting on any better. I only wish we could export some of our early and latter rain from this country to America, where it seems from all I can learn that you are having it hot and dry, and that the crops and the armies are suffering. I can't say that I have much of interest to talk about here. We had a few of our diplomatic colleagues to dinner last Saturday, and to-day we are to drive out to Weidlingau, an hour's distance, to dine with the Bloomfields, and I wish that it was not to be a rainy drive, instead of a mild and moon-lit one, which it ought to be. These are about all the private incidents, and the dearth of public ones is about as great. The peace conferences between the Danish plenipotentiaries (poor victims !) on one side and the Austrians and Prussians on the other go on very slowly ; but I don't suppose you take a feverish interest in their pro- ceedings, and I am sure that I don't. If I had even the least reverence for red tape, which is not the case, it would have evaporated in the course of four years of a foreign mission. Certainly, if any lessons were wanted in the art of how not to do it, the world has received them in plenty these two years past from the big-wigs of the Great Powers, who flatter them- selves that they direct the course of events, when they hardly even see, much less comprehend it. 182 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. V. The news from America received by telegraph to-day, if true, is very important. It is announced that Atlanta has been occupied by our forces, and that Fort Morgan has been surrendered. I trust that the former is not a false report. In regard to the latter, I am not anxious, because it has been obvious from the beginning that Morgan could not long be held. The other announcement, that McClellan had received the nomination at Chicago was also expected. It has seemed certain that this would be the result for some time past. I don't conceal from myself that he is the most formidable can- didate that the pro-slavery party could have selected, and they are wise in having thrown the peace-at-any-price party overboard. I had hoped or tried to hope that they would have selected a Submissionist out and out, like Vallandingham or Seymour, but they were not quite such fools as that. They knew that the People would have rejected any such candidate with disgust, and such a nomination would have ensured the election of Lincoln. I admit that there is considerable danger of McClellan's election, and the very possibility of such a catastrophe fills me with unspeakable melancholy. I don't know how I could face such a terrible result to these four past years of progress. I don't mean anything in regard to him personally. In himself he is nothing. No individual is any- thing in the midst of this great revolution. As a military man he is, I suppose, a very good civil engineer; but even had the Chicago convention nominated a general immeasurably his superior — had they persuaded Grant or Sherman to bid for the candidacy, and had they nominated either, I should have been still more unhappy, because the chances of their election would have been still greater than are those of McClellan. If after these four years of bloodshed, the like of which the world has rarely seen, but during which the People has gone with such gigantic steps towards the extirpation of the in- stitution which has caused all our misery — if after all these terrible but still sublime years, the People is capable of abasing itself in the very moment when its ultimate triumph seems certain, and of re-establishing slavery just as it is under foot 1864.] McCLELLAN'S CANDIDATURE. 183 and waiting to receive the ccm]^ de grace, then indeed must one have cause almost to despair of human progress on this earth. That this mighty revolution is to be stopped in mid-career by the politicians assembled at Chicago is what my reason forbids me to believe beforehand. If it does become a fact, which you will know on the 2nd day of November, and I on the 13th or 14th, why I shall try to bear it with as much forti- tude as I may, taking consolation in the conviction that the pro-slavery party (alas that such a thing should exist in the Free States of America) will find it diiBScult to accomplish its ends. The slaveholders know that the heart of the North is anti-slavery, and that although a weariness of the war may possibly bring about a temporary reconstruction of the Union on the slavery basis, it could not guarantee the existence of slavery beyond a very brief period. Therefore the result of McClellan's election will be, I think, to prolong the war very much. This is the way I regard the election of McClellan and its inevitable results. My principal hope of the success of the Kepublican party is founded on military success. I admit that a great disaster to our armies would probably be fatal to Mr. Lincoln's chance ; therefore the McClellan party are all looking forward with eager hope to a national disaster. Well, I have said my say, I am intensely anxious but hopeful. New York and Pennsylvania may vote for McClellan, but New England and Ohio and all the North- West will go for Lincoln, and if so he will be elected. However, this is idle talk. The votes in all the great States are so evenly balanced, according to the latest statistics, that one must fall back on general principles, and on those and on the chance of victories by Grant, Sherman, and Farragut I found my hopes. Mary and little Mary join me in love to you, my dearest mother, and to Annie and all at home. Susie is making a long visit to the Ay lions at Viislau. Good-bye, and God bless you. Believe me, your ever aflfectionate son, J. L. M. 184 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. V. To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, Tuesday, September 27th, 1864. My dearest Lily, — I am writing you a hurried note this morning at 7 o'clock merely that you may have a line by the steamer to say that we are all well. I can absolutely do no more, for I leave by a railroad (how I hate railroads, and how I hope that the punishment of the man who invented them may be to wait for ever and ever through all eternity in a salle d'attente with a lot of frowsy travellers for a train that is always about to start and never does) in about an hour. Yesterday morning I left Wischenau, the chateau of Count Spiegel, at an early hour by a post-chaise, travelled three hours to the station ; then came in three hours' rail to Vienna. Nothing could be more charming than the Spiegels, one and all. We went down last Saturday, arrived there at 9 p.m. The weather was a deluge at starting, but kindly assuaged at sunset. The Sunday was passed in going all over the estate, which is a very fine one. He has about four thousand acres under the plough, divided into four great farms with as many villages, and about as much more woodland and pastures. I went into peasants' houses, stewards' houses, farmers' houses, and asked questions by the thousand, like a youthful traveller improving his mind. But I shan't give you all the information I derived, because there isn't time now, and because I shall forget it all before I do have any. SuflSce it to say that a day labourer gets from 15 to 20 kreutzers per day when employed, and can generally have employment most of the year. Consequently by hard working he can earn about thirty-five dollars a year. No wonder the poor creatures emigrate when they have a chance to a country where they can earn as much in a fortnight as in their own diggings in a year. The farmhouses are clean. The better part of the peasant proprietors seem contented enough, and very well off. In one which I visited, where the farm was of about thirty acres, there was good furniture and much neat- 1864.] THE AUSTRIAN PEASANTIIY. 185 ness. There are many peasant proprietors, but the farms are not indefinitely divided. The eldest son, as in all Austria (where it is not a Majorats Gut), takes one-half, while the other half is divided among all the brothers and sisters, him- self included. But the eldest retains the property, and the portions of the rest are charged upon the estate. It is a fertile country, producing [all kinds of grain and much fruit. The peaches are good, and figs ripen very well in the open air, although in winter they have on an average two months' sleighing, and the cold is sometimes as low as 20° or 25° below zero of Fahrenheit. The chateau is a large quadrangular structure of the last century — white-washed and commodious — with rooms for forty guests at least. The " keeping " rooms are elegant and home- like, and I am sure no family in the world, not even in England, has more genuine, frank, and delightful hospitality. Countess Spiegel, as you know, is a very well-instructed and most agreeable woman, and he is kindness personified. The girls you know better than I do I must stop. It is going to rain of course, and I am about to start on a tour of pleasure. AVhen I am very happy at home and miserable abroad I am cense to require change of air, and I travel for my health, although in truth I bear myself like the new bridge. If I wasn't afraid I would back out at the last moment. Meanwhile Lippitt and I go off together for a fortnight to Gmunden, Ischl, Innsbruck, Verona, Venice, Trieste. I feel sure that something will turn up requiring my presence during my absence. God bless you, dear child. Love to dear grandmamma. Ever yours, J. L. M. To his Mother. Vienna, October 12th, 1864. My dearest Mother, — I haven't written very lately because I have been absent on a little tour of about a fort- night. There was a theory that my health required change 186 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. V. of air, and so I started with Mr. Lippitt, went to Gmunden and Ischl, tlie latter a famous summer place for the Vienna people. It is about ten hours' railroad journey from the capital, and is certainly a very beautiful place, a meeting together of three or four valleys, fertile, sylvan and pic- turesque— enclosed on all sides by magnificent mountain chains, with some peaks high enough to have snow upon them all the year. Thence we took a carriage drive to Salzburg, a city which has probably the most magnificent situation of any town of so large a size in the world, the Styrian Alps, as fine as any mountain scenery out of Switzerland, stretching outside the city walls in all directions, and inclosing the picturesque town, and the broad and luxuriant plain of the Salzach in which it lies, with the remarkable fortress on a precipitous mountain rising in the very heart of the place. But I think you have been at Salzburg yourself. I shall only add, there- fore, that we went from Salzburg to Innsbruck, thence across the Brenner Pass to Bolzano and Verona, and so to Venice, where we stopped two or three days. It is a delight to be in Venice, which is always a dream-city to me, and I have never been there long enough at a time to have its poetry turned into prose. But I won't prose myself on the subject, and shall simply add that after I had made satisfactory arrangements with a literary gentleman there, who, by a curious coincidence was just about writing to me for authority to publish an Italian translation of my works, and who has undertaken to superin- tend certain researches which I am making by deputy in the Venetian archives for my future volumes, we returned by easy stages to Vienna. My health is perfectly good since my journey, which is the less remarkable as it was perfectly good before. However, I am glad on the whole to have taken the tour, although I hate travelling more and more every year that I live. The morning after my return, day before yesterday, I was invited to a family breakfast at the Prince Augustus of Coburg's. He is married, as Lily will tell you, to one of the daughters of King Louis Philippe of France,^ and resides here. ' The Princess Clementine, 18C4.] THE COMTE DE PARIS. 187 It is a pleasant house, where there are often dinners and evening parties in the winter. The Princess is most charming, amiable and intelligent, like all the members of her family whom I have ever known. The reason of my being invited on this occasion w£is that the Count of Paris, whom I had the pleasure of knowing in London a few years ago, was kind enough to wish to see me again. He is here with his bride, daughter of his uncle, the Due de Montpensier. The Duchegse de Montpensier is sister to the Queen of Spain, and the com- pany at breakfast consisted only of the Prince and Princess of Coburg, the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier, the Count and Countess of Paris, the son and daughter of our host, one or two gentlemen and ladies in waiting, and my colleague and friend Mr. d'Ayllon, the Spanish Minister, who looked rather mystified at seeing me at this little family party. I sat next to the Count of Paris, whom I remembered as a young man of much intellect, but I found him still more improved, and I venture to pronounce him almost a model of what a young Prince ought to be in manner, in character, in conversation, in accomplishments. To be sure he bribed me by his unaffected, sincere, and enthusiastic interest in my country. A more loyal and ardent American does not exist than this King's son. It was really refreshing to me in this isolation of mine to be able to talk and to listen with, and to a man who understood the American subject as well as I do, and whose sympathies were so quick, so spontaneous, so frankly expressed. He has done himself honour by the personal gallantry which he displayed in the campaigns of 1862, but he is still more interesting to me by the clear and simple way in which he looks through and through our great revolution, over the causes and the certain results of which passion, ignorance, and malice have spread such a veil to the European mind. You will say that I took so much pleasure in his conver- sation because he agreed entirely with my own opinions and sentiments, and that I consider him so intelligent and so true for that reason. Well, perhaps I do, for I have long since thrown off any mock-modesty on this great topic. About many matters I am inclined to be dubious, sceptical, hesi- 188 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. tating. On this great American question of ours, tlie most vital debate of this century, I hnow I am right, and refuse to admit the possibility of my opponents being otherwise than utterly and hopelessly wrong. But I believe that the verdict of the American people in November will show that my opinions and sentiments are shared by many millions of my countrymen, a vast majority of the population of the loyal States. I don't doubt the re-election of Mr. Lincoln on the basis of the anti-slavery amendment of the constitution and a prosecu- tion of the war. If these sacrifices, endured so nobly by the American people, are not to have for their fruit the extinc- tion of the infernal institution which made the war and the rebellion, and which has been the only thing that has ever endangered the Union, then the demons in the infernal regions, or in Richmond, may laugh at the gigantic folly of this four years' war J. L. M. To his Mother. Vienna, October 21st, 1864. My deaeest Mother,— Lily reports you as on the whole as well as usual, and I pray Heaven she may continue to tell us the same story. Our life has been externally pretty quiet, and I have been able to do a good spell of work on my History. Vol. III. is done, and part of Vol. IV. Meantime I am laying down the framework and preparing the materials for a History of the Thirty Years' War. It will take me rather longer to write it than it did the actors in it to fight it, and as I don't expect to live through the whole of this century, it will probably be left to my successors to complete it. It seems almost like sacrilege for an American to write on any other subject than that of our own great struggle. Cer- tainly there has never been in the world's history so great an encounter of principles, so vast a display of human passions, so many touching episodes, nor ever so sublime a moral. It \ 1864.] THE PRATER— THE OPERA. 189 will be for another generation to deal with this great subject. It would be impossible for contemporaries to obtain the neces- sary and indispensable materials, and perhaps difficult for them to be sufficiently dispassionate. But the writer is to be envied who in later days will undertake this magnificent theme. All other struggles that have ever taken place between the spirits of human liberty and despotism pale before it. I am ever your most affectionate son, J. L. M. To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, October 27th, 18G4. I like to show that I am capable of even a pretence of payment for all the delightful letters we get from you. I am always afraid of the regularity with which they come, lest ere long they may cease for lack of material. I am in such a rage at the rain that stopped you from going to the front that I can't trust myself to speak on the subject. . . . Well, I will try not to gnash my teeth any more, particularly as Dr. North has gone to the South for the winter. Of course, I have no lack of topics to amuse you with. I went to the Prater yesterday. As your mamma had a bad cold, I promenaded my ennuis and likewise the two girls in that place of resort, which I rarely frequent in person. Being holiday, the beggars' shops were shut, so that they thronged the Prater, where, therefore, there was an absence of swells. Then there is the Opera. Last night I went in solemn state to the Karntner Thor alone. Your mother I forbade to go out. The two girls went to a " Comtessen soiree." The piece was a new one — ' Don Juan ' — by a composer called Mozart. There has been a pause in the whirl of one party a week — the Gramonts' soirees are over. I grow more amusing than ever when I go into company. " On voit hien que le monde Viennois est de retour dans lea foyers 1 " This striking remark I made to every person with whom I had the honour of con- 190 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. V. versing at the last soiree. . . . The children want me to take a box at the Karl Theatre, to see an operetta called ' Die schonen Weiber von Georgien,' I am just now more in- terested in the success of the piece which Sherman is pro- ducing in Georgia. Our last accounts leave him in battle array five miles from Savannah. If he should come to grief, I am awfully ill prepared for it ; for I have so much confidence in his luck and pluck that I have got to thinking him in- vincible. However, I won't talk of American matters. My mind is in other things ! Besides the Prater and the Karntner Thor, and the Karl Theatre, have we not ? That star which shot so madly from its sphere a year and a half ago has just risen again above our horizon, and proposes to shed its mild planetary lustre over Vienna for an indefinite period. He arrived before Christmas, and dined with us on that festive occasion, with the Lippitts and Consul Thayer. You are aware, of course, that the lictors with their fasces await the latter on his arrival at Trieste, whither he departed this morning. . . . We are yet, of course, without a word as to the election, which took place just a week ago. In order not to lose this last opportunity of " Don't never prophesy unless you know," I hasten to say that McClellan only got the electoral votes of New Jersey, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and Oregon, and that Abraham got all the rest. We shall not get the news until next Sunday or Monday. The advantage of my recording this prophecy is in the fact that you will have the comfort of seeing how tremendously I have written myself down an ass, in case when you have these artless lines the young Napoleon has really been elected. . . . To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, November 23rd, 1864. My deaeest Lily, — I must write you a line by this steamer. Your mother wrote yesterday (Tuesday), and this goes via Queenstown by the same steamer. I wish you would remember \ 1864.] THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 191 when you write to state whether both letters reached you the same day. I thought that I should have much to say about the result of the election. But I am, as it were, struck dumb. The more than realisation of my highest hopes leaves me with no power of expression except to repeat over and over again — " O Grosser Gott, im Staube danke ich dir." When I contemplate now the mere possibility, if it ever had existed, of McClellan's election, I shudder with horror at the depth of the abyss into which we might have been plunged. But as I have told you whenever I have written, and as I have always said to every one here, that possibility never did seem to me to exist. I used to go over the records of the votings of the last four years in every State, and I never could twist out of them, by any sophistry, a doubt as to Mr. Lincoln's re-election. Before the State elections in October, I felt nervous about Indiana and Illinois, knowing that the soldiers were not allowed to vote there, and knowing that in 1860 Lincoln only obtained a meagre majority in each of those States. Since the Indiana vote in October, a triumphant result has seemed to me quite as sure as it does now, while I was always persuaded that even should McClellan contrive to wriggle into a majority in one or two of the large States, like New York or Pennsylvania, it could not save him. But as you know by a recent letter of mine, a note slipped into Mary's letter, I at least was convinced that New Jersey, Kentucky, the most magnanimous and peaceful State of Dela- ware, and perhaps Missouri, would be all that would not vote for Lincoln. The telegraph informed us yesterday morning that all the States but the above-mentioned three (Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey) had gone for Lincoln. As the telegraph very rarely has been known to lie on our side, I am inclined to believe it. I don't know why I am saying so much about my own impressions and feelings, especially on an occa- sion when no individual is of much consequence. I certainly should not do so to any one but you, but I cannot describe 192 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. V. the eflfect and the moral of the presidential election except by marking the emotions which it has excited within my own microcosm. Throughout this great war of principle I have been sus- tained by one great faith, my belief in democracy. The American people has never known a feudal superior, in perfect good faith and simplicity has always felt itself to be sovereign over its whole territory, and because for a long period it allowed itself to be led by the nose, without observing it, by a kind of sham aristocracy, which had developed itself out of the slave-dealing system of the South, it was thought to have lost all its virtue, all its energy, and all its valour. The People did not fairly realise for a long time that this doughty aristocracy of the cotton planters intended to revolt against the sovereignty of the People. The People were wonderfully naif, good-humoured, astonished, and placable, for it took them a long time to understand that the rebellion was actually against popular sovereignty. But when the object of the great conspiracy was fairly revealed, I suppose that no despotic monarch that ever lived, not Charles V. nor Louis XIV. nor the Czar Nicholas was ever more thoroughly imbued with the necessity of putting down the insurrection of serfs or subjects than was the Ameri- can Demos. As to doubting its power to do this, such a sen- timent has never entered my head. The democratic principle is potent even in Europe, where it only exists in solution and in hidden and mutually neutralising combinations with other elements. In America it is omnipotent, and I have always felt that the slave power has undertaken a task which is not difficult but impossible. I don't use this as a figure of speech ; I firmly believe that the democratic principle is as immovable and absolute a fact upon our soil (not to change its appearance until after some long processes of cause and effect, the beginnings of which for centuries to come cannot even be ^magined) as any of its most marked geological and geographical features, and that is as much a necessary historical aad philosophical result as they are. For one, I^ike democracy. I don't say that it is pretty or 1864.] THE A^IERICAN DEMOCRACY. 193 genteel or jolly. But it has a reason for existing, and is a fact in America, and is founded on the immutable principle of reason and justice. Aristocracy certainly presents more brilliant social phenomena, more luxurious social enjoyments. Such a system is very cheerful for a few thousand select specimens out of the few hundred millions of the human race. It has been my lot and yours to see how much splendour, how much intellectual and physical refinement, how much enjoy- ment of the highest character has been created by the English aristocracy ; but what a price is paid for it. Think of a human being working all day long, from six in the morning to seven at night, for fifteen or twenty kreutzers a day in Moravia or Bohemia, Ireland or Yorkshire, for forty or fifty years, to die in the workhouse at last ! This is the lot of the great majority all over Europe ; and yet they are of the same flesh and blood, the natural equals in every way of the Howards and Stanleys, Esterhazys and Liechtensteins. I never can write a letter without turning it into a philo- sophical lecture, very learned and profound, no doubt, but consumedly dull. Let me break off at once and tell you whatever facts there may be. Tlie Liberal papers have had, all of them, enthusiastic leading articles yesterday morning; about the election. Especially the Neue Freie Presse, which has been started since you went away by sepeders from the old Presse, was ablaze with excitement. As it is the most Liberal, so it is the most philo-American paper in Germany, and it is written with great talent. Not one of the official or semi-official papers have even alluded to the subject. Their silence is very amusing to me. Mr. d'Ayllon came up the evening of the news with B , and was most warm in his congratulations. No other of " my little companions," as Susie calls the dips, has called on me, or will do so. The famille d'Ayllon and Heckeren dine with us to-day, and they will drink the honest President's health with pleasure, so that Spain, Holland, and the United States of America will have a funny entente cordiale. To-night there is a reception at the Gramonts', and we are screwing ourselves up to give a friendly swarry for all the dips VOL. u. O 194 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. and such of the Viennese as are in town. Don't we wish you were here. Pray give our kindest and warmest and tenderest regards to Mrs. Wadsworth. Don't ever forget also our very best remembrances to our old friend Mr. Austin. I am so glad to hear that he is so staunch in the cause. Give our best love to your dear grandmamma and all at home. Ever, my dear child, Your affectionate Papa. To his Mother. Vienna, December 27th, 1864. My dearest Mother, — " My days are with the dead," as Eobert Southey says, and I find the dead men much more lively companions than many I meet with when I go out into what is called life. Fortunately I have very little public business, so little that I am almost ashamed to take a salary for doing it. At the same time, as the said salary doesn't pay much more than half my necessary expenses as representative of the Great Eepublic, I have the less com- punction on the subject. I consider it a sacred duty at exactly this period in our affairs that a Minister of the United States should not live less respectably than the envoys of the smallest German duchies, and accept hospitalities such as they are from their colleagues and rendering none in return. There is a pause just now in the Vienna society as usual at this season. The peg-top is set up in the early days of January, and all the world will be whipping it for the sixty days of carnival. This sounds very fine, but in point of fact there is far less gaiety in this capital than in almost any other, that is to say, of gaiety in which the upper class participates. The weather is cold and clear. At the beginning of this month there fell about sik inches of snow, and it still lies 18C4.] WINTER IN VIENNA. 195 iinmelted and unsullied in our garden, although they take it away from the streets as soon as it falls, and sleighs are unknown in the town, although plenty in the Prater. The winter climate here is rather a puzzle to me. Thus for the last ten days we have had the thermometer ranging from 8 or 9 degrees of Fahrenheit to 25. In the day time it has rarely been above the freezing point since the beginning of the month. Yet there doesn't seem to be the same world of snow and frost and prodigious icicles, such mighty masses of white granite as our Boston winter creates. I begin to believe that it is the heat of our winter that is to blame — those few hours a day of intense sunshine which turns snow into water, followed by a midnight which metamorphoses it into marble again. You see I am getting to drivel, for here I am deliberately talking of the weather. Well, unless I talk of Maurice of Nassau and Oldenbarne- veld, I can think just now of no more lively matter. I am determined I won't say a word about American affairs to-day. Mary has been treating herself to a severe cold, but is better, I am glad to say, this morning. The two girls are well and so am I. We all send you an ocean of love and good >\ ishes, and pray you to distribute as much of it as you choose to all the family. Ever, my dearest mother, Your most affectionate son, J. L. M. From Mr. J. B. Lou-ell. Cambridge, • December 28th, 1864. My dear Motley, — Here I am again, undismayed as a fly which, though brushed away again and again, insists on making his perch on the tip of your ambassadorial nose. The NortJi American has changed hands, and begins the new year with • Ticknor and Fields " on its title-page. Fields wishes to make a distinct offer, and it is this: He will pay you a o 2 19G MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. V. tliousand dollars for four articles, the first to be delivered, if possible, before the end of February. Now it appears to me that you can't do better with your chips than to let him have them at this rate. In gathering materials for your history you must have become intimate with a great many hi&toriettes, of which you can't make use in your main work, where they would be para- sites, and suck juice from the main stem instead of helping to- feed it ; yet, as monographs, they might be made charming. History travels by the high road which has no end, and whose branches knit kingdom with kingdom ; but is not the historian sometimes tempted into an impasse, whence he must make his way back again, but where, for all that, he may have come upon something that more than paid him for losing his way ! I have found it so sometimes when I was meandering about an old Italian town, and stumbled on the tomb of some stock actor in our great tragi-comedy', in which I ^had an interest. In history you have to be even more thrifty than Horace, who allows three eminent parts to every play, and yet for all of us obscure fellows there is a sneaking interest in the fates of those other obscure, to whom Clio is obliged to deny a speak- ing part in her drama. For instance, that unhappy young Konigsmarck, buried under the stairs ; one would like to have all the facts and even the gossip about him. You must have- plenty of such material. It does not matter that the man you write about should be known by name to a dozen people. So much the better — you will make him known. But I won't buzz round you any longer, only I warn you that I am starting on an expedition to the end of Long Wharf, there to make my feet sticky with molasses, and that I shall come back fonder of the tip of your nose than ever, and bent on making my toilet there. I found your extract from Bunyan (which you have forgotten by this time), and its application so admirable, that I took the liberty to read it aloud for the benefit of a few of the elect who liked it as much as I did. I am afraid we shall have a bad time of it with England yet. Our people are naturally irritated beyond measure ; not 2804.] NORTHERN SUCCESSES. 197 80 much by what England has done as by what she has said, I know it is not philosophical ; but I am not sure that, under certain circumstances, we may not fancy we are philosophers when we are really cowards. Everything here looks well. I think our last election fairly legitimizes democracy for the first time. It won't be long before Victoria addresses Abraham as consanguineus noster. It was really a nobler thing than you can readily conceive so far :away, for the Opposition had appealed to every base element in human nature, and cunningly appealed too. I think the war is to last a good while yet, unless (and I have some hope of it) some State should secede from the Con- federacy. Then, I think, they would go to pieces. However, the taking of Savannah (involving, as it probably will, that of Augusta) and the defeat of Hood are terrible blows. You observe how anxious the Canadians are becoming to set them- selves right again. This is among the signs of the times. I had the pleasure of meeting at Newport last summer a very charming young lady who bore your name, and whose patriotism was very dear to me. With cordial remembrances to Mrs. Motley, I remain always, my dear Motley, Your sincere bore, J. R. Lowell. 198 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. YI, CHAPTER YI. VIENNA (1865) — continued. Dinner -with the Emperor — Davison tlie Actor — Capture of Fort Fislier — Serious illness of Mr. Motley's mother — Letter to the Duchess of Argyll — Assassi- nation of the President — General Grant — Final victory of the North — Abraham Lincoln — Death of Lord Carlisle — Letter from Mr. Bright — Cobden and the civil war — Free trade — Letter to Lady W. Eussell — Austrian Tyrol — Hall — Gmundeu — Condition of the people — Suspension of the Con- stitution of the Austrian Empire — Letter from Dr. 0. W. Holmes — Marriage of Miss Motley — Sir F. Bruce — General Grant — his power of sleeping — Stanton — ^Admiral Farragut — Mr. Burlingume — Mr. Howells — Lieutenant- Colonel Wendell Holmes. To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, January Slsf, 1865. My DEAREST Lily, — Your last letter was from Washington^ just after you arrived in that great mudopolis. It was ad- dressed on the outside to me and on the inside to Mary, and as it arrived when that young female was reposing after the Spiegel ball, she permitted me to read it before she was up. We con- tinue to be delighted with your despatches: we feel deeply obliged to the dear Grinnells for all their kindness to you, and I am most grateful to Mr. Hooper for giving you a chance to visit Washington. Do make a point of seeing everything and everybody. But, alas ! what is the good of my thrusting my long nose across the Atlantic into the matter ? Long before this reaches you, you will be of return into your fireplaces. Mary is writing to you by this post. Doubtless your mother will do sto by the next steamer, and you will be duly informed that yesierday we had our annual invitation to dine with the Emperor Vnd Empress. The dinner Avas very agree- able. The only other diplomat was the venerable Heckeren. The Santa Quiterias were invited (as last year), but being in Lisbon, didn't appear. In consequence of the absence of the said Portuguese, your mamma was told to sit at the left of \ 1 1865.] THE EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA. 199 his I.R.Ajr., while my delightful post was next to her I.R.A.M. You know the two Majesties always sit side by side in the centre of the ring. Well, she was perfectly charm- ing : she is in great beauty this year — more radiant, lambent, exquisite than ever. In the midst of the dinner, while she was prattling away very amiably, she suddenly said, " I am so clumsy," and began to blush in the most adorable manner, like a school-girl. She had upset a glass of Roman punch on the tablecloth ; and the Emperor coming to the rescue, very heroically upset another, so that there was a great mess. Napkins were brought, damages repaired, but the mantling colour on her cheek was certainly not less natural than the spontaneous, half-confused laughter with which she greeted the little incident, amid the solemn hush of all the rest. How I do wish that I was a " sentimental sort of fellow," as honest K used to say. What pretty and poetic things I would say. How many sonnets I would have composed to those majestic eyebrows. Well, for a grim republican like me, I think I have given you enough of the eau benite de la cour for one week. Day after to-morrow is our annual dinner at Rothschild's, after which I am not aware of any special festivities in pro- spect. We are lashing ourselves up into giving our third dinner next week. The Archbishop of Athens has not yet dined with us — videlicet the Nuncio. To-night we are going for the first time to see Davison : he plays Richard III., and if we are satisfied we shall go again. As I remember him in Dresden, he was the best Shakespearean actor I ever saw. Is it possible that we never told you that Thayer had been appointed consul at Trieste ? He feels rather lonely in the midst of his grandeur. Still it is an excellent bit of luck for him, and I rejoice at it sincerely, and flatter myself that my intercessions in his behalf with Mr. Seward were not without efiect. We have just heard of the taking of Fort Fisher ; no particulars, but it is doubtless a most important success. Your affectionate P. 200 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Ciiap. VI. To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, February 22nd, 1865. .... My heart is too heavy to do more than merely to say that we are all in good health, God knows how dreadful a thing it is to me to say that I know not \\hether I have a mother. For a long time I have deceived myself into the belief that my dear mother was not materially worse than Avhen I was at home in 1861 ; but' the letters which we have been receiving during the last two or three weeks represent her as gradually sinking .... I know that she expresses great anxiety to be released, and that it is selfish on my part to wish her life to be prolonged. But I can't help it. It is a terrible blank to me to think of the world without her .in it, separated as I have been from her for so long.^ To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, March 15th, 1865. .... I am dreading by every post to receive the fatal news that I have no mother — my dear, dear mother ! I think of her every hour of the day, and yet I have almost habituated myself to think of her as one already in heaven. Yet it is most bitter to me to think that I shall never look upon her face again. Certainly no one ever had a more angelic mother than we have had. It is, I believe, a sacred truth that I never had a word of difference with her in the whole course of my life. I cannot recall that she ever spoke a word to me except of love and tenderness since I was born ; but this only makes it more painful to reflect that I shall never be blessed again with her sweet and gentle presence. Well, we are all growing old very fast : it seems to me that I have added twenty years to my life in the last twelvemonth or so, and individually there 'teeems but little to look forward to. I suppose that the grandeVr of the events now occurring in our country, and the almost itofinite issues depending on the result of our great » Mrs. Motley died on Marcli 7th, 1865. 18G5.] ASSASSIN ATION^OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 201 struggle, dwarf all petty personal interests and ambitions. My own microcosm seems to shrivel to the dimensions of a nut-shell. Yet sometimes I wish to live twenty years longer that I may witness the magnificent gain to freedom and civili- zation and human progress which are sure to result from our great triumphs of which the hour is almost striking. Love to ]\Irs. Wadsworth. Thank your Aunt Annie and imcles for their great kindness in writing me so constantly about my dearest mother. Your affectionate P. To the Duchess of Argyll. Vienna, May 27tlij 1865. My dear Duchess of Argyll, — It was with great delight that I received your very kind letter of 19th May. My daughter was in London but a very few days, and as she only learned of the Washington tragedy ^ on the day after her arrival in England, it was hardly possible for her to go any- where, and she hurried to us as fast as she could get here. She has often spoken to us of the privilege she enjoyed in having a glimpse of you on her way to America last summer, and of your kindness to her on that occasion. I thank you from my heart for your genial words of sympathy in our national joy, and our national bereavement. I felt perfectly sure before you wrote that the Duke and yourself had both rejoiced with us and wept with us. For myself, I can truly say that I did not — that the vast majority o^ my countrymen did not — indulge in a sentiment of exultation, of political and vulgar triumph at the sudden and tremendous blow with which the extraordinary genius of Grant shattered the confederacy of the slaveholders in the brief space of a single week and sent the mutineers howling into the limbo which has so long been waiting for them. I have never doubted — no American who deserves the name has ever doubted (except perhaps in one brief, dark moment * The assassination of President Lincoln. 202 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI. in 1862, when there were indications of military treason in high places) — of the certainty of the suppression of the mutiny and of the extirpation of its cause ; but I am sure that no man ever looked for so overwhelming and so dramatic a catastrophe as the storming of the Petersburg lines, the capture of Richmond, and the surrender of all the armies of the " Confederacy " in so brief a period of time. No man, I mean, except Ulysses Grant. I am no great admirer of military heroes, but we needed one at this period, and we can never be too thankful that exactly such a one was vouchsafed to us — one so vast and fertile in conception, so patient in wait- ing, so rapid in striking, had come, and withal so destitute of personal ambition, so modest, so averse to public notoriety. The man on whom the gaze of both hemispheres has been steadily concentrated for two yea^s, seems ever shrinking from observation. All his admiration warmly expressed is for Sherman and Sheridan. So long as we can produce such a man as Grant, our Eepublic is safe. How very feeble seems the talk much indulged in on this side the Atlantic about military dictatorships, and all the rest of it in America, to those who know something of that part of the world and its inhabitants ! There is something very sublime to my imagination in the fact that Grant has never yet set his foot in Richmond, and perhaps never will. I said that we were not in a state of exultation at our immense victory. On the contrary, I believe that the all-per- vading genuine sentiment of the American people was that of humble, grateful thanksgiving to God that the foul sedition was suppressed and the national life preserved. The spectacle of twenty thousand men in the busiest haunts of trade in one of the most thronged cities of the world spontaneously un- covering tkeir heads and singing a psalm of thanksgiving — " 0 Lord, from whom all blessings flow " — when the news of victory readied them, was not an ignoble scene. I cannot trust myself yet to speak of President Lincoln, for I am afraid of wossible exaggeration. I had a great reverence for his charactier — a sentiment which has been steadily growing for the last two years. On the very first interview 1865.] ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 203^ that I had with him in the summer of 1861, he impressed me as a man of the most extraordinary conscientiousness. He seemed to have a window in his breast. There was something almost childlike in his absence of guile and affectation of any kind. Of course, on the few occasions when I had the privilege of conversing with him, it was impossible for me to pretend to form an estimate as to his intellectual power, but I was struck with his simple wisdom, his straightforward, unsophisticated common sense. What our Republic, what the whole world has to be grateful for, is that God has endowed our chief magistrate at such a momentous period of history with so lofty a moral nature and with so loving and forgiving a disposition. His mental abilities were large, and they became the more robust as the more weight was imposed upon them, and his faculty of divining the right amid a conflict of dogmas,, theories, and of weighing other men's opinions while retaining his own judgment, almost amounted to political genius, but his great characteristic was devotion to duty. I am very glad thkt you admire that little inaugural address of last March. The children in every American school ought to be made to leam it by heart. " With malice towards none, with charity to all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in " — those words should be his epitaph, and who in the long roll of the world's rulers have deserved a nobler one ? It is very kind in you to say that you wish you could see me again. I am sure I should esteem it a very great happi- ness to see the Duke and yourself once more. But I am sure that the Duke will always remember what he has so nobly spoken with pleasure, and I know that his name will be ever honoured as it deserves in America. But I fear that it is not the Times alone, but every organ of public opinion in England, save two or three, and all the " governing classes," with a very few exceptions, who not only- believed our national death to be inevitable, but who are very- wretched now that they find themselves mistaken. I have to acknowledge a very kind letter from the Duke of the 21st December. I don't venture to answer it just now. 204 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. YI. for I am afraid I have already trespassed too far on your kind- ness in this interminable letter. But pray thank him most sincerely for the details he was so kind to give me of the last painful sufferings of Lord Carlisle, the memory of whose constant kindness to me I shall ever reverently and affectionately cherish. With our united and kindest regards to the Duke and yourself, Pray believe me, Most sincerely yours, J. L. Motley. From Mr. John Brigld. Eoclidale, July 31s;, 18G5. My dear Mk. Motley, — I hope I need not tell you that I received your letter of the 6th of June with great pleasure. It was written on subjects and events most astonishing and most sad, and yet I read it with pleasure, because the whole of it was so much in accordance with my own feelings. I have often thought of the morning when we met at Mr. Layard's.^ We were then entering as it were, into the cloud, and none of us could tell when light would again appear. I thought my lamented friend, Mr. Cobden, was rather severe upon you, and I told him afterwards that I thought his * See Morley's ' Life of Cobden,' ii. had been writing in the newspapers in p. 373 ; ii. p. 478, note : — " As we have favour of the Northern case. As they seen more than once, Cobden was al- walked away down Piccadilly together, ways prone to be led by his sympathies Mr. Bright remonstrated with Cobden as an economist. The hesitation, how- on tliese symptoms of a leaning towards ever, did not last long. He tolerably the South. The argument was con- soon came round to a more correct view tinned and renewed, as other arguments of the issues at stake, partly under the had been between fhem. The time influence of Mr. Bright, whose saga- came for Cobden to address his con- city, sharpened by his religious hatred stituents at Rochdale. ' Now,' said of slavery, at once perceived that a Mr. Bright, with a final push of insist- break-up of the American Union would ence, ' this is the moment for you to bo a damaging blow to the cause of speak with a clear voice.' Cobden's freedom all over the world. At the vision by this time was no longer dis- beginning of the struggle, they hap- turbed by economic or other preposses- pened to meet Mr. Moiley at breakfast. sions, and he was henceforth as gene- With a good deal of liveliness, Cobden rally identified as Mr. Bright with attacked something which Mr. Motley support of the Northern cause." 18C5.J RICHARD COBDEN. 205 argument was hardly fair. He was so much shocked at the war that he seemed ready for any sacrifice to put an end to it, and he had no confidence in the statesmen whom the Kepub- lican party had raised to office. But he always insisted upon this — that an attempt to build up a new state on the foundation of human bondage could not succeed in our age of the world. He watched the course of the war with intense interest, and strange to say his eyes closed in death on the very day on which Richmond fell. I was with him during the last hours of his life, but it was too late for love or friendship to render him any assistance. In the general mourning at his death there is something to rejoice over, and much to cause a feeling akin to regret. It is humiliating to remember how he has been pursued during his life by the malice and vituperation of large classes of his countrymen and by writers in the public press, and that death only could so make evident his services and his virtues, as to silence the bitter tongue of slander. To me this event has been a heavy blow — so heavy that for some weeks I felt my whole existence disturbed and changed, and I left London for a time that I might escape the incessant pain which seemed to rest upon me. I am not deeply informed on history or biography, but I suspect there are few cases where the life and labours of one man have produced results at once so great and so useful to mankind. The notions which were held in almost universal contempt by our rich and ruling class twenty-five years ago, are now received as the true wisdom of our statesmen ; and these statesmen made their reputation on a policy which not long ago they despised. A fortnight after the death of Mr. Cobden, my brother-in- law, Mr. Lucas, of the Morning Star newspaper, was taken from us. Mr. Cobden's death was a great shock to him. He was ill when that event occurred, and from that day he never left his house. On Saturday, 15th April (he died just after midnight following), he heard of the fall of Eichmond. A smile passed over his languid face, as he said : " What a pity Cobden did not live to hear of this." IMr. Lucas was a true friend to your country — and to me his loss, coming imme- diately after that of Mr. Cobden, was a great trial. •206 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL But death is common, and is seen or heard of daily, but not in the form in which it came to your good President. The shock produced in this country was very great. All your friends were plunged into sorrow, and all your enemies into shame, and from that time there has been a rapid change of opinion and of feeling here on all American questions. I have said nothing in public on the character and services of Mr. Lincoln since his death. During his life I said all on his behalf that I know how to express in our language. From the first I have marked his career with strong and growing in- terest, and I have seen in all his speeches, and in all his public papers and addresses, something different from, and some- thing higher than, anything that has ever before proceeded from the tongue or pen of president or potentate. It is this " something " which has made him almost a member of every family in the Northern States, and which has endeared him to the great mass of the people in this country. His noble character, and his sad but gentle countenance, as we see him in his portrait, will never be forgotten by this generation of our countrymen. I am glad to read what you say on the question of Free Trade. With you it is not the question it once was a\ ith us. Protection with us was a political subjugation of our people to the owners of the soil, and our battle was infinitely more desperate than yours can be. When your people fairly examine the matter, they will soon see through the fallacies of Mr. Carey and his followers, and at the same time the necessities of your financial position will force them in the direction of a moderate tariff. The South and the West can have no interest in high duties, and the Eastern States will not be unanimous in their favour. I am anxious to see what Mr. McCulloch's Commission will recommend. I have formed a good opinion of his good sense and capacity, and I am sure he must regard your present tariff with disgust. We are all quiet here. Our elections have ended in disaster to the Tories, and I feel sure we are approaching another, and a considerable step on the road to a real representation of the people. Lord Palmerston's reign is nearly over, and with him 1805.] AUSTRIAN TYROL. 207 will end much of our evil policy at home and abroad. Men of this generation will succeed, and there will be in our political condition something of a "new heaven and a new earth." We have now a free Press, a free platform, and if we get a free Parliament, I think we shall see changes, startling to some, but full of blessing to the people. I hope some time you will come to England, and then I may see you again. In the dark hours, and in the bright moments of the great conflict, I have often thought of you. I am now every day happy in the consciousness that the struggle is ended. Believe me always sincerely yours, John Bright. To Lady William Russell. Gmunden, September 22nd, 1865. Dear Lady William, — Your kind note of August 20th would not have remained so long unanswered, had I not with my whole household been making a somewhat protracted vil- Icggiatura. I thank you very much for the interesting details as to Arthur's engagement, which you are so good as to send me, and I hope that he will accept my warmest congratulations and good wishes for his happiness and prosperity. Were it not for my desire to express my sympathy on this occasion I should hardly write at all, but wait until I should be in a little better spirits. We have been passing three weeks at a little spa, called Hall, in Upper Austria, for the sake of iodine baths for my second daughter, who is somewhat menaced with poverty of blood, and has been worrying us in consequence. She is, I think, better now, but bored, for with her mother only she had spent five previous weeks at the same place, in July and August. Hall is a dull little nest enough, but in the midst of a fat and fruitful country. A paradise of peasants, for the land all belongs to them, in small properties, and I never saw better farming or more bountiful harvests. There has hardly been one Bitter gutbesHzer in the whole province 208 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VI, since the fifteenth century, so that those who believe that the earth will not yield its increase until its whole surface belongs to a few favoured individuals, may find something there to- stagger their theory. I will trouble you to show better fields of wheat or clover, or cider, than in the archduchy. Alas, I did not mean to babble of green fields, still less to- preach political economy, but what topic can I find ? ... . Doubtless you know Gmunden, where we are, and Ischl, where we are going, so I shall not describe their charms, which are manifest. I have seen hardly a soul in six weeks outside of my own household. I have been trying to forget the politics of the nineteenth century and of the seventeenth, and that Schleswig-Holstein " Meer umschlungen" or that the Marquis Spinola ever existed. All of a sudden this morning we hear of our mild little coup d'etat in Vienna. Here is our blessed little Constitution of February abolished, or rather " sistirt,'* a fico for the phrase. The Ungarn Eeichsrath and the Weit- erer Eeichsrath are both gone to Abraham's bosom, and the Huns, with their passive resistance, have triumphed at last. Now if the infuriated people are building barricades in the Kohlmarkt and Graben, and if a revolution is going on, I shan't be there to see, unluckily, for we stop here a fortnight longer. Probably there will be a few more bottles of Schwe- chater Bier consumed this week than usual. Alas, for the beautiful new Parliament House which we were just beginning to build on the most solid foundations, not far from the new Opera House ! I'm afraid that the labours of that piece of architecture will be " sistirt." The Schmerling Theatre out- side the Schottenthor was a shaky little temporary afiair of lath and plaster, but it has lasted longer than the Imperial Parliament, of which it has been cradle and grave. Sincerely and affectionately yours, Vaeiijs Minimus. 18C5.] SIB FREDERICK BRUCE. 209 From Dr. 0. W. Eolmes. Boston, Octoher Wth, 1865. My DEAR 3I0TLEY, — When i\riss Lily left us last March, we hardly thought she would be so very soon back in America as we hear she is to be. I cannot let the clay of her marriage go over without a line to her father and mother as a substitute for the epithalamium with which a century ago I should (if all parties had been extant) have illuminated the Gentleman's Magazine. I hear from one of my Providence friends, the best accounts of Mr. Ives. I hope that the alliance will prove very happy to her, to you, to your wife, and all your connections. It is having a son, a brother, born full grown, to receive a daughter's husband as a member of one's family. With all the felicitations which rise to my lips, for I feel now as if I were talking with you face to face, I cannot help remember- ing how much there must be of tender regret mingling with the blessings that follow the dear child over the threshold of the home she had brightened with her presence. Even the orange flowers must cast their shadow. Yet I cannot help thinking that the new attractions which our country will have for you will restore you and your family to those who grudge your possession to an alien capital ; and that having stood picket manfully at one of our European outposts through the four years' campaign, you may wish to be relieved, now that the great danger seems over. So we shall all hope, for our sakes. What a fine thing it would be to see you back at the Saturday Club again. Longfellow has begun to come again. He was at his old place, the end of the table, at our last meeting. We have had a good many of the notabilities here with the last three or four months ; and I have been fortunate enough to have some pleasant talks with most of them. Sir Frederick Bruce, the new Minister, pleased us all. You may know him, very probably. White-haired, white- whiskered, red-cheeked, round-cheeked, ■with rich dark eyes, hearty, convivial, not afraid to use the strengthening monosyllable for which Englishmen are famous, pretty freely outspoken for our side, as if he were one of us, VOL. II. p 210 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. Vr_ he produced on me at least a very different effect from that of lively Lord Napier or plain and quiet Lord Lyons. I had a good deal of talk with Grant, whom I met twice. He is one of the simplest, stillest men I ever saw. He seems, torpid at first, and requires a little management to get much talk out of him. Of all the considerable personages I have- seen, he appears to me to be the least capable of an emotion of vanity. He can be drawn out, and will tell his habits and feelings. I have been very shy of repeating all he said to me,, for every word of his is snapped up with great eagerness, and the most trivial of his sayings, if mentioned in the hearing of a gossip, would run all through the press of the country. His- entire sincerity and homely truthfulness of manner and speech struck me greatly. He was not conscious^ he said, of ever having acted from any personal motive during his public- service. We (of the West), he said, were terribly in earnest.. The greatest crisis was the Battle of Shiloh ; that he would not lose ; he would have fought as long as any men were left to fight with. If that had been lost the war would have dragged on for years longer. The North would have lost its prestige^ Did he enjoy the being followed as he was by the multi- tude ? " It was very painful." This answer is singularly characteristic of the man. They call on him for speeches which he cannot and will not try to make. One trait, half physiological, half moral, interested me. He said he was a good sleeper ; commonly slept eight hours. He could go to sleep under almost any circumstances ; could set a battle going, go to sleep as if nothing were happening, and wake up by-and-by, when the action had got along somewhAt. Grant has the look of a plain business man, which he is. I doubt if we have had any ideal so completely realised as that of the republican soldier in him. I cannot get over the im- pression he made on me. I have got something like it from women sometimes, hardly ever from men — that of entire loss of self-hood in a great aim which made all the common in- fluences which stir up other people as nothing to him. I don't think you have met Stanton. I found him a very mild pleasant person to talk with, though he is an ogre to rebels. 18G5.] GKANT AND FARRAQUT. 211 aud their Northern friends. Short, with a square head, broad not high, full black beard turning grey ; a dark, strong-look- ing man ; he talks in a very gentle tone, protruding his upper lip in rather an odd way. Nothing could be more amiable than the whole man. It was pleasant chat mainly we had together. One thing he said which I could not forget. Speaking of the campaign of the Wilderness : " It was the bloodiest swath ever made on this globe." Perhaps a little liasarde this statement, but coming from the Secretary of War it has its significance. Old Farragut, whom I foregathered with several times, is the lustiest gaillard of sixty-something, one will meet with in the course of a season. It >vas odd to contrast him and Major Anderson. I was with them both on one occasion. The Major — General I should say — is a conscientious, somewhat languid, rather bloodless-looking, gentleman, who did his duty well, but was overtasked in doing it. Nothing would have sup- ported him but, etc., etc. ; but the old Admirable — hona jide accident — let it stand ; is full of hot red blood, jolly, juicy, abundant, equal to anything, and an extra dividend of life left ready for payment after the largest expenditure. I don't know but he is as much the ideal seaman as Grant the ideal general, but the type is not so rare. He talks with everybody, merry, twinkling eyed, up to everything, fond of telling stories, tells them well ; the gayest, heartiest, shrewdest old boy you ever saw in your life. The young lady (so to speak) whom you would naturally address as his daughter, is Mrs. Farragut, the pretty wife of the old heart-of-oak Admiral. jMr. Burlingame has come home from China on a visit. It is strange what stories they all bring back from the Celestials. Richard Dana, Burlingame, Sir F. Bruce, all seem filled with a great admiration of the pigtails. " There are twenty thousand Ralph Waldo Emersons in China," said Mr. B. to me. " We have everything to learn from them in the matter of courtesy. They are an honester people than Europeans. Bayard Taylor's stories about their vices do them great injustice. They are from hasty impressions got in seaport towns." This is the ikind of way they talk. p 2 212 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VL Mr. Howells, from Venice, was here not long ago, tells me he has seen you, who are his " chef" I suppose, in some sense. This is a young man of no small talent. In fact, his letters from Venice are as good travellers' letters as I remember since * Eothen.' My son, Oliver Wendell H., junior, now commonly styled Lieutenant-Colonel, thinks of visiting Europe in the course of a few months, and wants me to ask you for a line of introduc- tion to John Stuart Mill and to Hughes. I give his message or request without urging it. He is a presentable youth, with fair antecedents, and is more familiar with Mill's writings than most fellows of his years. If it like your Excellency to send me two brief notes for him it would please us both, but not if it is a trouble to you. And now, as I am closing my gossipy letter, full of little matters which I hoped might interest you for a moment, let me end as I began, with the thoughts of you and yours, which this day brings up so freshly before me. Peace and prosperity and happiness to both households, the new and the old ! What can I say better than to repeat that old phrase — the kindly Eoman's prayer as a poor Christian would shape it on this "auspicious morning," quod honum, faustum felix fortu- natumgue sit I Love to all. Yours always, 0. W. H. ( 213 ) CHAPTER VII. VIENNA (1866, 1867) — continued. Andrew Jolinson, President— A diplomatic party — The European crisis — Deal- ings between Austria and Prussia — Work on the 'United Netherlands' — Rumoured recall of Mr. Motley — Letter from John Stuart Mill — Introduc- tion to Dr. O. W. Holmes — Progress of reconstruction in America — Outbreak of war between Austria and Prussia — The future of Prussia — Bismarck — Condition of Austria — Marshal Benedek — Rapid movements of the Prussian army — Bonedek's strategy — The Bund — News of the battle of Koniggratz — Action of Louis Napoleon — Panic in Vienna — Advance of the Prussian army — Lieutenant Sherman — The rapidity of the campaign — The " WaflFen- ruhe " — Prospects of peace — Abolition of the Bund — Unification of Germany — Position of Italy— The Atlantic telegraph and its effects — " Charlemagn- ism " and " Americanism " — Louis Napoleon's policy — The balance of power — Despatches and blue books — Collapse of Austria — The King of Hanover — lletter to Mr. W. Amory — Bazaar in Vienna on behalf of sufferers by the war — Letter to Lady W. Russell — Condition of Austria — Letter to the Duchess of Argjll — The Duke's ' Reign of Law ' — General King — America and Radicalism — ' The Guardian Angel ' — George W. MacCracken — Approach- ing completion of the ' United Netherlands * — Contemplated History of the Thirty Years' War. To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, April 23rd, 1866. My dearest Lily, — .... How long we shall be here is, of course, extremely doubtful, but if Mr. Johnson^ turns me out, which may happen now at any moment, I should not return at present to America. My 'United Netherlands' will be finished in a few weeks, but it will require much revising, and it will probably not be published until a year from next November. If I am turned out in the course of the summer, we might all go together to spend a winter in Nice, or Eome, or Palermo, or any place where sunshine is to be had. If I remain another winter here, you could go to the south of the Alps with whomsoever you may have arranged to come abroad with, making us a visit first in the autumn. Perhaps Mrs. Ives, or the Russells, or your Aunt Susan, would come out. I think such a course would be very good for all of them. I believe ]\[ar}' or Susie told you of a little party at this • President Andrew Johnson. 214 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. house last week. Princess Trautmannsdorff liad told Countess Spiegel that she would like to come some evening sociably, so it was arranged for last Wednesday ; but on that morning Countess Czernin {grand' mere) died, so that the Trautmanns- dorffs, Spiegels, Boucquoys, and Czernins, being all near relations, couldn't come. As this was the whole, except the young people, the Ayllons, Erdodys,^ Bray^ (father and daughter), and the young Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Kus- sians, and a few old gentlemen, Heckeren, Stackelberg,^ and so on, the party Avas small enough. However, they stopped till half-past twelve, and the irrepressible de I'Aigle and Bourgoing made themselves and every one else very funny. To-night, I believe, Alice Kothschild and the Ayllons are coming to tea. To-morrow evening there is another small collection — Countess Hardegg and her daughters, and some other people, including, of course, the youthful Dips, of all nations. Then there is to be a croquet party next week, and the deferred Trautmannsdorff festivity. However, I had better leave such small beer to be chronicled by the others, as I hope Mary or Susie will w^ite by this post, and perhaps you ^^ould like me to say something of the haute politique. It is an anxious moment in Europe. I have not been outside the house to-day, but I am going to dine with Henikstein,* where I shall find some colleagues, and learn the latest news. Otherwise I shall be obliged to go to the Foreign Office to-morrow, for I must send the latest authentic news to the United States Government. Up to this moment of writing, so far as I know, the Prussian answer to the last note has not arrived. Let me see if I can epigrammatise in six lines the situation thus far for your private edification. 1864. — Prussia and Austria in the early months make war on Denmark, because Schleswig-Holstein belongs to Mr. August- enburg. , 1864. Midsummer. — Prussia and Austria having conquered Denmark without allowing the Bund to participate in the war, * Afterwards Odjintess Louis Karolyi * Count Stackelberg, Russian and Conntess Bela Szechenyi. Minister. - Count Bray, Bavarian Minister. * Baron Hcnikstein, his banker. 18GG.] AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA. 215 accept Schleswig-IIolstcin from Denmark. !Mr. Augustenburg fades out. 1805. Septemher. — Prussia and Austria agree at Gastein to Jiave a temporary division of the booty. Prussia to have the administration of Schleswig, Austria to adminster Holstein. ISGO. — Very early in the year, Mr. Augustenburg begins to •emerge, and gives trouble in Holstein. Austria remembers that she had once favoured his pretensions. Prussia has forgotten all about it, and only remembers that she always meant to annex Schleswig-Holstein to her own dominions. Januarij 2Gth. — Prussia tells Austria that her administration of Holstein is dangerous to her peace of mind. Mr. August- enburg is allowed to live in the duchy, and is a standing jjrotest against their joint sovereignty and a general nuisance, and must be incontinently cast out into space. 186G. February. — Austria replies that Prussia herself invented Augustenburg originally, and that Prussia now had better mind her own business. According to Gastein, Prussia is to administer Schleswig, and has no right to put her nose into Holstein. Correspondence drops. Prussia then inquires of ^11 the German Powers what they will do if Austria attacks her, or if she should find herself obliged to fight Austria. Chorus of small German States shout " Appeal to the Bund." Now the blessed old Bund has a machine in its armoury called Article XI. This is a very superior article indeed. By its provisions no two German Powers are allowed to snarl and fight; they are to come straight to Frankfort Avith their quarrels. Instead of lifting their little hands to scratch each other, the Bund must set it all right between them. So Prussia gets for answer, according to Article XI., that she is not to let her angry passions rise. Not believing so much in the Bund nor in Dr. Watts as one could wish, Prussia lets her passions continue to rise. She says she will and must have Schleswig-Holstein, peaceably if possible, forcibly if necessary, and begins to prepare for a great fight with Austria. Austria meantime makes no preparations to fight Prussia. Prussia naturally much exasperated at this, makes loud complaint that Austria is getting ready to attack her, and 216 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. sends word to Vienna, in goading language, to that effect. Austria denies it. A]pril 5th. — Prussia writes word that she knows better. April 1th. — Austria replies that it is beneath her dignity to contradict once more a charge which she has so often con- tradicted. Nevertheless, pocketing her dignity, she protests solemnly that all accusations that she is arming are contrary to truth,, and she calls on Prussia, and this time in bumptious accents, to disarm. April 15th. — Prussia replies acrimoniously that she cannot disarm unless Austria takes the initiative, not believing at all her statements that she has not armed. April 17th. — Bavaria appears on the scene as umpire or judicious bottle-holder, and begs Prussia and Austria to disarm simultaneously. April 18th. — Austria says, " With pleasure," and sends word to Prussia that she will disarm on the 26th of April, if Prussia will follow suit next day, having just stated with perfect truth that she has not armed at all. And that is exactly where we are at present. To-day is the 23rd, and Prussia has not yet replied. If she does not reply (and favourably) within two or three days, Werther will have to leave his P.P.C. at Vienna and Karolyi ditto at Berlin. P.S. (April 24:th). — Prussia has replied. The note was given in yesterday at 2 p.m. Prussia will disarm " in principle," an fur et a mesure as Austria disarms. Now will come a puzzling problem in Eule of Three. Query : Austria not having armed at all, how much disarming will be required of Prussia to equal the promised disarming of Austria ? \ The boy a\^o answers that deserves to have a double-headed eagle of the 4rst class tied around his neck, and I wish he may get it. i I have been ponderously chaffing on this subject, my dear child, because I have been boring myself and the United States Departni'^nt with dreary despatches on this dreary Schleswig-Holste\nismus once a week these three months ; and 18C6.] THE EUROPEAN CRISIS. 217 really I have not put down in the foregoing pages all that I know, or anybody knows, on the subject. I have felt all along that there would be war. I still feel so. Everybody else says there will be peace. Nobody, doubts that Prussia will get the Duchies, however. To resume the case between Austria and Prussia, in a single phrase, " They won't fight, and they won't make up, and they keep nagging."^ Meantime Italy is flaring up, and on Sunday we were startled by the intelligence that Archduke Albert, at the head of his staff, was careering off to Verona, to take the com- mand of the Southern army. He isn't gone yet, however, but it is thought that he is going this week. In short, there is much mischief brewing. These people have been playing with edge tools ever since the beginning of January, and somebody may get hurt. " If I laugh at any mortal thing 'tis that I may not weep," and I feel more like crying, a good deal, when I am writing to you. We miss you more and more every day, and find it harder and harder to get on without you. God bless you, my darliug. Eemember us kindly to Mrs. Ives and Mr. and Mrs. Kussell. All send love, and all are well. Ever your affectionate Papa. To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, May 2nd, 1866. My dearest Lily, — I wrote finis to volume fourth and lastly of the * United Netherlands ' day before yesterday at half-past five, while the croquet people were howling on the lawn through the open window. The weather has been mid-summery ; to-day it has turned cold. The heaven is hung with black, and it is trying to rain. My occupation is not gone yet with my History. I have many months' work in revising and annotating these two concluding volumes. But, anyhow, you c^n say to any inquiring friends that the work is finished. • Quotation from Charles Reade's • Love me little, love me long.* •218 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. When it will go to press is not yet settled, I am in no hurry about that. A telegram in the Viennese papers this morning announces that the London Times stated yesterday that Mr. Seward has instructed me to leave Vienna instantly if a single Austrian volunteer is shipped for Mexico. He was probably kind enough to hand the despatch to the Times correspondent instead of to me. Anyhow, it has not reached me, and I don't expect it. There is nothing new about the war to-day, I believe. Nobody doubts that it will come soon. I should say that peace was now impossible except by a straight cave-in by Austria giving up the duchies to Bismarck, making peace with Prussia, and spending all her energies against Italy. It is almost too late for this, however. The triangular duel is about to begin. If you ever read Marryat's ' Midshipman Easy,' you will remember how this remarkable contest has been foreshadowed. P. is going to fire into A. because A. is taking aim at I. " Because," says P., " if I. should get hurt she would be harmless against A. should P. wish to rely upon her in a fight with A." This is almost, word for word, the substance of P.'s last semi-ofiicial declaration when declining to disarm after having agreed the day before to do so This is less a letter than a " posy to a ring." Despite its brevity it will serve to assure you that we are all well. There is no need of assuring you how much we daily miss you, my dearest darling. Don't forget what I told you in my last. You 7nust not confront the New England climate next Avinter. Ever your affectionate Papa. From Mr. John Stuart Mill \ Blackheatli Park, \ . May 6th, 1866. Dear Sie,A;-I am afraid you must have thought hard things of me for beihg so slow in answering your very friendly and V ISCC] RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA. 219 most interesting letter of February 1st. Had your introduc- tion to Mr. Holmes not already been sent, but depended on my answer, I should have written at once, if even only a line, to say how glad I should be both to see and know him, both as his father's son, as your friend, and as one whose personal history has already been such as your letter intimates. Among the countless and inexhaustible blessings which you, from your national struggle, will in the end bring forth for the human race, it is one of the greatest that they have behind them so many who, being what your friend was, have done what he has done. Such men are the natural leaders of the democracy of the world from this time forward ; and such a series of events, coming upon minds prepared by previous high culture, may well have ripened their intellects, as it cannot but have fitted their characters, for stepping into that vacant post and filling it with benefit to the world. The new struggle, in which you are now engaged, that of reconstruction, is well fitted to carry on the work of educating the political mind of the country. I have learnt to have great trust in the capability of the American people at large (outside the region of slavery) to see the practical leanings of a political question truly and rapidly when the critical moment comes. It seems to me that things are going on as well and as fast as could be hoped for under the untoward accident of getting an obstinate Southern man, a pro-slavery man almost to the last, in the position of President. But the passing of the Civil Rights Bill over his head seems almost to ensure the right issue to the contest. If you only keep the Southern States out of Congress till they one by one either grant negro suffrage or consent to come in on the basis of their electoral population alone, they may probably then be let in in safety. But the real desideratum (in addition to colonization from the North) is the Homestead law which you propose for the negroes. I cannot express too strongly the completeness of my agreement with all you say on that point. Compared with these great questions, free trade is but a secondary matter ; but it is a good sign that this also has benefited by the general impulse given to the national mind, 220 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [CuAr. VII. and that the free traders are raising themselves for vigorous efforts. I am not anxious that this question should be forced on while the others are pending ; for anything which might detach the Western from the Eastern States, and place them in even partial sympathy with the South, would at present be a great calamity. I have often during the years since we met in Vienna wished that I could talk with you, but always found some- thing more urgent to do than to resort to the unsatisfactory mode of communication by letter, and this is still more the case now that I have allowed new and onerous duties to be placed upon me. They are not nearly so agreeable to myself, and it remains to be seen Avhether they will be as useful as that of writing out my best thoughts and putting them into print. I have a taller pulpit now, but one in which it is impossible to use my best materials. But jacta est alea, I must make the best I can of it; and I have had thus far much more of what is called success than I could have hoped for beforehand. I am, dear Sir, Ever sincerely yours, J. S. Mill. To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, June 20th, 1866. My dearest Lily, — I wish it were not just two hours before J goes with the letters. Another time I will write on Sunday, instead of waiting until Wednesday. My despatches are finished, but I shall be interrupted twenty times by correcting the copies thereof. Moreover, there is a fine instinct by w!l|ich visitors, especially travelling com- patriots, always discover that Wednesday between twelve and half-past, being despatch day, is exactly the proper moment to select for a friendly visit. The noble three hundred and fifty who compose the Vienna !86G.] OUTBREAK OP THE WAR. 221 world are gone into their " earths," or to the waters. The whiskered young pandoors and dancing hussars have all danced off to the front, and we are expecting, before many weeks have passed, to hear of some tremendous and terrible battle. If the weather were only a little more encouraging, I should rejoice in the leafy solitude of my garden. But you know the howling and blusterous nature of a Vienna June, and to-day and day before yesterday it has been out-doing itself. The Dips, are all here, of course, save the Werthers,^ who took their sad departure four or five days ago at 7 a.m., attended at the station by the faithful d'Ayllons, one and all. Had it been in the evening, I should have gone, for all like and respect Werther himself. That blessed Ambassador of the Sublime Porte has a gala dinner next Monday, to celebrate the anniversary of the Grand Turk's accession to the throne of his ancestors, and so we are all obliged to turn out in mufti. If it happens to be a hot day, as may well be the case, I for one shall sincerely wish that the said Sultan's predecessor had had the present incumbent bow-stringed or drowned in his tender infancy, according to the good old Turkish custom. The first constitutional step of a new Sultan on the death of his father used to be to cause all his brothers and sisters, amounting usually to fifty or sixty in number, to be drowned like blind puppies in the Bosphorus. But the good old customs and traditions of this world are fast passing away. What do you think of the Bund dying at last of old age ? It is mortifying to me, in a personal point of view, as we are both of an age. To be sure it has just voted itself indis- soluble, and so might I. I feel in writing to you that I ought to say something serious of European politics ; but I have to be so serious, solemn, and idiotic in my despatches, that I feel inclined to say with Mephistopheles (whose ac- quaintance you said you were about making) when he throws ' The PruBBiau Minister, leaving on account of the commencement of hostilities. 222 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. off the doctor's gravity gown, in which he has been gravely chaffing poor Wagner, and says, "Ich bin des trocknen Ton's nun satt Muss wieder recht den Teufel spielen." I hardly know which way my sympathies lie in this tremen- dous struggle just opening. It is impossible not to have a strong feeling for Austria, for she considered Venice her pro- perty just as much as Styria. From her point of view, the treaties of 1815 are as sacred as Holy Writ. She believes in right divine, in Durchlauchts, and K. K.s of all kinds as devoutly as Abraham Lincoln ever believed in the sovereignty of the people. The excellent old , in gorgeous array, holding the sword of state and other baubles, believes in it all with as much confiding simplicity and loyalty as we repose in our manifest destiny principles on July 4th. One must try to get into other people's minds, must try to look objectively at the world's events, if one would attain to anything like philosophy. I don't mean that we are to think and feel as those do whom we contemplate ; far from it. But we must try to understand them a little. The man in the moon may be an excellent person in his way, I don't doubt it. But they say there is no atmosphere there, consequently no liquids. His views on the temperance question must differ from ours. He can't swallow probably at all. From his point of view all our guzzlings and muz- zlings must seem reprehensible. Well, there is no popular atmosphere here. The man in the moon can't comprehend Americanism. For the time being he has it all his own way. But he is getting antiquated, passing away perhaps. It used to be said that heaven and earth shall pass away, but Schleswig-Holstein shall not pass away. Yet there are symptoms of changes in the universe. This brings me to the point. Suppose that Austria is quite conquered in this great tussle. What are the results ? Prussia is aggrandised. She swallows HesS^-Cassel, Schleswig-Holstein (which is already done), Hanover,\ Brunswick, Saxony, "churches and steeples and all the good Veoples." The question will then arise, Will 18CG.J THE FUTURE OF PRUSSIA. 22? sho make the same complaint as did the eminent Bolin to Bobbin ? I should say not. I think she would only be too well satisfied. She would have rounded out that celebrated " schmalen Leib " of hers, and would begin calmly to digest. She will have got the JMain line. She is shaped now, as you will perceive by looking on the map, exactly like a wasp. But there is a future — a possible future for Prussia. It may one day become liberal as well as powerful. Intellectually and industrially it is by far the leading power in Germany, Constitutionally it may become free. It is now a military despotism. The hard-cutting instrument, which is now per- sonified in my old friend Bismarck, may do its work by cutting away all obstacles and smoothing the geographical path to Prussia's great fortune. Bismarck is a man of great talent and of iron will. Probably no man living knows him more intimately than I do. He too believes in his work as thoroughly as Mahomet or Charlemagne, or those types of tyranny, our Puritan forefathers, ever believed in theirs. He represents what is the real tendency and instinct of the whole Prussian people, from King William to the most pacific Spiessbiirger of Potsdam. They all want a great Prussia. They all want to Borussifise Germany. Only they want to do it pacifically y God save the mark ! As if it were possible to make an omelette without breaking eggs. As if the electors and grand dukes and other little fishes would put themselves of their own accord into the Prussian frying-pan. Well then, suppose Prussia victorious, there is a great intel- lectual and powerful nation, which may become a free nation, in the very heart of Europe able to counterbalance France when it is a despotism, and to go hand-in-hand with it should that nation ever be free again. There will be a few grand dukes and roitelets the less. But they have no longer raison d'etre. Your mother already sees an advantage in the fact that the diplomatic corps will be diminished in numbers, and fewer wall-flowers for the salons. But I tell her that is a narrow view of the subject. As for Venice, she will cease to be a disturbing element in 224 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. YII. the European system so soon as she has gravitated into Italy, always supposing that the black gentleman Avho lives in the Tuileries does not come down upon his Faust at Florence too soon and claim his soul and body together. On the other hand, suppose that Austria overwhelmingly conquers Prussia and gets to Berlin (as she expects) and dictates peace there, and re-annexes Silesia, and having squashed her northern foe, turns her whole force upon Italy, Victor Emmanuel will be awfully mauled. Down comes the gentleman from the Kue de Eivoli, occupies Piedmont provisionally, sticks in Eome, sends an occupying force to Naples, and the last condition of Italy is worse than the first. Austria, which contains eight millions of civilised Germans and nearly thirty millions of Asiatics in sheep-skins and in tight pantaloons inside their boots, becomes once more the leading German power, and all the Serenites and Highnesses big and little whisk their tails again and frisk about from Croatia to Frankfort, from Trieste to Sicily. At present " On to Berlin ! " is the slogan. It is nonsense for me to talk to you of military matters. Of course newspapers give events as they occur sooner than I can write them to you. I should say that the game is a very even one at starting. All send love to you ; and I am your most affectionate, Aged P. To his Eldest Daughter, July Zrd, 1866. My deaeest Lily, — I daresay you will think that I ought to write to you once in a while about political matters. I hardly know why it is, but I have taken this war en grippe to such an extent that it is as much as I can do to read the daily telegrams and follow the course of the battles as they roll about hither and thither. I 'i^uppose the reason of my want of interest is that I don't yet see the great good to come out of it for anybody. Since the Avar actually began, I have not written a despatch to the United ISGOJ CONDITION OF AUSTRIA. 225 States Government. I wrote every week until the entrance of the Prussians into Holstein ; as early as February I expressed my conviction that the war this summer was inevitable. Prussia and Italy are two conspirators, combining with the Prince of Darkness, who, for the time being, has thought proper to assume the appearance of a Sovereign of France and to inhabit the Tuileries. Consequently, although I see no especial advantage in the continued existence of great military empires anywhere in Europe, yet I see no good to be gained to humanity in breaking up this one and sharing it among those said three conspirators. To be sure, Venice ought to belong to Italy, geographically and ethnographically. But where would poor dear Austria be if she stripped herself successively of all her nationalities ? She would vanish into space. She is only a heterogeneous bundle that was patched up fifty years ago at the Congress of Vienna. Still she is a political organism, and the first instinct of all organisms is to preserve their own lives when assailed. If she says to you, therefore, II fauf vivre, you can't expect her to be satisfied with your Je n'en vols pas la necessite, philosophical as it may be. You see I am only speaking sentimentally. It is then, after all, mainly as a military spectacle that the present war has interest. And I hate military spectacles. Yes, I confess to a good deal of Schadenfreude at the spec- tacle of imbecility presented by the blessed old Bund. I do hope that she at all events will get her burial ticket, and be decently entombed now at the public expense. I think Austria ought to be the very one to wish it the most. And this brings me round to the actual position of things (as they exist on this midwinter morning of July 3rd, with a roaring wind and a black sky, and a bitter atmosphere, such as Vienna delights in at this season). You are doubtless wondering whether Benedek is an overrated and " half-dis- couraged hay-rick," or whether he is yet going to do something surprising. It is impossible for me to keep at all near the current of VOL. II. Q 226 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIL events as they flow to you unless I speak of the future. Everything Jinown to be at this moment of actual occur- rence will of course be known to you in detail through the public press before this letter reaches you. I shall therefore pre-suppose that you read the public narratives, and that you are provided with good maps. You are to remember that Benedek was a good corps commander in Italy. Whether he can handle 200,000 men as well as he did 40,000, there is the whole question, one we used to hear occasionally in America. At first sight it looks as if he had been out- generalled. The Prussians have been as nimble as cats. They have occupied Saxony, Electoral Hesse, Hanover, whisked three potentates off their thrones, neutralised at least 50,000 deutsche Krieger of the B.O.B. (Blessed old Bund, as for convenience' sake I will henceforth denominate the Germanic confederation), and are now in position on the heights of North Bohemia. The two armies of Frederick Karl and of the Crown Prince, beginning their movements respectively in Saxony and in Silesia, have effected their junction thoroughly at last, after the combats of the last three or four days of June at Skalitz, Nachod, Trautenau, Gitschin, and so on. Benedek, retreating from the line of the Iser, which is now entirely in Prussian hands, seems to occupy a very strong isos- celes triangle, composed of Koniggratz, Pardubitz, Podiebrado. With a railroad on two sides of him, and strong fortresses at his back, and a gentle rolling plain within his triangle, thickly sown with swamps and little meres, if the Prussians are only good enough to come into his triangle, he is very likely, I think, to " smash them to triangles." They have almost as fair a chance of coming to grief as Victor Emmanuel had the other day when he walked into Archduke Albert's quadrangle. The only excuse I have ever heard for that royal warrior's stupendous strategy was that it was "taking the bull by the horns." But what sensible man ever dm take a bull by the horns ? The King has been tossed back ai least a month by this heroic effort. I doubt if the Prussians will be so stupid. They can go to Prague if they like to-ir^orrow, make themselves happy there, do what they •\ 18G6.] BENEDEK'S STRATEGY. 227 like with its plexus of railways, levy contributions, forage on the enemy, and make Benedek's life hateful to him until he comes forth to attack them on their own terms. The next week or ten days will show. Now you will say that Benedek must have had an original plan of some kind. He did. P told me some weeks ago that Gablenz had written to a friend here expressing raptures with the Feldherr's plan. Noiv we all see what that plan was, and are in but mediocre raptures. TJien he held the Iser line and the Joseph stadtjTrautenau, Pardubitz line, with the PragOlmiitz line for his base. Always a triangle. But his army was a great wedge, which was to be inserted between the two Prussian armies (of the Elbe and of Silesia), and to split them wider and wider asunder. Now the proof of the wedge is in the splitting, and the Prussian armies, instead of being separated, have coalesced, and Benedek's cake is dough. Therefore we naturally cry out that the Feldzeugmeister is an imbecile. People are dreadfully depressed here. The papers are actually calling out for the Southern army to be sent to Bohemia, which would be equivalent to giving up Venice. Everybody is lugubrious. They say that nothing can stand the Ziindnadelgewehr. High officials and ladies in society with sons in the army are at their wits' ends, and already see the great Heerenmasse of the Empire reduced to a brigade, and the Empire reduced to the Archduchies of Upper and Lower Austria. In short, not even after Bull Run in America did I ever see so much conceit taken .out of a people in the same space of time. Yet does it follow the F.Z.M. is an imbe- cile ? Wherefore ? I don't say so. All the Bunsby within me struggles for utterance, and again I come back to the B.O.B. I don't think that Benedek has been his own master. The political and diplomatic game has been per- petually interfering with the military one. I believe it to be an admitted fact that in a war between Austria and Prussia the possession of Saxony and the frontier ridges of Bohemia, Silesia, and Saxony are more than three-quarters of the game. As everybody knows that, it is not probable that the F.Z.M. Q 2 228 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. was ignorant of it. Count Mensdorff told me more than three months ago, while all that war of despatches and notes was going on, that the military people were all dissatisfied and anticipated the probability of some great disaster at the beginning of the campaign (if war could not be avoided) by reason of the want of preparation. He had, however, taken the responsibility of advising the Emperor to defer arming and every warlike step in order to show the good faith of Austria and its determination to keep the peace. There is no more sincere, straightforward, chivalrous man in the world than Count Mensdorff; but I think advantage has been taken of this frankness by the enemy. The object of the Austrian Government was to come with clean hands to the B.O.B,, prove her own pacific proceedings, and get the vote of the B.O.B. against Prussia as the peace-breaker. Well, Austria succeeded. By nine to six the B. 0. B. declared Prussia " Bundeshruchig ; " Article XI. was duly brandished in her face, and mobilization of the Bund army was solemnly decreed. Well, what is the result? Not an individual B.O.B. musket has yet been seen at the seat of war. Meantime Prussia has swept the Elector of Cassel, the King of Hanover, the King of Saxony, to say nothing of the Prince of Augustenburg, off the board ; has gobbled 19,000 Hanoverians under the very nose of Bavaria, and is carrying the war into the very bowels of Bohemia. Now it isn't to be supposed that Benedek, could he have had his own military way, would have looked on with composure at these bustling proceedings. Prussia has been very " spry." But it would have been easier for Austria to occupy Saxony (with the con- sent of its king) than for Prussia to do it without this consent. But then the B.O.B. would perhaps have called Austria the peace-breaker, and contented itself with armed neutrality. And what is the position, after all, but armed neutrality ? I don't believe that Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden will keep out of the fight (there are no other States worth talking about), in spite of the mobilization decree, until they see which of the two belligerents is successful. They might have saved the Hanoverian army by lifting their finger. I say nothing of the 18C6.] THE BUND. 229 Elector of Hesse Cassel. His incarceration at Stettin is great fun for everybody, and has occasioned prolonged and general hilarity. It was a part of the political military programme that a great army should be sent by the B.O.B. against Berlin, moving from Frankfort through the Thuringian country towards the Prussian plains. Probably Benedek was obliged to take this into his general plan ; and if those imaginary 150,000 Bavarians, Hessians, Badiaus, and the rest of them had really marched to the rear of Frederick Karl's army, those two Prussian princes would not have been going it so easy in Bohemia just now. The truth is, people have been persisting in believing that the Bund was a reality. There was a habit of speaking of the Diet at Frankfort as if it were a congress, a parliament, a national assembly of some sort ; whereas the Bund is nothing but a perpetual treaty between a couple of dozen or so of monarchs, great and small, and the Diet is a conference of their envoys and plenipotentiaries. There will be one or two good things to result from this war. The number of kinglings will be pretty considerably diminished, the old Bund will be buried, and I think that Austria may be induced to give up that source of weakness for her, Venetia. Meantime I think you will hear of a big fight very soon in Bohemia, and I feel by no means sure that Austria may not be the victor. You see I am very objective in my whole epistle. Intellectually I can imagine that a great Prussia may, after a generation or two, be better than what now exists. But the first result of a great Prussian success will be a bumptiousness without parallel. P.S. — I add a postscript to my letter of yesterday merely to say, what you have already said, no doubt, that I have given another example of how good it is " never to prophesy unless you know." However, I prophesied on purpose, and intend always to prophesy when I write to you, because it will be an amusement to you when I am wrong and a glorious satisfac- 230 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII tion when I happen to be right, and because if I don't prophesy I had better not write at all. AVhen these humble lines reach you, you will already know the details of yester- day's great battle. Yet I know absolutely nothing at this moment, save a telegram published this morning from head- quarters in an extra Wiener Zeitung, and dated 10.50 p.m., 3rd July, that the Austrian army, after having had the advan- tage up to 2 P.M., was out-flanked and forced back, and that the headquarters are now at Swiniarek, on the turnpike to Hohenbruck. If you look on the map, you will see that this means, I fear, that the Austrian army has retreated across the Elbe and given up its whole position. It would seem that Benedek never fairly got his army into the comfortable triangle which I prepared for them in the beginning of this letter, and that the Prussians, instead of wasting time at Prague, have gone in to win with their double army against the whole Austrian army. It looks awfully black for Austria at this moment, I fear. They have been jockeyed by the South- Western States, and the Bund army has been mobilized for the purpose of remaining immovable. My heart aches at the misery which the details of yesterday's work will bring forth. The mourners will be going about the streets from henceforth, if the action has been as general a one as the tele- grams indicate. There is hardly a family here some of whose members are not at the front. And they believe as firmly in their cause as we ever did in ours. I hate the flippant tone of my letter ; but I can't help it. We are all going out to dine at the Gramonts', at Modling, to-morrow. The Bronsons (of Eoman memory) dined with us yesterday, having been to Jerusalem with four small children. Ever your affectionate Papa. 186C.] ACTION OP LOUIS NAPOLEON'. 231 To his Eldest Daughter. July nth, 1866. My dearest Lilt, — I ought to write long letters to you from this half-beleaguered city by every post. Nothing would give me greater pleasure, only as I am obliged to write to the Department by every steamer, and as my letters, if they are not to be idiotically ignorant, must be written at the last minute, you perceive that my time is awfully limited. As to giving you news, that is, of course, hopeless. I trust that you have some journals that will keep you up with the current of events, battles, marches, and the like, as well as I could do and much sooner. I can please you best, I think, by giving you a kind of appreciation of the actual condition of things at the moment I write. Ten days ago Louis Napoleon was considered by his flatterers, and perhaps himself, during a period of twenty -four hours, as master of the situation. Accordingly he sits down at his writing-desk — " Assumes the god. Affects to nod, And seems to sliake the spheres." He writes an article in the Moniteur, orders that the war shall cease, accepts Venetia from Austria, informs Prussia that she must at once make an armistice or fight France, and orders Italy to stop short on pain of finding France between her and Austria, and with an intimation that if she will sit up on her hind legs like a poodle and beg for it, he will one of these fine days toss her Venetia on certain conditions. It never occurred to him that Italy might answer, " Is thy servant a dog that she should do such things ? " Paris swam in ecstasy for twenty-four hours, illuminated itself in honour of the great intellectual victory achieved by the omnipotent and omniscient Louis Napoleon. " Qtiel g6nie que notre empereur ! " cry the badauds of the Boulevards. It turned out differently. The raptures didn't last long. To the profound amazement of Louis Napoleon, the King of 232 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Cuap. VIL Italy considered himself bound to his plighted word. He had promised not to make peace without Prussia, and the whole country was so disgusted and outraged at the position in which it would find itself, should it accept Venetia from France after having been drubbed by Austria at Custozza, that (even if he had been blessed with Napoleonic morals) he could not have done as he was bid without forfeiting his throne. So poor dear unlucky Austria has only added one more blunder to her long list in thus abasing herself fruitlessly to Louis Napoleon. I can forgive her anything but that. Prussia meanwhile,, with one finger on her needle-gun trigger and another (let us suppose) upon her nose, laughed respectfully in the great Louis Napoleon's face. And Louis Napoleon had wisdom enough to see that it was not his cue to fight. So he straight- way went over to Prussia within a week after his magnificent threats. Benedetti was sent to the head-quarters of King William to intimate war to that monarch in case he — etc. The moral of this for Austria and for France is very much that if you will be a great military power you must keep up with the modern improvements. Especially if you will be dictator of Europe you must have something better than muzzle loaders. I allow myself here to make a quotation from my despatch this day. It is just two centuries since the * Annus Mirabilis,' in which Dryden described the position of France in a couplet as applicable now as then :- — " And threatening France, placed like a painted Jove, Kept idle thunders in his lifted hand." If, however, those thunders had been breech-loading- thunders they would probably not have been so idle, etc. However, it isn't needle guns but the energetic will and the vivid intellect, the far-reaching and steadily pursued designs of the man who governs Prussia, that has gained these pro- digious triumphs. There iS a general panic in Vienna. It is supposed that the Prussiaxis will occupy the city within a week. There is; much discou^ragement, dissatisfaction, and suppressed indig- nation among ^he people. All Jewry has suddenly discovered 1866.] THE PRUSSIAN ADVANCE. 233 that it is a portion of the United States of America. Appli- cations from American citizens of the Hebrew persuasion and of Austrian domicile and nativity are frequent, to know what I, as their "natural and legal protector," propose to do for them when the city shall be sacked. Mr. informs me that he has forty thousand florins' worth of petroleum somewhere in the vicinity. Mr. is taking flight, but would like me to " protect " his horses and furni- ture, and so on and so on. I can't take some thousand barrels of petroleum into my cellar nor stable the steeds of my compatriot (?) in my garden, so they depart malcontent, and will doubtless, as a tradesman in Pesth, also a United States of America citizen, recently informed me that he should do, " write to Washington to let them know how I jill out my place." Meantime the Prussians are at Brunn in great force, and large detachments are already as far as Ober Hollabrunn and Lundenburg. This distance is now nothing. We have an entrenched camp at Florisdorflf, just outside Vienna, on the other side of the big Danube, which will be the basis of operations to defend the line of the river from above Linz to below Hainburg (in Hungary). If Austria is insane enough to risk another great battle for the sake of remaining in the Bund from which Prussia is resolved to exclude her, the consequence of a defeat will be ruiii to her. If Prussia gains another Koniggratz victory and dictates peace at Vienna, King William will be crowned Emperor of all Germany before the year is out. My own instinctive, rather than reasoning, belief is that there will be peace preliminaries patched up before the great catastrophe occurs. " On est exigeant," said Count M to me a day or two ago, " mais le vainqueur a le droit de I'etre. C'est un beau joueur que M. de Bismarck." He almost admires Bismarck, but he could hardly repress his indignation when he spoke of Louis Napoleon's proceed- ings. It is the general opinion in Vienna that a great battle ■will be fought this week, and the expectation is almost as general that Vienna will be occupied. I don't share this conviction, nor the apprehension of pillage and violence 234 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIL should the event occur, and I have got two star-spangled banners on very long staves, one for the street and one for the portico of my " palace," with a shingle four feet long as sign- board of the United States Legation. The Prussians are a civilised people, and respect the law of nations. Meantime, at the risk of being proved to be incapable of understanding the situation (by the very steamer which will take this letter), I repeat my belief that the chances are in favour of peace. Can Austria eat so much of the insane root as to risk ruin twice for the Bund ? Meantime the B.O.B. herself has packed up her goods and chattels and removed in an omnibus to Augsburg, where I hope she will confess at last that she is dead, and write her own epitaph. " Therefore exhale," says Ancient Pistol. I can't help being flippant, although I feel sad. Good-bye and God bless you, my dear child. Your affectionate Papa. To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, July 25th, 1866. My dearest Lily, — TYhen I wrote to you last week I thought that some one of the family had already written to you all we knew of young Lieutenant Sherman. I have every reason to believe that he is alive and well. As soon as we heard of the Battle of Koniggratz, in which his regiment was engaged, we made every efibrt to find out about him. Countess Esterhazy (Eohan) informed us as soon as she received a letter from her son, who is in the same regiment with Sherman. He mentioned no names, and we inferred therefore that he had nothing to communicate. He (young Esterhazy) had a narrow escape, his horse having been killed under him. He is, however, unwounded. We went to make enquiries of the Eittmeister-Adjutant, who, as we were in- formed, w^s a friend of Sherman's. He said that he had as 186C.] LIEUT. SHERMAN. 235 yet heard nothing from him, but expected that he would write, in which case he promised to communicate with us. Subse- quently I spoke with General Count Haller, Chancellor of Transylvania, and proprietor (Inhaber) of the regiment in which Sherman serves. He told me that he was all right, that he was unhurt, although he had been in the thickest of the fight. He expressed much interest in the young man, and, indeed, a short time before, when I happened to sit next him at dinner at the Turkish Ambassador's, he had taken occasion to speak of him voluntarily to me in warm terms as an excellent young officer in whom he felt a strong inteTest/'untres brave et gentil gargon." Day before yesterday I again went to Countess Esterhazy, who had recently received a letter from her son. He said that only one officer in his regiment was killed and one wounded. He mentioned the names of both. They were certainly not Sherman. She was writing to her son, and she promised to ask him to communicate all that he knew about Sherman, and she would let us know all that she heard. If you will find some means of conveying this intelligence, meagre as it is, to Mrs. Sherman, the mother, who I suppose lives in New York, I shall be much obliged to you. He has doubtless found means to send a letter to her before this. But I can't help thinking that she would be glad to know that we do what we can to learn about him, and that we take a very warm and sincere interest in him. He used to come and see us when he had a few days' leave of absence from his old station in Moravia, and he will be doubly welcome now if he should come to Vienna, the war, from present appearances at least, being near its termination. You have no idea how difficult it is to find out much about individuals. The Prussians being in occupation of all Bohemia and Moravia, and their lines extending almost to the very gates of Vienna, nearly all our communication with the outside world, save by way of Paris, is cut off. Almost all the young men whom we know in the Austrian army have been killed and have come to life again once or twice over. 236 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. I will now take a new sheet and say a few words as to the situation. I forget exactly what I said in my last letter (July 17th). The situation shifts so rapidly that it is difficult without writing every day not to seem antiquated. Moreover, I am obliged to write long despatches to Government, while I would much rather be writing to you, and I become awfully exhausted. Nobody is likely to accuse the Germans, the Prussian part of them, that is to say, of slowness. This has been the most lightning-like campaign in all military history. Look on the map of Germany and see what has been accomplished in a week or ten days of fighting. At this present moment the headquarters of the Prussian King and Bismarck are at Nikols- burg. This is a chateau belonging to Countess Mensdorff, just forty miles north of Vienna. The left of their army touches Presberg, and would probably have taken that city last Sun- day morning had not the announcement of the " Waffenruhe" for five days rather dramatically suspended the fight going on fiercely at the suburb Blumenau as twelve o'clock struck. The Prussian centre is spread over the Marchfeld, that wide, flat meadow, twenty-five miles in space, on the left side of the Danube, opposite Vienna, in which so many historical battles have been fought, Aspern and Wagram among the number, and in which, should the present negotiations fail, a bloodier conflict than ever yet stained its turf will soon decide the fate of the Austrian Empire. The Prussian right extends towards the Upper Danube, and menaces Krems> where the bridge has been destroyed, but where the crossing with pontoons will perhaps be attempted. The Austrian line of defence is very strong. If there were men enough it would be almost inipregnable. Its centre point or basis is the entrenched capip of Florisdorff", the tete-de-pont where both the Northern Ilailroad and the turnpike cross the Danube, just as that deep, rapid, wide, and dangerous river has swept through the portals of the Leopoldsberg and Bisamberg into the open plains which spread downward towards Hungary. Up and down from Presburg till westwards towards Linz, a distance of some one hundred and thirty Euglish miles, the 18GG.] PROSPECTS OF PEACE. 237 river must be watched and guarded. One knows not at what point those audacious Prussians may make a fictitious or a desperate attempt to force the river. The two Austrian armies of the North and the South, all that has been collected of both, are now united in one — the army of the Danube under the command of Field-Marshal the Archduke Albert, conqueror of Custozza ; his chief of staff is the same General von John who did such effective service lately on the Mincio. Much confidence is felt in the Arch- duke, still more, I fancy, in his man John. Benedek still commands a corps, I believe. Gablenz commands the camp at Florisdorff. Such is the military position. As I said before, look on the map. Observe the position and shape of Prussia when the campaign opened. She has swept down from Schleswig, Pomerania, and Silesia. In a week or two of battles she has conquered and occupied Saxony, Bohemia, Moravia, and is looking grimly across the Danube into the very windows of the Emperor's palace. With her right wing, if we consider her whole mighty army as one, she has demolished Bavaria and the other south-western states, and she has occupied Frankfort. All Germany is in her grasp or at her feet. The famous Main Line, so long the object of her persistent and, as it was thought, her fantastic ambition, is as much in her possession as the Unter den Linden of Berlin. That boundary, which now encloses all North Germany and makes it one as Prussia, will be as hard to take from her as her own capital. The attempt will never be made, I think. Before this letter reaches you (I am writing Wednesday) you will have learned whether the Waffenruhe, which ends at noon on Friday next, has given place to a lengthened Waffenstillstand (armistice) or to a resumption of hostilities. We are now com- pletely in the dark, but being obliged, whether " I know " or not, to prophesy, I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that the war is over. And yet when I write again it is per- fectly possible that I may describe to you the Prussian occupa- tion of Vienna. Austrian Commissioners at this moment are at the King's headquarters (Karolyi, old Count Degenfeld, and another). If Austria is not mad, she will make peace. 238 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. Prussia seems rather moderate than otherwise, considering her enormous success. It is understood that she will take none of Austria's territory. She will exclude Austria from the Bund. She will claim permanent control of North Germany in mili- tary and diplomatic and external relations. As for the Bund, it doesn't exist. Even Frankfort that knew it knows it no more. The new Bund won't be a Bund at all. It will be an empire in all save name — a great Prussia — of which Hanover, the Saxonies, Hesses, and all the rest of them, will be provinces, self-administering in their local concerns, of which the poten- tates will call themselves Kings, Grand Dukes, and the like, although having no armies of their own, and no connection with the outer world, and, therefore, no sovereignty. There will be a German Parliament, already summoned by Prussia, and it is very possible that before many years are gone even Bavaria, Baden, and Wiirtemberg, the only powers not already in vassalage to Great-Prussia will acknowledge her suzerainty, and send members to the German Parliament. Thus Austria will be left out in the cold. This result will be hastened in case the war is renewed and Austria loses a great battle in the Marchfeld. It will be postponed if she should gain a great battle. As I said before, she will make peace unless insane. The only reason why I doubt is found in the hackneyed pro- verb, the truth of which every day in the world's history proves afresh, " Whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad." The " military party " here is all for war. The Archduke and man John are all for war. The army, burning to wipe out the defeats in Bohemia, and conscious of unabated pluck, is all for war. The Cabinet is for peace. The Emperor is for peace (I think). It is no joke to put an empire on one throw of the dice. But if the Prussians throw sixes on the Marchfeld next week and walk into Yienna, exit Austria for ever. If, on the other hand, Austria should gain as great a battle as the one she lost oil the 3rd July, a new face would be put on affairs. Louis Napoleon, after leaving her to drown, would " encumber her with help," after she had reached the shore. Saxony and Hanover would put their crowns on their heads again, 18CC.] THE POSITION OP ITALY. 239 and the Hapsburgs would regain prestige. More than this I don't think it in the nature of things to accomplish. Austria isn't likely to gain territory even by a victory. She loses none now. You observe that I don't take a heroic view of matters. Perhaps if I were an Austrian I might feel diiferently. But a looker-on in Vienna, a bystander, however friendly, shows no heroism in counselling to or hoping for desperate action. An Austrian Empire is not like an American Republic. A Hapsburg is not like a People-King, which cannot, save by annihilation, die. I see much that is brave in this people, but I see more that is frivolous and insouciant. Still more do I see of discontent fast growing into disaffection. The signs of the time are ominous. They would be portentous if Vienna should fall. Poor Italy ! Here she has a fresh mortification. It was bad to be defeated by the Archduke at Custozza. It was horrible to be insulted by the transfer of Venetia to France. But surely the deepest cut of all is to have her fleet signally conquered, and two ironclads demolished by a small Austrian squadron, led by a colonel of hussars. Whatever our political sentiments, we can't deny that the Battle of Lissa was a most plucky affair on the part of the Austrians. I am sure that Farragut would shake Tegetthoff warmly by the hand. The Italianissimi are in a most uncomfortable position. France gave them Lombardy, Prussia gives them Venice. Their fleet goes to the bottom of the Adriatic, and yet " Italia fara da se." Certainly it is unlucky to have greatness thrust upon her when she is all for achieving it. And, doubtless, she would have achieved it had not unkind fate been beforehand with her presents. The only revenge for her will be to ally herself with Austria one of these days and pitch into France. I 240 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. To Ms Eldest Daughter. Vienna, August 1th, 1866. My deakest Lily, — I don't feel very much inclined to write to-day, but I daresay that you may be expecting a letter from " your own correspondent," on the political situation. The truth is that the Atlantic cable if it prove a success permanently (which is, I believe, still an open question) will ultimately abolish the post-office. We are at the beginning of the new era, and in some respects have the inconvenience of two systems. The telegraph has not superseded the written letter, because — who can pay a pound a word ? At the same time the electric wire has effected a kind of insulation for human beings at remote distances. One could formerly imagine oneself en rapport with one's correspondent when writing a letter. Now when I write to you, for instance, I have the proud consciousnesss that I must be either hazarding prophecies of twenty days ahead (which will be your present when you read them) or else as antiquated as last year's almanac. Think what effect this has upon one's diplomatic corre- spondence. I might as well write despatches about the Peace of Westphalia (in the year of our Lord, 1648) as about the Peace of Prague, the negotiations for which have just begun, but of which the whole result will reach America long before any letters of mine could get there. However, thank goodness, the Peace of Prague will be a mere register of the decrees already issued by Prussia at Countess Mensdorff's chateau of Nikolsburg, so that news won't be expected of me. I am not in the least disposed to grumble at the results of the war. Poor dear Austria herself is even better off than before, if she only knew it. The funniest part of the whole matter perhaps is that the original, that is to say, the immediate cause of the war, " Schleswig-Holstein," is hardly ever men- tioned. That falls to Prussia almost without a word. Yet to maintain her condominium over the two and her temporary administratiW of the one Austria apparently went to war. 18GG.] UNIFICATION OF GERMANY. 241 Apparently — only, for the war has been inevitable for years. Prussia has for years been steadily increasing in population, wealth, and cultivation, and in all the arts of war and peace. Germany has for centuries been tending to unification. The people have been getting more and more restive under their three dozen independent sovereigns, great and small. The Congress of Westphalia recognised sovereignty in more than three hundred of them. The Congress of Vienna, a century and a half later, stewed them down to thirty-six. And now they are all rapidly fading out. We have a dissolving view of Kings and Grand Dukes, with nothing apparently stationary but one Emperor and one King, likely for a time to be more powerful than any Emperor. Prussia, whatever may nominally become of Saxony, Hanover, Hesse, and the like, is sovereign mistress of all Germany north of the river Main line. And already there are strong indications that the popu- lations of South- Western Germany will claim admission into the Northern Union. Austria has consented to be excluded from Germany. But the inhabitants of Baden, Wiirtemberg, and Bavaria don't like being excluded from it, and don't like Germany being cut in two. The dynasties are not very powerful. The peoples are getting stronger. Somehow or other there is a dim consciousness in the Teutonic mind all over the country, from Schleswig to the Carpathians, that this miraculous success of Prussia is not needle-guns, nor her admirable organisation, nor the genius of Bismarck, nor the blunders of the Bund in all its dotage, but the democratic principle. Prussian military despotism, by the grace of God, is perhaps opening the way more rapidly for liberty in Europe than all that the Kossuths, Garibaldis, and Mazzinis could effect in half a century. If Germany becomes one, as may be the case in less time than any one now deems, she will probably become ultimately free, whether called Empire or Kepublic. Words are no great matter. For a beginning, you have got an emperor over thirty millions of Germans, who calls him- self King, and is surrounded by a dozen prefects or state VOL. n. R 242 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. governors, who will for a time make believe that they are kings and sovereigns. But as they have no armies nor navies, nor the right to hold intercourse with foreign countries, nor the right to regulate commerce — and nothing to do with war or peace, they are about as sovereign as the states of Delaware, or North Carolina, who also play they are sovereign. Well, thus far it is a North German Union with a hereditary chief at the centre, and hereditary vassals around him, a central national parliament and local self-government by state legislatures ; Charlemagnism, with Americanised institutions. The two strike one as incompa- tible. Either Charlemagnism must go under or Americanism. A federation of monarchs on nominally independent terms is possible. Witness the defunct Bund. But an incorporation of many hitherto independent bodies into one whole must result either in a grand military despotism or a popular national government. It will be an interesting question to see developed. Only history for us ephemeral mortals goes so slowly that we can't take in the whole meaning of movements going on before our eyes. The rhythm which always exists in history is on too grand a scale for us to comprehend except by looking backward and forwards. " We look before and after, And pine for what is not." I suppose one ought to have known that in the year 1866, Bismarck and his King would bowl down German sovereigns like ninepins, in a three weeks' campaign. The question now is, to find out the moral of it, and all I say is that it is Democracy. Jolly old William the Conqueror, William I. of Germany and Hohenzollern, has about as much idea of the work he is proi.ably doing, as Sherman's horse had of the Georgia campaign. The most consoling thing in the whole history is to see how delightfully Mr. L. N has been jockeyed. His in- fluence on the continent of Europe is for the time neutralised, and people will begin to find out before long that a quack 18G6.] LOUIS NAPOLEON. 243 who never did anything great or good in his life, while always pretending to miraculous power, is neither a genius nor a benefactor, but an intolerable nuisance. In these great transactions he has been a cipher. At the same time he has earned the intense hatred of Italy, and the cordial dislike which Austria always felt for him has been increased. Prussia has amused and flattered him by pretending while she dictated peace to Europe exactly according to her sovereign will and pleasure, that L. N was mediator. It is difficult to see how the diplomatic soothsayers could look in each other's faces without laughing. As the war was beginning, all the oflBcial papers of Paris were ordered to shout in chorus that the result of the struggle between Austria and Prussia would be to exhaust and weaken both to such an extent that neither would dare to say a word or lift a finger when France at the proper moment commanded them to stop fighting and obey the decrees of L. N as master of the situation. The least that said master would put in his own pocket was Rhenish Prussia and Baden on one side, with perhaps Belgium and the Island of Sardinia, Genoa, and perhaps all Piedmont on the other, with the continued occupation of Rome. Events have not quite realised this programme. On June 11th, L. N 's famous letter to Drouyn de I'Huys was published. Certain roundings off (heaven save the mark !) were therein accorded to Prussia, but no dis- turbances of the European equilibrium were permitted and above all Austria's "great position in Germany was to be maintained." Thus spake Sir Oracle, and no dog barked. But there was much cracking of needle-guns soon afterwards. When the smoke rolled away what do we see ? Disturbance of equili- brium, quotha. Here is a new military empire of more than thirty millions, united, wealthy, compact, in place of a stagger- ing old Bund that has been so long trying for a burial ticket, and has at last got it. What does Balance of Power say to that ? Austria's " great position in Gennany " is secured by her signing her total B 2 244 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Ciur. VII, exclusion from Germany; and this is an instance of Louis Napoleon, mediator and master of the situation. Then what could be more ludicrous than all the shamming and humbug about the cession of Yenetia ? For the space of twenty-four hours there were people in Europe who absolutely believed in it. Austria believed in it, but Italy and Prussia didn't believe in it at all. The bill was made out without consulting the landlord, who turned out to be the real master of the situation (as sometimes happens). Well, Prussia is already a greater power than even she dreamed of in her wildest flights. The union of Italy and the union of Germany, to prevent which has been the steady aim of Louis Napoleon, just as it was his steady aim to assist Jeff. Davis in destroying the American Union, are in a fair way of accomplishing themselves in spite of him. We shall hear of no more Italian Confederacies with the Pope for President. The B.O.B. has exhaled, and Austria is left out in the cold (for her own good, as I sincerely believe) ; and so much for Louis Napoleon as dictator to Europe and master of the situation. Alas, poor Louis Napoleon ! Where be your Sardinias and your Genoas now ? Your Rhenish provinces and your Belgiums ? Quite chapfallen. Go to Vichy. I will not write another political letter. As I can't send news, I will in future supply you with occasional essays on zoology, botany, or the differential calculus — subjects of which I am master (as Louis Napoleon of the situation) and which are most interesting to you. Of course there is no objection to your reading my letters confidentially to your private friends, if they wish. You can't be too careful. We are all well, and hoping to hear frbm you to-day. God bless you, my dear child. Ever your affectionate \ • p. 18CC.] DESPATCHES AND BLUE BOOKS. 245 To his Eldest Daughter. Vienna, August Uth, 1866. My dearest Lily, — I have an inclination to write a line or two to you this morning. My repugnance to inditing a despatch is very great. I have nothing to say, and I feel such a shiver when I think that all my platitudes to the Depart- ment are served up a year or two after date in that odious blue-book system which Seward ought to have had more sense than to imitate. It is bad enough to be obliged to venture opinions and prophecies which may prove ridiculous in the eyes of the few to whom one's letters are addressed. But to correspond with the Great Public is the most staring nonsense of modem days. I am immensely struck with this now, as side by side with my own modern diplomatic correspondence I am reading very diligently letters and reports of Venetian envoys in the days when the Republic was in its glory and their Ambasciatori the sharpest, the most influential, and the most agreeable in the world. I always think when I am reading the despatches of Soranzo or Contarini or Priuli, and a host of others, how astonished the people about them, kings, ministers, generals, courtiers, and politicians, would be, could those despatches have been published in every newspaper in Europe a few months after date, and how exceedingly agreeable the position of the am- bassador would be if his minute, photographical, unpitying, unexaggerating and unextenuating pictures of men and events around him had been hung up for the immediate inspection of those most interested. Fortunately for literature, the system of blue-books wasn't invented then, or all those magnificent materials for history would never have existed. If the future Dryasdust, delving in the United States State Department as in a histo- rical quarry, finds no admirable blocks hewn to his hand centuries before by the humble individual now addressing you, let him thank the tyrant blue-book. What interesting 246 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. VII. Relazioni I could write if they were for Government and for posterity ! I feel as much injured as the excellent Grumio. There is, however, nothing very new to say. It is melan- choly to see the break-down of this House of Hapsburg. They seem to be suffering, as is always the case, for the sins of former centuries, to say nothing of the early part of this one. There are no real catastrophes in history. Sap — sap — sap, gnaw — gnaw — gnaw, nibble — nibble — nibble. A million insects and mildews, and rats and mice. do their work for ages, and at last a huge fabric goes down in a smash, and the foolish chroniclers of the day wonder why it tumbles. The wonder was that the hollow thing stood. I don't mean that Austria has disappeared, but the traditional German Empire or Confederation with a Hapsburg word to it, the Austrian prestige, the great imperial, military, dictatorial power, this is as far off as the empire of Cyrus. Well, I shan't go into philosophical discussions in this letter. You know Austrian " society " as well as I do, and society so-called governs Austria. It is the last aristocracy extant. England is a plutocratical oligarchy not an aristocracy of birth. In Austria, birth is everything ; wit, wisdom, valour, science, comparatively nothing. Eancy going about in a fashionable salon in Yienna to look for the Lyells, Murchi- sons, Gladstones, Disraelis, Tennysons, Landseers, Macaulays of Austria, if such there be. Fancy a London house where they would not be welcome guests. Well, thereby hangs a tale. Dancing well, driving well, a charming manner, and thirty-two quarterings, can't be got to govern the world in these degenerate days, and so you have Koniggratz and the Peace of Prague. Did any one tell you that the only man who ever found out Benedek's " plan " was the old ex-Emperor Ferdinand. He found it out three weeks before the war opened (they say), and immediately left Prague and established himself tri- umphantly at Innspruck ! By the way, we are getting a curious collection of ancient relics here in Yienna. It will soon rival the Ambras museum of old armour. The King of 18CC.] THE KING OF HANOVER. 247 Saxony, the King of Hanover, and Crown Prince the Duke of Nassau and Hesse, and a lot of other discrowned potentates are thronging hither. There is a faint scent in the atmosphere of mildly decaying royalty. May not that dread epidemic Democracy burst out some day in consequence ? I forgot to tell you in my last that the King of Hanover wished to see our dear diplomatic body. So we all turned out in full fig the other day. The King is living quietly at Knesebeck's, his envoy having declined Schonbrunn, where Saxony lives. The apartment is the same where Count Waldstein once dwelt, in the Wallner gasse. You remember dining there in his time. The King is very tall, personable, stately, handsome, but blind. There was something pathetic in seeing the earnestness and satisfaction with which he went round the circle. It lasted longer than any one at the Burg. He paid the expenses of the conversation with each dip. When he came to me he could not ask about the President's grandmother or brothers-in-law, not knowing them personally, but he had got himself up a little, even for me, with Knesebeck's coaching. Keferred to the civil war happily terminated ; and then to his own troubles and those of Germany. Not knowing what to say, I mumbled something about sympathy, which I could not help feeling at the sight of this blind, grey, dis-crowned Guelph, who had at least put himself at the head of his battalions and done his best to fight his way through for a cause, which as it was that of crowned heads and the existing order of things, he believed to be identical with that of the human race. How should he think otherwise ? He caught at my expressions of sympathy, said he felt much obliged to me for what I said, and that he had tried to do his duty as he understood it. And so he did. All France is furious at the Emperor's loss of prestige, that very subtle article, so potent, but liable to evaporate so sud- denly. I don't think with Prussia going it so easy in Europe that Louis Napoleon will try to pick up his drowning prestige by the locks in the Gulf of Mexico. He must assert himself somewhat nearer home. Your ever affectionate P. 248 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [CiiAr. VII. To Mr. William Amory. October IWi, 1866. My dear Amoey, — This is a begging letter. There is un- exampled distress prevailing in many portions of this empire. War, pestilence, and famine have made greater ravages in its various kingdoms and provinces, especially in Bohemia, than has been recorded in European history for a generation of mankind. Greater efforts are now making by the wealthier classes to relieve in some degree this great amount of human misery. Among other measures now in contemplation, a kind of bazaar is to be held in Vienna at some period not yet fixed in the course of the coming winter. It will be under the direction of the ladies of the country most conspicuous for high station, wealth, and energy in good works. The subject was brought to my mind yesterday by Count Chotek, a gentleman well known to me and distinguished in the diplo- matic service of the empire. I was not asked for either contribution or subscription. I was simply asked to cause a letter to be conveyed to Mr. . I volunteered, however, in addition to write a private note or two to some of my friends in the United States, soliciting contributions to this Christian work. I felt that there were other generous and kind-hearted people in our country, and it seemed to me that there has rarely been an occasion for many years when an appeal in behalf of sufferers in a foreign land could more legitimately be in aid. I know that generous hearts in America feel for human misery everywhere, and I know that the misery in this country is appalling. I say nothing of politics. The object of this appeal is one which is quite beyond the limit of land, races, or political institutions and circumstances. I shall only say that I can imagine nothing more likely to promote a kindly feeling between two great nations so widely separated in many ways from each other, but still two great branches of the human brotherhood, as such a spontaneous manifestation of good-will and charitable sentiment on this occasion. Certainly if the consciousness that a gift is sure of doing good in a time of I8CC.] SUFFERINGS CONSEQUENT ON THE WAR. 249 utmost ueed is a sufficient reward to the giver, that reward may on this occasion be entirely relied on. I should further state that the mode to be adopted for this bazaar is a lottery — a fee to be charged of course for the entrance, and such charit- able contributions as are made in kind by the residents of the empire — as jewels and other objects of great value, bestowed by the principal ladies of the empire and other charitable individuals — to be the prizes. This form of charity is con- sonant to the usages of this country, is not offensive to public opinion, and is thought likely to be the most productive. I have, however, explained that there was a deeply seated moral objection to lotteries in many portions of our country, and therefore whatever cash I was so fortunate as to be able to collect would be simply handed over to the committee as a donation in money to the general fund. I have written as short a letter as I could, my dear Amory, and I feel confident, both from your generous disposition and the old and sincere friendship which has so long existed between us, that I shall not have written entirely in vain. The amount of destitution and suffering of this poor people cannot be exaggerated. The Government, in the excessively attenuated condition of its finances, is entirely unable to relieve all their misery, and the population have not the power of springing so elastically out of a depressed and impoverished condition as have the inhabitants of our young and favoured land. The zeal, energy, and generosity manifested by indi- viduals of all classes, from the highest to the humblest, in giving relief during the dreadful war, by which the whole surface of Bohemia and Moravia has been ravaged, have been most touching. The great proprietors, who have of course themselves suffered to an immense extent by the invasion, have been foremost in the good work, turning their town palaces and country chateaux into hospitals and houses of refuge, where the highest born ladies of the land, as well as those of lower degree, have ministered daily to the sick, wounded, and suffering with their own hands. AVe who have seen the noble exhibition of self-devotion, munificence, and Christian charity made by all classes in America during our 250 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. VIl. four dreadful years of war, can thoroughly appreciate and sympathise with generous efforts made here to relieve distress. This is entirely a private appeal, and it would be therefore desirable that the letter should not appear in print on account of my official position, as its publicity might perhaps in part defeat its object. I send copies to our excellent friends William Gray and Nathaniel Thayer, so eminent for their munificence and public spirit. If you are so kind as to aid me in this matter, perhaps you and one or two other gentlemen would collect such subscriptions as you can, and when your list is closed remit to me in such way as is thought best. Mr. Charles King, late President of Columbia College, who happens to be here on a brief visit, has promised to write for the same purpose to some of his friends in New York. I have consulted with no one else, and I wish to repeat that this is an entirely voluntary movement on my part, no hint of the kind having been made to me by any Austrian subject. Ever, my dear Amory, most sincerely yours, J. L. M.i To Lady William Bussell. Vienna, Novemher 12th, 186G. Deak Lady William, — I don't like to let this year run to a close without sending a greeting to you. Even in the midst of our great sadness a year ago, it was a most sincere pleasure to me to look upon you and listen to you, in your delightful home. I fervently hope that you are going on even better in health than you seemed to me then, which was much better already than I had been led to suppose. If you can find a moment to send us a word or two, you know with how much sympathy and pleasure they will be received. What a year this has been ! Do you remember Dryden's 'Annus Mirabilis'? But after all this has been a far greater year of wonders than that which he sang of, and which was exactly two centuries ago. What were my old friends the Dutchmen ' The response to this letter was a generous subscription, received with warm gratitude in Austiia. 186C.] CONDITION OP AUSTRIA. 251 banging away at English fleets in the Thames compared to the dance which this blessed old Germany has been performing this summer ? I haven't a Dryden here, and I haven't read the poem in question these twenty years, but I think you will find a couplet therein to this effect — " Aud tlircatening France, placed like a painted Jove, Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand." ' This seems to me to characterise the France of 1866 as well as 1666. The worst of those idle French themselves is that everybody has been laughing at them. The Ziindnadelgewehr has proved so much more practical than Louis Napoleon's Ukase of 11th June, 1866, declaring that Prussia might be rounded out a very little, but that Austria was to preserve her proud pre-eminence in Germany for ever and aye, and so on, and so on. Now we have got nineteen Landtage convoked for November 19th. It makes one shudder to think of the coming din of Parliamentary eloquence. German, Czech and Slav, Pole, Croat, and Maygar, furious Frank and fiery Hun, how they will all shout in their sulphurous canopy! For seven mortal months of last winter and spring, I read those endless speeches in the Pesth Diet conscientiously, almost believing that something was coming of it, and now they are all to be made over again, for not one step towards an arrangement between Hungary and the rest of this successor to the Holy Roman Empire — so called, as Voltaire long ago remarked, because it is not Holy, not Roman, and not an Empire — has been taken. There is a kind of a military party here, who talk of taking tremendous revenge on Prussia, and re-organizing the army, et cetera. The finances will need a little re-organizing first, and the interior afiairs. The chief thing now is to discover some glue to stick the thousand pieces of the old Empire together with. If the Baron of Beust can make the cement required, he will deserve to be remembered in history. Poor dear ^lensdorfi"! Everybody liked him. The foreign representatives adored him, one and all. He is one of the most charming types left of the chivalrous, truthful, loyal, high-bred, perfectly naif and perfectly jpoco curante Austrian. ' ' Annus Mirabilis,' xxxiz. 252 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. VII. Most deeply do I regret his departure from office, for one. People are dismal enough here, or rather they are proposing to be dismal. Society is, of course, out of town, but they all threaten that they will not come back. They will all be vir- tuous, and there are to be no more cakes and ale, no carnival, no ball at Princess Schwarzenberg's, nor Marquise Pallavicini's, nor Auerspergs, no solemnities at Court, no dinners, no dancing anywhere. " Credat JuJscus Apella Non ego Nee, si quid miri faciat ratura." And certainly nature never yet did anything so wonderful as to prevent Wiener Contessen from dancing a whole season. Sadly and seriously, this Empire is in a woeful plight. There is deep mortification, dissatisfaction, enormous distress. The poverty is something awful to think of. The great nobles have been liberal and patriotic and charitable, some of them energetic in relieving the awful misery. But alas, and alas, what can individuals do ? There is no self-help, no ambition in Austria herself. There is apoplexy at the top, atrophy in the lower members. Meantime Germany is constituting itself, and Austria is excluded from it ; and it needs no ghost to come from the grave to say where Deutsch Oesterreich will be ere many years are over, if the Empire does not find some means of putting itself together again. The laws of political attrac- tion are as inexorable as those of matter : — " And when the mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease if you go by ? " It would be very convenient if it would, but I fear there are awful indications of a catastrophe. It may be deferred, but I confess myself at the end of my Latin to discover how it is to be prevented. Let me conclude with an anecdote which I heard yesterday of a Vienna Fiaker Kutscher. The street was encumbered by many vehicles as usual, es- pecially a vegetable cart drawn by two donkeys obstructed the path. Out of patience at last, the cabby bawled to the coster- monger, " Aus dem Wege da, mit deinen beiden Feldherren." Yours most sincerely and devotedly, Vakius. 18G7.] THE DUKE OP ARGYLL'S 'REIGN OP LAW.* 253 To the Duchess of Argyll. Vienna, January 3rd, 1867. Dear Duchess of Argyll, — You were so kind as to send me, not long ago, the Duke's recently published work, the * Reign of Law.' I intended to defer the pleasure of writing to you until I had read the work, but I cannot resist the impulse to send a single line to you now, wishing the Duke and yourself and all yours a most happy new year ! I trust that it may be full of blessings to you all — and believe me this is our most sincere wish. I have purposely refrained from reading the * Eeign of Law' until now, because the important nature of the work and my entire respect for the author demanded that I should have time, not merely to read, but to study it thoroughly. I have been, during the last few weeks, obliged to give every moment not taken up with official duties to finishing off my two concluding volumes of the ' United Nether- lands.' These are now in Mr. Murray's hands, and the labour of many years is brought to an end — I say it with a mingled feeling of sadness and relief. The first fruit is, however, most agreeable, as I shall now at once have the pleasure of reading the Duke's book, " unmixed with baser matter." We were most delighted at the brief visit of Lord Lome, and regretted only that it was so brief. He won our hearts at first sight by his remarkable resemblance to yourself — so that it seemed impossible that we were speaking to him for the first time. We thought him also like the Duke. It was very kind of him to come to us on so rapid a passage through Vienna. It was a sincere pleasure to hear so directly from you, as well as to listen to his fresh and interesting con- versation of all that he had been hearing, seeing, and reflect- ing upon in our part of the world. Pray give him our kindest remembrances. I envy you your winter in Rome. I hear that the weather 254 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VII. is magnificent. It never seems to me to be otherwise in Eome — and one never wearies of being there. I hope that you have made the acquaintance of our minister, General King, — a man of talent, culture, and character, who did good service in the war of freedom, and who is a most worthy representative of the Kepublic. He is of a family much honoured with us ; and I trust that you will also make the acquaintance of his father — who must be in Eome now for the winter — lately President of Columbia College, New York, one of the chief establishments of high culture in the United States. They are all great friends of ours — the Misses King,^ with their mother, excellent and accomplished people, much beloved by us all. You will not like old Mr. King the less, because, whilst being a most thorough American, he is in many respects more like an Englishman than any one not native to your soil I ever knew. He follows the hounds at the age of seventy-six, and, like so many of your public men, is a scholar as well as a politician. This is partly owing to his having been many years of his boyhood in England, where his father for a long time was United States Minister. He was brought up at Harrow, a classmate of Lord Byron, Sir Kobert Peel, and others. Pray forgive me for running on so long about strangers, whom perhaps you may not know ; my only excuse is that we are very fond of them all, and I think you will find General King's house agreeable in Eome. The Storys you know, of course. Would you kindly convey to them our warm regards when you see them ? I am ashamed to send so stupid a letter so far, but pray forgive me, as I said at the beginning and now repeat, that I could not help sending your Grace a new year's greeting. My wife joins me in kindest remembrances to the Duke and yourself, and I remain. Dear Duchess of Argyll, Ever most sincerely yours, J. L. Motley. ' One of them is Madame "Waddington, now wife of the French Ambassador in London. I 18G7.] AMERICA AND RADICALISM. 255 To Dr. 0. W. Holmes. Viennft, March 12»j, 18C7. My dear Holmes, — Boston, June lOtb, 1866 ; Feb. 16th, 1867. Such are the dates of two unanswered letters from you. You see that I am as unblushing in my iniquity as you are hardened in your benevolence. That you should really have kept your promise to write without expecting an answer, and have actually maintained this one-legged correspondence through all those years, is a proof that human virtue is not yet extinct. I had better not make apologies for my silence, for none are possible. I have read your two last letters several times. In the first there is much mention of Wendell, then travelling in Europe and carefully avoiding Vienna. I was delighted with the warm reception which he met with in the most distinguished society in England. I have heard from many sources of how much he was liked and appreciated by everybody. I am sure that he must have enjoyed himself, and I was glad that so true a representative of our genuine "jeunesse doree" not the electroplated article, but the true thing tried in the fiery furnace of a four years' war, could be shown in places where the ring of the true metal is known. Well, he will be all the better for his long and brilliant soldiering and his brief philandering in foreign meadows of asphodel. I am sure that he will become a better American and a deeper Radical — every year of his life. He is one of the fellows who have got to prove to the w^orld that America means Radicalism — that America came out of chaos in order to uproot, not to conserve the dead and polished productions of former ages. Not that I think there is much sense in applying European party politics to our own system — nor am I talking politics so-called, whatever that word may mean. But if we cannot go ahead in America without caring how much we uproot in our upward progress — we had better have left the country to the sachems and their squaws. As if any- thing worth preserving could be uprooted ! I do not believe it. We have been conserving slavery these fifty years — but 256 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [CiiAr. YII. when it became the question whether America or slavery was to be uprooted, it was not slavery that proved to be the granite formation. I forget that we are not sitting togetlier at the club jawing ! When, oh when, shall those oioctes coenmque deorum be a reality to me again ? How I should like to listen to you and Lowell, and Longfellow, and Agassiz, and Whipple, and Tom Appleton, and all the rest of you whose names I will not fill up this sheet with. What a relief to hear you talk sublime philosophy, excellent fooling becoming nobly wise, not mad, as the Lafitte circulated. I feel almost as if I could even talk myself, under such inspiration. A thousand bores are big within my bosom when I think how I could hold forth on a private stump like that — after five years' experience of the silent system in regions where it is a recognised truth that language was given to conceal the thoughts. I am glad that you called my attention to your touching and interesting obituary of Forceythe Wilson. I have never seen the " Old Sergeant," I have never seen many things Avhich are familiar to you. I rarely hear such things talked of. "I am so unfamiliar with speech, I start at tlie sound of my own." I feel that I should enjoy the poetry from the weird Eem- brandt-like sketch you give of the poet. Well, one of these days I shall read up to my own epoch. And that reminds me of a question I am now putting myself. Shall I read the ' Guardian Angel ' in numbers or wait for the whole ? My judgment says wait. I know that if I nibble at it, a twelfth bit at a time, I shall not enjoy devouring it all at once. If I wait, my greediness will be rewarded. But I am sure that I shall not wait, I have already read the first number, and I see that I shall be compelled to go on with it as fast as the Atlantic arrives, which it does, I am happy to say, with commendable regularity. When I have read it all, I shall either talk to you some hours about it face to face, or write, if I am out of speaking distance. For the present all I can say is, the more you take your I8G7.] THE 'UNITED NETHERLANDS.' 257 readers into cloudland and away from the prosaic every day, which has been rather overdone by great masters of the positive and materialistic schools of novel writing, the better I as one of the faithfullest of your readers and admirers shall be pleased. But you are already telling me to mind my own business. You are a blessed Glendower, " 'Tia yours to speak and mine to hear.'' It is a fall from a steep precipice after speaking of your romance to allude to a late correspondence in the newspapers.^ But as you say so many kind things in your last letter, and as so many friends and so many strangers have said so much that is gratifying to me in public and private on this very painful subject, it would be like affectation in writing to so old a friend as you not to touch upon it. I shall confine myself, however, to one fact, which, so far as I know, may be new to you. George W. McCracken is a man and a name utterly unknown to me. With the necessary qualification which every man who values truth naust make when asserting such a negative, viz., to the very best of my memory and belief, I never set eyes on him nor heard of him until now, in the whole course of my life. Not a member of my family or of the legation has the faintest recollection of any such person. I am quite convinced that he never saw me nor heard the sound of my voice. That his letter was a tissue of vile calumnies, shameless fabrications, and unblushing and con- temptible falsehoods by whomsoever uttered, I have stated in a reply to what ought never to have been an oflScial letter. No man can regret more than I do that such a correspondence is enrolled in the Capitol among American State Papers. I shall not trust myself to speak of the matter. It has been a sufficiently public scandal. My letter — published by the Senate — has not yet been answered by the Secretary of State. At least I have not yet received any reply. My two concluding volumes of the ' United Netherlands ' are passing rapidly through the press. Indeed Volume III. is entirely printed, and a third of Volume IV. is. If I live » See Holraea's Memoir of Motley, p. 129. VOL. n. S 258 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. VII. ten years longer/ I shall liave probably written the natural sequel to the two first works, viz., the Thirty Years' War. After that I shall cease to scourge the public. I do not know whether my last two volumes are good or bad. I only know that they are true, but that need not make them amusing. Alas ! one never knows when one becomes a bore. That being the case, I will stop now, with kindest regards and remem- brances to Mrs. Holmes and yourself and all your house. Ever most sincerely your friend, J. L. M. > He died May 29, 1877. ( 251) ) CHAPTER VIII. LONDON. Visits to old friends — Dinner with Mr. and Jlrs. IIuslics — The Cosmopolitan — BrII at Stafford Honse — Disraeli's Reform Bill — Professor Goldwin Smith — Friends and engagements — Argyll Lodge — The Keform Bill — The Sultan in London — Breakfast with tho Due d'Aumale — Holland House — Dinner with Mr. John Murray — Sir W. Stirling — Pembroke Lodge — Lord and Lady Russell — Hon. H. Elliot — Mr. Bright — Speech of the Duke of Argyll in the House of Lords — The Pliilo-biblon Society — Breakfast with Mr. Turner — Visit to Lord Stanhope at Chevcning — Chiswick — Duchess of Sutherland — Dinner with 3Ir. Gibbs — Lord Houghton — Mr. Forster — Lord Lytton — Mr. and Mrs. Grote — Dinner with Colonel Hamley — Dean Milman — Strath- fieldsaye — Lord John Hay — Tlio Duchess of Wellington — Bramshill — Sil- chester— General Grant appointed Secretary of War — Mr. and Mrs. Sturgis — Chevening — English feeling towards America — Knole Park — Tlie Bishop of Oxford — Holland House — Visit to Lord Sydney at Frognal — 'Black Sheep' — ' Cometh up as a Flower ' — Lord Wensleydale — Visit to Lord Strat- ford de Redcliffe — Professor Owen — Madresfield Court — Witley Court — The English aristocracy — Franipton Court — The Sheridans — Letter from Earl Russell on Vol. IIL of ' United Netherlands ' — Letter to Lady W. Russell on Mr. Odo Rustell's engagement — Neuralgia — Story's statue of Mr. Peabody — Letter from Mr. George Ticknor on the History. To his Second Daughter. Maurigy's, 1, Regent Street, Sunday, Juhj lith, 1867. My DEAREST Mary, — I may as well write a line or two before I go out this morning (Sunday). Friday morning — day after my arrival — I went to Lady William Russell's. I found her full of sympathy and affection as usual. She is more infirm, and complains more of her age than she used. She stands erect in a kind of cage, and pushes herself about the room when she changes place. I sat with her half-an-hour. She made the most tender inquiries about Lily, most affec- tionate ones about you all, and is quite unchanged in feeling, and not at all weakened in mind. I promised — having, of course, no engagement — to go back and dine. I made no s 2 260 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII. other calls that day except at Stirling Maxwell's, who was out ; the De Greys', who were out, the Sturgis's, who are all on the Continent — perhaps in Switzerland ; and Mrs. Norton's, who was in. She is little changed in face, I think, and almost as handsome as when we last saw her. She was most affectionate, and talked much and tenderly of Lily and of you all. She asked me if I had seen Sir William, and I did not make it out at first that she meant Stirling. I went to the Athenaeum, and found myself at once in the Silurian stratum of my old acquaintances by stumbling on old Sir Eoderick. He looks unchanged, but is unsteady. He regretted not to have met me sooner that he might have asked me for that day to a dinner he was giving to Sir Samuel Baker, the African traveller, but now he had no place, and the next day they left town. I told him that I had promised Lady William, and he said that Mr. and Mrs. A were of his party. When I came into the morning-room of the Athenaeum I found Milnes, who lifted up both his arms, the Duke of Argyll, and Leighton. At Audley Square I found to my satis- faction that Mrs. A was to dine with us, having excused lierself to the Murchisons on the ground of indisposition. Mrs. A is very attractive and charming, pretty, gentle- mannered, naive, instructed, accomplished. Lady William is delighted with her companionship. They live with her. She speaks English utterly without foreign accent, exactly like an Englishwoman, and of course French like any other Parisian. She has translated Mill's ' Utilitarianism.' Her mother, Madame de Peyronnet, writes in both the Bevue des Deux Mondes and the Edinburgh, which sufficiently proves her cleverness. Next day I called on the Argylls, sat in the garden, and lunched afterwards. Nothing can be kinder or more affec- tionate than they were in their inquiries for you. The Duke made an excellent speech at the G-arrison breakfast, and so did Lord Russell, as well as Bright and Mill. I will get the report (in, the London papers of July 1st) and send it to you. I am to dine with the Duke and Duchess on Thursday. I called and saw both the Wensleydales. They are much less changed than one would expect. The old gentleman 1867.] LONDON FRIENDS. 261 announced his eigbty-five years in a triumphant manner, bullying old age quite fiercely. Mrs. Lowther was with them, and was very agreeable. They pressed me to dine that day — likewise a Bakerian dinner — but I had promised Lady William again, so I agreed to come in the evening to the Wensleydales. Mrs. Hughes was the other convive at Lady AVilliam's. Of course it was most agreeable. She was sweet and warm-hearted as ever, and talked all the time of Lily, as did Lady William. The first person I saw at the Wensleydales was Crealock. He was talking to a fair-haired dame, who rose from her chair wailing that I did not recognise her. It was Lady , not in the least altered. I did know her, only she had not given me time to look. She was particularly jolly, and most friendly in her inquiries and regrets for you. Mrs. St. John IMildmay with her white locks next accosted me. ... I was introduced to Lady Haddington, and to a very nice person. Lady Alwyne Compton. Justice Erie re- minded me of my holding forth on American constitutional law, to his great edification, in that house six years ago ; and while we were discoursing, up comes old Kennedy. I mean young John, formerly of Vienna. It brought Vienna back to me with an awful pang. I believe these are all the wonders that I have to relate. This letter reminds me of those which 3[ary used to write at the age of seven. By the way, has that absconding party really got her trunk or not ? Or has not she written yet ? Murray thinks the business can be settled by the end of this month. Stirling is going soon to Carlsbad — which I think knocks Scotland on the head for me. I would far rather come to you if you can give me anything like com- fortable or retired quarters. But I can at least write and read and have as many books as I want, and as much or as little society as I like. I forgot to say that I found the Adams's at home yesterday. He was as satisfactory in his utterances on my case as I could expect. He felt sure that Seward signed without reading the letter, and thereby made an awful blunder which led to all the rest. 262 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. ^Cuav. VIIL To Ms Wife. Maurigj'-'s, 1, Eegent Street, July nth, 1867. My deakest Maey, — My last letter was written last Sunday, the 14th. That day I dined quite en famille with the Hughes's — the only other guest being Kennedy of Baltimore, whom I was very glad to see, and who is as friendly and kind-hearted as he always was. By the way, it was on account of my letter of introduction given to him at Ischl that we now met at Hughes's. It being Sunday the dinner was cold — perfectly good in every way — and I liked the plucky way in which all pretence of a small banquet was avoided. Some of the chil- dren, the eldest boy and two girls, dined with us, and I am sure that Susie would have been in raptures if she could have seen little May. She sat at my side and took me under her especial protection. The servant man had been sent out of the room, and the two little girls helped us help each other at table. Little May was perpetually getting up and changing my plate and bringing me an immense salad bowl, bigger than herself, and insisting on my gorging myself. I told her mother that she was conducting herself like Helene in ' Robert the Devil,' and was putting me to the blush : she is a very fascinating little imp. The Hughes's are, what they always were, genuine, kind- hearted, and delightful — full of warmest inquiries for you all. We went afterwards to the Cosmopolitan, where I fell in with one or two old acquaintances, George Cayley among the rest, and particularly Stirling. He is, I think, quite unchanged, now that having tarried smooth-faced all his life until his beard was grown white, he has adorned himself with a grisly moustache and accompaniments. Our meeting was very cor- dial, and a great pleasure to me ; he is going off to Carlsbad at the end of this week, I regret to say, and his wife leaves the same day en route for Scotland. He wishes me to come to Keir early in September. Monday I made some visits, begin- ning with Van der Weyer, whom I found at home^ quite as cordial and agreeable as ever. .He asked me to dine that day, \ \ \ 18G7.] BALL AT STAFFORD HOUSE. 263 saying that the Wensleydales and others of my friends were coming. I had no previous engagement, being just arrived. Bishop Eastburn of Boston was on one side of Madame Van der Weyer, and Dean Stanley on her right. The rest of the com- pany were the Wensleydales, Lowthers, Miss Emma Weston, Arthur Helps, and his sister. After dinner I made the acquaintance of Lady Augusta Stanley, whom I thought very agreeable, and the company broke up at ten, some of us going to a great ball at Stafford House given for the Viceroy of Egypt. I had received a card through the kindness of Lady Wensleydale, and I was very glad to see 9, fete at this splendid mansion, never having been in it except at luncheon. Strange to say it was full dress, that is to say in uniform, and I, of course, was ununi- formed, having left my official finery at Vienna. However I found an early opportunity to make my bow and proflfer apologies to the Duke, who said he was only too happy to see me in any costume. As he was so civil, of course I thought no more of the subject, particularly as Lord Granville, who greeted me on my arrival, had already told me that there were a good many black coats. The Duchess I never saw all the evening, as she was occupied with royalties — all the Court being there. The very first person on the stairs whom I met was Lady Jocelyn, who came up to me very cordially, and looked as beautiful as ever. Then I came upon Adams and Moran, and then Stewart in his war paint, with Icilt and claymore, rushed forward and introduced me to his mother and several relations. I found a great many acquaintances — the Duke and Duchess of Cleveland (Lady Harry Vane), who had been marrying Miss Primrose that morning to Mr. Wyndham, sou of Lord Leconfield. Then I came upon the Shaftesburys, Lord Clarendon, Lady Taunton ; then Bille of Vienna, now of Paris, collared me, and with him came up the Bulows. He looks rather better than he used j she is radiant, already speaks English very fluently and well, and adores London — " people are so very kind to her," etc., etc. I walked about the magnificent house for half-an-hour with the Duchess of Argyll. The Duke was in his Highland garb. There were 264 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. VIIL two bands of music, a great supper, and everything to make you comfortable. Tuesday, I ordered a brougham to drive out to Holland House to make a call on Lady Holland, who had already sent me a card for an afternoon reception next Saturday. But a deluge prevented. Lord Stanhope came to see me early in the forenoon, and subsequently I received an invitation from him to come to Chevening on 27th and 28th. The rain by keeping me in the house did me a great service, for I had a visit from Lyulph Stanley, who sat with me an hour. He is only in town for a single day, being on the Northern Circuit as a barrister : he talked very agreeably and sensibly on American, English, and Continental politics, and I was much pleased with his liberal views. Dizzy has produced a Eeform|^Bill, and jockeyed his party into supporting it, which is far more liberal than anything Bright would have ventured to propose. Lord Cranborne has seceded from the Government and left his office. Meantime the Tories, thanks to their sudden conversion to Kadicalism, have secured their places for at least another year. The metamorphosis is almost as great as if Jeff. Davis, Toombs, and the rest of the slavery party, instead of going in for rebellion, had met Lincoln's candidacy for the Presidency in 1860 and his plat- form by a programme abolishing slavery. Soon after Lyulph's departure came in Gold win Smith, much to my delight. He was only in town for a day, but I had left my name for him at the Athenaeum and he came. It was a great pleasure to listen to his weighty, thoughtful, and earnest utterances on the highest and gravest subjects that can interest full-grown men, and to find myself entirely in harmony with him. He was with me more than an hour. He believes England to be in more danger than she ever was. While approving and rejoicing in the Eeform Bill, he fears as its result a combination between the Tory leaders and the lowest orders, something like the unholy alliance which so long existed between the Southern slaveholders and the extreme democratic Irish party of the North. I dined in the evening with Stirling Maxwell. The guests 1S67.J LONDON FRIENDS. 265 were Lord and Lady Belhaven, old Lady Ruthven ; then there were Mrs. Norton, Lady Napier, and Anthony Trollope. I sat between Lady Anna and Lady Napier. I like Stirling's wife very much ; she is decidedly handsome, with delicate regular features, fair hair, and high-bred and gentle manners. She urged me much to come to Keir in September, and the Belhavens and Lady Euthven invited me to their places in Scotland. There will be no difficulty in my spending as much of September as I wish in Caledonia ; but I don't wish it, if you can only house me somehow. Lady Napier only arrived from India two or three days ago ; is going for two or three days to visit the Queen of Holland at the Hague, and returns to Madras in about three months. I don't know that there is any more small beer to chronicle just now, but I will leave this letter open for a day or two. To-morrow I dine with the Argylls ; next day with the Tauntons ; Saturday I go to Holland House, and afterwards to- dine with Murray at Wimbledon. Sunday morning I go to Lord Russell's at Pembroke Lodge to dine and pass the night,, having received a very warm invitation to come Saturday and stay till Monday. This is my programme thus far. Twisleton has just been paying me a visit — quite the same man as ever. By the way Hay ^ made me a visit a day or two ago. I must say that he expressed himself with great pro- priety and modesty, was very respectful, and said everything that could be expected of him. He was offered the place, he says — he being then in Illinois — of Secretary of Legation to- fill Lippitt's place when his resignation, both official and private, had been received. I think the indications are that Raymond will be re-nominated and confirmed. I forgot to say that I liked Trollope very much ; he was. excessively friendly, and wants me to come down to him where he lives in the country — I forget where : perhaps I shall, 18th July. I also forgot to mention that Madame Mohl was at the dinner at the Van der Weyers'. She is better than when I last saw her, but looks haggard and weird. ' Mr. John Hay, who was appointed Charge d'affaires at Vienna ad interim. 266 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. VIII. Yesterday I called on Lady Palmerston, and found her at home and quite unchanged, except by her black dress. She seemed almost younger than six years ago and was as charming and cordial as ever, making the kindest inquiries about you and Lily. I called on Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and found him at home, looking much as he used to do — a little stouter, but very smooth-faced and erect, with no signs of senility in mind or manner. Certainly the " bloated aristocracy " of England have got almost as near the fountain of perpetual youth as Flick and Flock ^ ever did. I had no invitation to-day for dinner. It was the Naval Review at Spithead, to which I refused two or three tickets. I think I see myself going to a naval review, as long as- 1 am not a midshipman. My virtue was rewarded, for it blew great guns ; there was no review possible, and the Sultan and the people who mobbed him down to Cowes were all sold and returned malcontent. I went to the Athenaeum, met Hayward and Kinglake (whom I like much), and we three dined together, and sat talking after dinner until it struck tivelve. Fancy the horror of a Viennese at such a proceeding — four hours and two pints of table wine for the whole party ! Politics, literature, society, religion, education — how funny it seemed to talk of these things again ! The sleepy waiters were in despair, but could not help themselves, and we were in our home and they were our slaves. After twelve I went to the Cosmopolitan because I had promised Hughes to meet him there. Hughes had gone, but Stirling was left and one or two others. I smoked a cigar and came off to bed at one. I think I had better stop, this being a pamphlet and not a letter. Grod bless you all ! Love to all. Do one of you write me a line every day. Ever your most affectionate and loving J. L. M. ' Characters in a German ballet. 1867.] DISRAELI'S REFORM BILL. 267 To his Eldest Daughter. Maurigy's Hotel, 1, Regent Street, Jidy 22nd, 1867. ]My dearest Lily, — Your two letters, 17th and 19th July, were duly received, and gave me much pleasure and some pain, for every day makes me realise more our homeless posi- tion. If I had only something to take the place of my present encampment, I should fold my portmanteau like the Arab and noiselessly steal away. Meantime I will duly notify you. Murray will not discharge me under a fortnight, however. On the 18th I had a long, pleasant visit from Lprd Stratford de Eedcliffe. I don't know that either of us made any obser- vations worthy of record. There was plenty of wisdom and wit, no doubt, but I made no notes at the time, nor probably did he. Afterwards Twisleton came in — the same as ever — very amiable and cordial. I went out to Argyll Lodge to dine. The company num- bered about twenty. I sat between the Duchess and Lady Edith, who by the way is pretty, agreeable, and interesting. On the right of the Duchess was the Duke of Devonshire, whom I had never met before, a suave, courteous grandee. Then there were the Tauntons, Belhavens, the youngest brother of the Duchess, Lord Ronald Gower (a handsome youth, who has much artistic talent), Charles Howard, and some others whose names I don't recollect. I had a very pleasant dinner and evening. It is really a comfort to talk earnestly for an hour without stopping, to feel that you can be a bore with impunity. Of course, the politics of America just now, although en- gaging much attention, pale before the new-fangled radicalism of the Derby-Dizzy Cabinet. There are to be malignant and benignant demonstrations to-night and to-morrow night in the House of Lords. It seems to be admitted that the Peers will denounce the Reform Bill fiercely, and then mildly vote for it, comforting themselves with the conviction that chaos is really come again, the floodgates open for ever, and all the 268 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. VIII. rest of it. Meantime they dare not really oppose the popular verdict which Dizzy has so craftily and audaciously exploited to his own benefit. The town has been violently engaged in mobbing the Sultan, the Viceroy, and twenty-four hundred volunteers. There have been balls of 3000 to 4000 tickets at Islington and India House, patronised and participated by the bloated, to which all the world and his wife, the devil and his grand- mother, were invited. I might have got tickets without dijBfi- culty, but I had two reasons- — first, I would not have been paid to go ; second, I hadn't my uniform, which, by the way, I suppose still moulders in Vienna. Miss Coutts also gave a breakfast at Highgate to all the Belgian volunteers, from major-general to powder monkey, and fed them all, including the nobility and gentry. On the 19th I had a very pleasant family breakfast at Stir- ling's at ten. I then went by rail to Twickenham, having received per telegraph an invitation to breakfast at twelve with the Due d'Aumale : , " Too much of breakfast hast tliou, Ophelia." The consequence of which is that, in avoiding to overeat, I am apt to starve in the midst of plenty. The Due and Duchesse were very cordial and agreeable, and are beginning to recover from the severe affliction of their son's death. They have but one other child, the Due de Guise, a handsome fair-haired lad of twelve. I sat by the side of the mistress of the house. Next to the Due was the mother, the Princess of Salerno. Madame Langel Avas next to me. She was very indignant on the Seward- J ohnson-McCracken conspiracy. She also in- formed me that her sister was to be immediately married to Mr. Dicey, the writer on America and other liberal topics. They are all immensely pleased, and Miss Emma Weston is now with the bride-elect in Paris, buying the trousseau. I returned to town at two, and dined with the Tauntons at eight. My place was next to Lady Taunton, who told me the names of her guests, most of whom were introduced to me afterwards ; b^t I have forgotten all but the Fortescues, and \ 18C7.] LONDON ENTERTAINMENTS. 2G9 a youth who is just going to America, as most of the swells are now doing, by name Earl of Morley. He seems ingenuous, well-bred, and decidedly good-looking. Saturday, 20th. — I breakfasted with Mr. Fred. Pollock — son of the ex-Chief Justice of England — himself a lawyer and an eminent reviewer. He wrote the review of the * United Netherlands,' six years ago, in the Quarterly. The break- fast is one of some kind of club (I don't know how named) ; but there happened to be a very thin attendance present, there being only Lacaita, Sir Erskine May, author of the ' Constitutional History of England,' and Sir John Lefevre, who greeted me as an old friend, and was most warm in his inquiries about you and your mother. We had a long pleasant talk, and we walked back together through the Park. How anything can be done in London but breakfast, lunch, dine, and squash, if one really goes in for " promiscuous Ned," I can't comprehend. The breakfast, taken miles away from home, and including two hours of talk, snips off the very head and brains of the forenoon. Then comes the lunch or breakfast party, taking " a huge half- moon, a monstrous cantle" out of the solid day, leaving barely time to travel from Dan to Beersheba, and dress for dinner. As I have nothing to do just now, and am faithfully doing it, I only speak objectively. Yet I do remember me, during our two years in London, I wrote and published nearly the whole of Volumes I. and IL of the ' United Netherlands.' All I can say is that I couldn't do it again. I drove at four to Holland House, to which abode I had received a card to an afternoon party. As you have so often been to parties in the same house, I shall describe nothing. Certainly the impression, after six years, was the same as the first one. It is the most delicious house, with park, garden, and farmyard almost in the heart of a great metropolis. The exquisite furnishing and collection and rarities, struck me as more wonderful than ever. I met several acquaintances, the Stanhopes, the Clevelands, Strezelecki (grunting and "you know "-ing as of old). Hay ward, Higgins the big, and Fleming the flea, the Tauntons, and many others, although the atten- 270 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII, dance was less than usual, owing to a review of volunteers at Wimbledon. From Holland House I drove across country to Wimbledon, to dine with John Murray of Albemarle Street and of New- stead, Wimbledon. By the way, Adams had invited me for this day to dinner, but I was long engaged to Murray. I forgot to tell you, by the way, that at the Duke of Argyll's dinner I met Sir Henry Storks, the man of power and pith who was sent to smooth out, as well as possible, the Jamaica crimes under Governor Eyre. Storks is just on his way with a swell to carry the garter to our Emperor (of Austria). At Murray's dinner there was another Governor, Sir Bartle Frere, who has ruled some part of India for a quarter of a century, and looks like a young man, his wife and sister; another Mr. Pollock and his wife ; Lord Cranborne, well known to you and to fame as Lord Kobert Cecil ; Dr. Smith, editor of the Quarterly Bevieiv and author of the * Classi- cal Dictionary,' the * Dictionary of the Bible,' and other immensely popular, learned, and profitable works. This was the company. Lord Cranborne was jolly and good-natured, and so was I, the subject of America not being mentioned by tacit consent. Another guest was Dr. Thomson, whom you or I knew at Oxford, and who has since blossomed into a full-blown Arch- bishop of York. You will say that my letters are mere cata- logues of names, and remind you of the Morning Posfs fashionable lists or the Fremdenblatt ; but I don't know that a dinner conversation is apt to transfer its aroma next day to a sheet of newspaper any more than the dishes them- selves. On Sunday morning I breakfasted again with the Stirlings, by appointment, as I had promised to translate for him a couple of letters of Don John of Austria out of a Dutch chronicle, which I had cited and particularly translated in the ' Dutch Republic' After we had finished — I dictating and he writing — he thanked me cordially, adding in his quizzical way that he should now be able to reproduce the letters with a delightful air of originality, and censure the author of the \ 18G7.} LONDON. 271 * Dutch Republic ' for having given so incorrect and alto- gether defective a translation in that excellent work ; and so we went to breakfast, to which the only other convive was Milnes (Lord Houghton, I should say, but never do), who had invited me to breakfast, and had now invited himself to meet me at Stirling's, eating up conscientiously nearly the whole of our breakfast, and talking all the time — in short, devouring and conversing for all five. He is the same hearty, jolly, paradoxical, genial companion he always was. I went down at two by train to Pembroke Lodge. I found Lady Eussell quite unchanged and cordial, and full of kind inquiries for you and your mother. Lord Eussell has Americanised his institutions to the extent of wearing a full beard of iron grey, which becomes him very much. Otherwise he is much the same. You know he has made a public and rather remarkable recantation of his errors in regard to America at the Garrison breakfast. Our talk was therefore without embarrassment. He glided glibly and gingerly over the Seward-McCracken misery, and discussed general topics in a satisfactory way. There was the usual sauntering and receiving in the gardens, looking out on that unmatched Richmond Hill prospect, which is the perfection of English scenery — itself of its own kind a perfection too. I always think when I look upon it of the ' Allegro : ' — " straight mine eyo hath caught new pleasures, As the landscape round it measures ; Meadows green with daisies pied, Shallow brooks and rivers wide Towers and battlements it sees Bosomed high in tufted trees," — and so on. Nothing can surpass this bosky-bowery, verdurous, deeply- foliaged, riotously yet placidly luxurant nature, tamed but beautified by art and hallowed by history. There were Arthur Eussell and his wife. Lady E. Eomilly, Henry Elliot and his wife, with whom I had much pleasant talk and refreshing reminiscences of our dear old Husarzewski palace.^ Sir Hamilton Seymour and Lady Seymour, with whom too I had * The house in which both he and Sir Henry Elliot had lived in Vienna at different times. 272 MOTLEY'S IvETTERS. [Cuap. VIII. much intercliange of memories of Vienna. I liked them both very much, having never known them before. Henry Elliot is going soon to his new post of Ambassador at Constantinople. He speaks of the Marshes,^ as every one does, as most admi- rable and superior people in every way, whose companionship they have both very much enjoyed. General Seymour, our old. acquaintance, brother of Countess Liitzow, was there, and Lady Waldegrave, with her sposo, from Strawberry Hill. I found by the way in the autograph book on the table, my last letter to Lord Kussell in reply to his, and glanced through it with a shiver, fearing that I might have been indiscreet in what I replied to his expressed indignation in regard to my quarrel with the Government. But I found that I had been very enigmatical and diplomatic as to the " deep damna- tion of my taking off," and felt relieved — the letter being almost entirely literary. Monday, I made a few calls, getting in only at Madame Mohl's — except, best of all, at Bright's. I drove up to his lodgings in Albemarle Street, just as he was entering the door from Birmingham. I had a most interest- ing conversation with him on American and English affairs. He is of course pleased and hopeful with regard to America, and well satisfied with the Eeform Bill, despite the effrontery with which Dizzy has metamorphosed himself and his chief into radicals and revolutionists. Bright has certainly a mag- nificent face, square-jawed, resolute, commanding, with a short straight nose, a broad forehead, and a grey eye which kindles and glows, and a stern but well-cut mouth. I had forgotten how fine his head really was. I doubt if I shall see him again as he leaves town very soon. N.B, He returned my call next day, but I was out of course. On coming back, I found Sudley's card and Henry Cow- per's. In the evening, I took my modest dinner at the Athenaeum, placing myself alongside of Lacaita, with whom I had some pleasant gossip. Thursday, I had promised to go to the Ken- nedys, at the early hour of nine, to breakfast, in company with Hughes. I don't know how I happened, as your mother » Hon. George Marsh, long United States Minister at Turin. 1867.] SPEECH OP THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. 273 says, not to mention Hughes before. He is the same delight- ful companion and genuine fellow he always was — deeply interested in everything that is earnest and noble, and work- ing himself half to death. The Kennedys and Miss Gray are nice, sympathetic, and genial as ever. Subsequently I drove out to Argyll Lodge, by appoint- ment, to lunch, and thence to drive with the Duchess down to her mother at Chiswick. It turned out, however, that the Duke of Argyll was to speak that night in the Lords on the Keform Bill; so the expedition to Chiswick was postponed until Friday. I passed a couple of hours in luncheon and talk very pleasantly, and then they brought me into town, and the Duke got me placed inside the throne place in the Lords, where I heard Lord Shaftesbury and then the Lord Chancellor (Chelmsford), and then the Duke of Argyll, who made an uncommonly effective and telling speech — much cheered by his party — an hour long. His elocution is excel- lent, his voice melodious and sonorous, and his action much more excited than is usually heard in those prim benches. I must break off now, and reserve the rest of my wonderful and thrilling adventures till another day. The Rodmans have just made me a visit. They are here on their way to Scotland, where he has hired a moor for the season. They were pleasant, looked well and flourishing. Good-bye for the present, and God bless you, my darling. My best love to your dear mamma and to Mary and Susie. My next will be to Mary, in answer to her nice pretty letter from Herschberg. This is concluded Wednesday, 24th July. Your affectionate and loving Papa. To his Youngest Daughter. Maurigy's, August 3rd, 1867. My dearest Susie,— .... Friday last I made a few visits — I forget where, and having fortunately no dinner engagement — having refused two for that day — I dropped VOL. II. T 274 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII. in at the Rodmans', and dined with them at the " Bath Hotel," spending the whole evening very pleasantly with them, talking over old times. They are now on their way to Scotland. Saturday morning I went to the last break- fast of the season of the Philo-biblon Society, given by Mr. Turner, a collector of rare books. In the hour before breakfast, I had occasion to admire some wondrous specimens of bouquins from all countries and of all ages since the beginning of printing, with gorgeous bindings of the early periods, engravings, etchings, illuminations. My mouth watered at the sight, and I wished for a moment to be also an archbishop, or a royal duke or a leading Member of Par- liament, or something of that sort, the society being composed of such, and all the members equally rich in similar stupen- dous treasures. The company was not as numerous as usual. There was Mr. Gibbs, who has a splendid house called St. Dunstan's, in Regent's Park, filled I am told with works of art, especially typographical wonders, and who has invited me to dine next Saturday. Then there was the Bishop of Oxford ; Houghton, of course, the ubiquitous, to whom I was indebted for my invitation. Lady Houghton is not in town, also in bad health, so that I fancy they receive no company at Fryston. Had I an invita- tion to that delightfullest of all country houses, I could hardly have refused it. Likewise John Murray the publisher ; Alex- ander Apponyi, who is also a book collector. I can't recall at this moment the other guests ; but the breakfast — which, contrary to London custom, was sumptuous, and was in most respects an inverted dinner — being served at 11 a.m. instead of 9 P.M., and beginning with coffee and tea and ending with sherry, champagne, and maraschino, fish, cutlets, rotis — salads, game, puddings, and ices, going on meanwhile in regular order— astounded me. If you ask me what I did, I can only say that I opened my ears to the animated and intellectual conversation, and my mouth — not to eat, but to gape and gasp with wonder at the prodigious consumption of victuals at that hour in the day. AVhen I reflected that all those people \ 1867.] CHEVENING. 275 would lunch at two and dine at eight, I bowed my head in humiliation and the fork dropped from my nerveless grasp. I went down in the two o'clock train to Sevenoaks, and thence, per fly, to Chevening. The Stanhopes were out driv- ing for a little, but Lord Mahon and Lady Mary were walking in the grounds and welcomed me most warmly. Tell Lily that Lady Mary has grown some inches since she knew her, and has become an extremely pretty and very charming girl — witty, very attractive. Lady Stanhope, who came in soon, and with whom I walked about for an hour or two, is as agreeable as ever, and I always thought her one of the most fascinating persons I ever knew. She was very kind and tender in her inquiries about Lily, and had very affectionate remembrances of your mamma. Lord Stanhope was quite unchanged in manner — somewhat aged in appearance. A few other guests arrived towards dinner — namely. Lord Camperdown, who has just succeeded to his earl- dom, graduating as a " double first " at Oxford, and has been making a successful maiden speech. He is going to make a tour in America, in company with Lord Morley and Henry Cowper. He was very grateful for a couple of notes of introduction which I gave him for Sumner and Longfellow. There came also our youthful Vienna friend. Lord Sudley, now the pro- prietor of a wife and two children, the youngest ten days old. Otherwise he looks and seems quite the same. Then came the Duke and Duchess of Wellington. This makes up the party. He is very noisy, amusing, good-natured, a sort of gray-haired W , without that youth's occasional solemnity, and less troubled with bashfulness. The party at dinner was pleasant and unrestrained. We played billiards on a miniature table in the small room out of the drawing-room until half-past eleven, and then we young fellows sat up till two, smoking cigars and listening to the Duke's comical stories. The visit, all through Saturday and Sunday until Monday at twelve, was extremely agreeable ; the weather, strange to say, was splendid. The gardens were a blaze of glory. I had never seen them in their full magnifi- cence before, and such roses and such profusion of them it was I 2 276 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [CuAr. VIII. never my lot to see. I enjoyed the velvety turf, the verdurous groves, the weird-looking yews, the luxurious house, and I can't wonder that those born to such things wish, as Lord John said, to rest and be thankful. Unfortunately the luxury, both intellectual and physical, of a few thousands, is in awful contrast to the dismal condition of many millions. Nothing can be kinder, more genial, more gentle than the whole family. They insist that I shall come again this month. The Duke of Wellington is bent on having a party at Strath- fieldsaye, to which he has invited the Stanhopes and myself, and has asked me if I would object to meet Disraeli. I .said " Quite the reverse," and have faithfully promised to go, but I am sure to fade out — I think. The Sturgis's are all back, and I agree with your mother that each is handsomer than the other. The most unchanged one in appearance is the " Familienvater." She is as cordial and affectionate as ever. 1 have dined there twice, and shall dine there again to-morrow. But I will close this letter and reserve the rest of my wonderful adventures for another letter. I have almost nothing to say, however. Murray, with his index, will detain me nearly ten days longer, I think, and I am not sure what I shall decide to do afterwards. Town is so empty that I am actually thinking of doing a little work in the State Paper Office. I have now few acquaintances in London, and nothing is going on. I have plenty of invita- tions to the country, which I don't wish to accept. Embraces to your mamma, Lily and Mary, and to yourself. Ever my darling Susie, Your affectionate Lamb. \ To his Wife. \ Maurigy's, August 12th, 1867. My deaeest Maey, — I suppose that Murray will have done with me in the course of this week. I fear I can't give you much (entertainment or instruction this morning. My recol- 18G7.] LONDON DINNER PARTIES. 277 I«ction of the few events which have occurred has become confused. I think I omitted to tell you that one morning — a good while ago — the Argylls took me down to Chiswick to see her mother, the Duchess of Sutherland. I found her appa- rently not much changed, although in reality she is a great sufferer. She was as cordial and genial as possible — really affectionate— and it delighted me to see her once more, although in so sad a physical condition. The place, too — the beautiful Italian villa of Chiswick — had a melancholy interest for me, for I used to be often the guest there in former times, of her brother, the most genial and warm-hearted of men. Lord Carlisle ; and met Macaulay, among others, there several times. The Duchess was very affectionate in her inquiries about Lily and you, and sent kindest remembrances. I parted with her with much regret. I had a very agreeable dinner at Mr. Gibbs's some time since. He is, I believe, a rich merchant, of very cultivated tastes, a member of the Philo-biblon Society, and lives in a splendid villa in the Eegent's Park, with a garden occupying four acres, and a ball-room seventy feet long, and other rooms en suite in pro- portion. This, in London, may be supposed to indicate comfort- able circumstances. The house belonged to one of the great swells of the period — the Marquess of Hertford — now defunct. The dinner, which I think was made for me, was very good and very agreeable. I can't tell you the names of the com- pany, except Houghton, between whom and myself the hostess sat. He was as jolly and entertaining as ever. The next day I lunched with Houghton, and for the first time this visit saw Lady Houghton, who is very much an invalid, and looks worn and thin; but has the same kind, genial manner she always had. She had come in, she said, on purpose to see me, and I was much gratified with the atten- tion. No one else was there but his sister. Lady Galway, who is very intelligent, and who had a good deal to say of her Plombieres acquaintances, my sister A and A L . I have dined with Forster, where I again missed Bright, who had been invited, but was engaged. I liked Forster and his wife more than ever, and I shall certainly try to go to 278 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL Wharfside for a day or two if it be possible. They have invited me thither very cordially. The other guests on this occasion were a clergyman, named, I think. Temple, and Mr, Townsend, editor of the Spectator, whose conversation, both on American and English affairs, was very interesting, outspoken, and thoughtful. I have dined thrice with the Sturgis's, and always enjoy myself exceedingly with them, for it is a delight to feel so perfectly at home with old friends for whom I have so sincere an affection. I shall try to go to their farm — Givon's Grove — for a day or two this week. They have already left town, much to my dissatisfaction. Lytton ^ I have seen once, lying in his blankets and occupied with proof-sheets. Subsequently he has recovered, and invited me to dinner. I was engaged. I like him as much as ever. He is bringing out three volumes of poetry, some new, some old ; among other things a short poem on America — called * Atlantis ' — very bold, enthusiastic, original, for which he will catch it from the critics, for our appalling success can never be sincerely forgiven. I went one day to lunch with the Grotes. Stuart Mill and his step-daughter were there. Also Dr. Smith, editor of the Quarterly. Poor Mrs. Grote, who had but just arrived from Wiesbaden, where she had been seeking for health in the waters, and finding, I fear, none, had been in much pain all the forenoon, and, funnily enough, had forgotten to tell the servants that she had company to luncheon. Luckily I had already told her that I almost never lunched. Mill and Grote could feast themselves and others on pure reason, so that the scraps of cold meat, with an incidental potato, sufficed for the some- what Barmecidal revel. Mrs. Grote's reminiscences and the talk at table, as you may suppose, with such company, were most delightful and instructive. But, alas ! I have taken no notes, so that I can give you no politico-economical, philoso- phical or Platonic apothegms fresh from the lips of Mill and Grote. A few days ago I dined at the Army and Navy Club — a little dinner expressly made for me by Hamley. But the best \ ' The present Earl of Lytton. 1867.] DEAN MILMAX. 279 of the joke was that the company he invited to meet me were Delane and ^lorris (of the Times). These, with Frederick Elliot and Hamley's brother — colonel of engineers — a quiet intelligeat, gentlemanlike, married man, made up the party. The dinner and wines were remarkably good, and I have rarely enjoyed myself more thoroughly. As I told him when I accepted his invitation, three years ago it would have been an impossibility, but that now bygones were bygones. Just before, I had gone down to the Milmans at Ascot, where they have hired a pleasant villa, very near Windsor Forest. They had invited me and you to pass several days, but I popped down, with little warning, to dine and pass the night only. I was agreeably disappointed in his appearance. He had been described to me as very much more bent, stoop- ing to the ground ; so he is, but the bend is so circular at his back that it has the appearance of a hump ; while the face, with the coal-black eyes and raven eyebrows, surmounted by snow-white hair, is really in a true plumb-line from his feet, and he appears to stand erect like a benignant Anthropo- phagus, with his head beneath his shoulders, at a height of three feet from the ground. He is a good deal more deaf, so that one must change the whole pitch of one's voice. But he is full of life, interest in all things political, scientific, literary; full of work and of plans. She is as sweet, stately, genial, and gentle as she always was — as silvery voiced ; and also her sable hair has turned out its silver lining very completely upon the night. In the main I found them singularly un- changed, and as you know them so well, that is their best eulogy. It is most delightful to see that Time, which has been so effective upon his backbone and his tympanum, has had no effect on his splendid intellect and his genial disposition. There was no one there but their son Arthur. I passed a delightful evening and following forenoon, and came up to town in time for Hamley's dinner. Last Friday, at two, I proceeded to Strathfieldsaye — forty miles from London — in Hampshire. I have but little to chronicle of this visit. It was to have been a party — the 280 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. VIII. Stanhopes, Dizzy, and Lord Lytton ; but the Duke had made a muddle. The Stanhopes had company themselves at Cheven- ing, and of course Dizzy could not well leave town before the Eeform Bill was through. To say the truth, I was not much disappointed. I was able to find myself more at home, and on terms of more intimate acquaintance with the host and hostess than if there had been the proposed party. We were not entirely alone, for Fleming, who really is a very intelligent and agreeable companion, in spite of his make-up, was there. Also the Duchess's brother. Lord John Hay, whom I like extremely. He is very chaffy ; is a post-captain in the navy ; has been all over the world ; is a Member of Parlia- ment, valuing himself on being an extreme Liberal, which he really is. In short, he is an uncommonly good companion, with a good deal of mind and character, and a humour which reminds me a little of Stirling. The Duchess is certainly beautiful. Praxiteles never cast more regular features. She has beautiful brown hair, olive eyes, charming mouth and teeth, and a low and gentle voice. Her manner is perfectly simple, unaffected, and kindly. . . . She certainly looks, with her lap-dog under her arm, and her tall, stately figure, as much like a portrait of a great dame by Vandyke or Titian as you will ever see on canvas in England or Genoa or Venice. She drove me in her pony phaeton all about the park as soon as I arrived. After an hour or two of search we discovered the Duke and the Flea fishing unsuccessfully for chub in the river Loddon, a mild and sleepy tributary to the Thames, which flows through Strathfieldsaye. I was welcomed with the most cordial and unaffected hospi- tality, and made to feel myself perfectly at home. The park is one of the finest of the many verdurous, velvety, out-fofested stately homes of England — paradises very perverting to the moral and the politico-economical sense, and which must, I think, pass away, one of these centuries, in the general progress of humanity. Without further boring, I may as well say that the house is not a palatial residence. It is a rambling old manor-house, with a good deal of room in it, very badly situated in the 18C7.] BRAMSIIILL — SILCHESTEll. 281 lowest, least attractive part of the domain, miscellaneously famished, papered in almost all the rooms with prints from Boydell's Shakespeare, and other high works of art. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, were very agreeably spent. The weather was sumptuous, and we drove about, all of us, among the green lanes of pleasant Hampshire every day, and I feasted my eyes once more on that which is the perfection of common-place scenery — the well-trimmed, well-swept, well- combed and brushed and cleaned hills and dales, and farms and groves of merry England. We visited a very remarkable old house in the neighbour- hood, Bramshill, built in the beginning of James the First's time, belonging to a certain Sir William Cope, not rich enough to keep it up, so that the house is shabby, dilapidated, and therefore more picturesque. It has essentially the same characteristics as Holland House and Knole, which you remember in the neighbourhood of Chevening. The most interesting thing I saw in the neighbourhood was Silchester, to which place the Duke drove Lord John and me on Saturday forenoon. This is a hundred-acre farm on his estate, quite surrounded by the remainder of walls of an ancient Roman town, with the remains of houses, shops and forum just six inches below the surface — a Hampshire Pompeii. The excavations, not on a very extensive scale, but most interesting, are made under the superintendence of the very intelligent and learned rector of Strathfield, Mr. Joyce; and the situation of the ancient town, of which absolutely nothing is known in history, is well mapped out and perfectly under- stood. Bushels of coin, with the heads of every emperor during the four centuries of the Roman occupation of Britain, have been collected, besides numerous other objects of interest ; and, in short, I will bore Susie no longer on the subject. Altogether I was much pleased with my visit. The Duke is certainly very agreeable company, amusing and rattling, good- humoured, with a good deal of mother wit and capacity, and a very hospitable and attentive host. Coming up by rail this morning, we met with Groldwin Smith and the Bishop of Oxford — not jointly, as you may 282 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII. imagine — and subsequently Lord Stratford and William Harcourt. I found your letter, which I have already acknow- ledged; also a note from Lady Wensleydale at Ampthill, inviting me there for Saturday, which I must decline, being engaged at Chevening. Your affectionate and loving J. L. M. To his Wife. Maurigy's, August l^th, 1867. My dearest Mary, — I think it may interest you to read the enclosed very agreeable letter, which I have just received from the Governor of Massachusetts in answer to one written by me to him a good while ago, acknowledging receipt of his annual Message to the Legislature. It has no practical importance, of course, but it is pleasant to feel that the most influential and honourable people at home are so well disposed towards me. My last letter to you was August 12th. Since then we have had two very hot days — the first of the season. I am going down this evening with Sturgis to Givon's Grove, the name of their country house, and shall stay till Friday, when I come up to town, to go the same afternoon to Chevening for three days. I have just had a note from Lady Wensleydale, asking me to Ampthill for the same time, which, of course, I had to decline. I hope to pass a day or two there before I leave these shores. I have also promised to go to the Lefevres for a day or two at Ascot, where they have a pretty villa, near the one which the Milmans are now occupying, I have just seen Mr. Palfrey, who, with his daughter, arrived in the last steamer, and I have had a long, very agreeable conversation with him. He thinks that the Republican party is so strong — and daily growing stronger — that they can elect any candidate for the Presidency they choose — either Grant, if he come sufficiently out of his reserve to be acceptable as their candidate, or 1867.] GENERAL GRANT, SECRETARY OP WAR. 283 another man over his head, even should he run. I am only- giving you his impressions, he being fresh from home. The telegram which you will read in the paper of to-day, that Johnson has suspended Stanton, and appointed Grant Secre- tary of War, is, I suppose, likely to make a tremendous row when Congress meets in November. Grant, of course, cannot have been appointed Secretary of War; but he may have consented to act as such — faute cle mieux — until the Senate reinstates Stanton. I hope that it won't damage Grant's popularity, but I suspect the time is fast approaching when Ulysses must cease to do the " dumb, inarticulate man of genius " business. Thus far it has answered ; I should be sorry that he should lose his chance, which but yesterday seemed a certitude. Yesterday I had a very pleasant family dinner at the Pollocks', whom I like extremely ; the day before I dined at the Athenaeum with Hayward, Kinglake, Strzelecki, and Admiral Carnegie — very pleasant indeed. God bless you, dearest; embraces to all. Write soon to your loving Lamb. Of course you will preserve Governor Bullock's letter. To his Wife. MauriKy's, August 20th, 1867. My dearest Mary, — I think my last letter was written just as I was going down for a couple of days to the Sturgis's. They have a charming villa, in a beautifully wooded, rolling, downy country, and their present plan of life seems to me far more judicious than the Mount Felix system. They can't have more than two or three guests at a time ; but those who are there enjoy themselves highly. He has put a broad verandah (what we so comically call a piazza) all around the house; and as the Wednesday evening of my arrival was suffocatingly and deliciously hot, we all sat out of doors the whole evening after dinner — smoking and babbling. Ex- 284 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [CiiAr. VIII. hausted by the effort of producing sucli a quantity of heat in twenty-four hours, the English climate broke down the next morning, and there was a soaking rain the whole of the next day, making out of doors an impossibility. We passed a very agreeable day, however. J and F were there, quite unchanged, I thought, in every particular. They told me much of Pau, and I fancy are likely to go there if we go. I won't go into the discussion of the point, however, to-day. I passed a part of Thursday in reading the first volume of Hep- worth Dixon's * New America,' because so much is said about it just now, that I read it in self-defence. It is readable enough — amusing ; only the Mormons are to me the most insufferable of bores and beasts, and I shall be glad when the advancing tide of civilisation sweeps their filthy little commonwealth out of existence. After a couple of very pleasant days at " Grove Farm," or Givon's Grove (the old name, and the one I humbly prefer), I came up on Friday morning to town. At 4.30, 1 again took rail for hospitable Chevening, where I spent three most agree- able days. The party consisted of Lord and Lady Sydney. He was the Whig Lord Chamberlain, and I think you must remember him by sight — the Vincent Auersperg of London. (By the way, you saw, doubtless, that poor Auersperg died about a month ago.) Lady Sydney is very nice — intelligent, accomplished, sympathetic. Then we had Mr. and Mrs. Mey- nell Ingram — whom I liked very much. He is a Yorkshire gentleman of high degree, with a vast estate — very agree- able. She is young, pretty, and simpatica, with a slight figure and lambent eyes — daughter of Lord Halifax, whom you remember as Sir Charles Wood, the perpetual Cabinet Minister for India when the Whigs were in. Then there was the stalwart Bishop of Oxford, with whom I have become on the best of terms. And here let me say that if I had come without the intention of burying the hatchet, in anything that regards the American War, I had better " have located myself in some adjoining country," because all English " society," except half a dozen individuals, were then entirely Southern. I don't think there is any desire 18G7.] THE BISHOP OF OXFORD. 285 to revive the matter now. We are now on the best possible footing, socially speaking. IMrs. Grote told me that all the Englishmen who came back from America were "perfectly overwhelmed " by the spectacle of American energy and power, and young Lord Mahon says that such hospitality as he and all his friends experienced in the United States was beyond all his previous notions. Lord Stanhope said that every one said the same thing. As this is from the most hospitable of families in the most hospitable of countries, it has a good deal of meaning. We can certainly afford to be magnanimous, having achieved such a stupendous victory over giant Treason and his pale terrific bands (as the hymn-book has it), and to astonish England by our for- giveness. And that reminds me that Delane also was of the party during a part of Saturday and Sunday. He is uncommonly civil to me, and it makes me laugh when I think of our noble rage against the Times three or four years ago. Now my indifference is absolute. We went one day with barouches and ponies to Knole. But you know that magnificent old Jacobean mansion, so I won't describe it. It at present belongs to Lady De La Warr, and a branch of the family inhabits it. On the Sunday we had a sermon from the Bishop of Oxford, and I was im- mensely struck by his consummate style of pulpit eloquence — familiar without approacliing the verge of vulgarity, didactic without the slightest boredom, fervid and touching without bombast, altogether a maitre accompli, and one could not help lamenting that he should not have been at the Bar, or in the House of Commons, for he certainly would have been Prime Minister or Lord Chancellor by this time. He is a capital story-teller, too, inimitable at the breakfast table or when the dinner cloth is removed. Altogether too strenuous, too good and too bad for the feeble role of an Anglican bishop. As a cardinal in the days when Rome had power, or a prize fighter in the great political ring, he would have had scope for his energies. I don't know that I need to say much more of the visit. 28G MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII. whicli was an uncommonly successful one. I parted with the Stanhopes with infinite regret, for although they insist that I shall pay them another visit, I am ashamed to show my face there again. Moreover there will be hardly time. I have promised Lady Sydney to make them a visit. Coming up to town yesterday, Monday, I found a note from Lady Holland, saying that she had just heard of my still being in town, and asking me to dine Monday or any other day. I went accordingly to Holland House at eight, where I found the hostess as smiling and amiable as ever, and a small party, consisting of Madame de , a Kussian, whose husband is a diplomatist, and who knows all the Eussians whom we know. She entreated me to visit her at Paris, which she inhabits — I don't know whether officially or not. Then there was jolly old Panizzi, with whom I am to dine to-day, to meet a popish priest, Father Secchi — so appropriate. I am supposed to be very familiar with his name — of which I never heard in my life. Doubtless he will stand in the same in- teresting relation to me. Then there was an ancient Orleanist Minister, Comte de Pontoise, who was Envoy at Washington in Van Buren's time — burly, white-headed, talkative, sympa- thetic; and Fleming and Charles Yilliers. The party was pleasant, and it is always a delight to take coffee after dinner in that noble and historic library, and to imagine ghosts starting from every alcove. Certainly if ever a house de- served to be haunted, it is Holland House. I have lost, I deeply regret to say, the faculty of being much amused with anything in the social way. I thoroughly appreciate it all sesthetically — I entirely recognise the kind- ness and the hospitality and the charm of English society, but I feel the want of work. If I once lose the faculty of enjoying work, what will become of me? I am also getting to be greedy of time. As I have more chance of doing a little work here for the next few weeks than anywhere else, I think I shall renounce the pleasure of seeing you before the end of September, although my mind isn't quite made up. I was delighted with Lily's description of Mary's mad \ 1867.] FROGNAL. 287 success at H . The spectacle of the poor K of howling for her in his bereavement, touches one deeply. It is very good of her to speak to beings without crowns on their heads, and even to write to me occasionally. God bless you — kisses to the girls. Ever your affectionate and loving J. L. M. To his Wife. Frognal, Footscray, Sunday, August 25th, 1867. My dearest Mart, — It is a most beautiful Sunday after- noon, and I may as well employ a part of the period between lunch and dinner in an English country house in writing a line to you, particularly as I don't see my way clear to writing for the next two or three days. This is a pretty old- fashioned manor house, in a rich, well wooded park, embowered in roses and geraniums, with green umbrageous oaks on the wide lawns, like many other places in this verdurous England. The host and hostess are very kind, genial, high-bred people ; the guests are not many — Lord Sandwich, his wife and two daughters. Lady Sandwich was Lady Blanche Egerton, daughter of the late Lord EUesmere, whom she accompanied to America when he went there for the New York Exhibition. These, with an exceedingly jolly and genial old General Ashburnham, who might have sat for the portrait of any number of Washington Irving's sketches, and Stuart Wortley, make up the party. It is only a short-lived one. I came to dinner yesterday evening at 7 p.m., and shall go up at eleven to-morrow, having a good deal to do in town to-morrow and having promised to dine again at Holland House. We went to service this morning at a most beautiful church, in a beautiful country village, Chislehurst, where the dead Towns- hends, the family of Lord Sydney, are deposited, and where the eminent Sir Francis Walsingham — of whom I have had occasion to write a good deal — lies buried. His daughter, by the way, was the wife of Sir Philip Sidney — I don't know 288 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. VIII. whether that preux chevalier was a relation of this Lord Sydney or not — besides being the wife of two other gentlemen successively, so that she did not break her heart for the illustrious Philip. I saw Lady Wm. Eussell the other day, and Lady Palmerston came in, looking as fresh and talking as gently and smiling as sweetly and giving her left hand as cordially as if she were a score or two less than her eighty summers, which were well sounded last May. Harry Sargent and his wife and son are at Maurigy's, and I have had much, pleasure in talking with them as often as I could find them in their room. I dined the other day at the Athenaeum with Kinglake, and I believe that is all I have to record. Tuesday I have agreed to go to Ampthill, where I shall stop but a day or two, for I am impatient now to know what I had better decide to do. To his Wife. Grove Farm, Leatlierhead, September Ist, 1867. My deaeest Maby, — I am down at this charming little place again for a couple of days. As I have already told you about the place, and as you know the inhabitants rather well than otherwise, there is no need of my saying more of my temporary whereabouts than that I think I enjoy myself here more than I do anywhere — away from home. The weather is very fine and the air delicious, the country beautiful. We are going to take a long walk after an hour or two, in which I shall earn my eight o'clock dinner — as my breakfast is always very light and my luncheon is a glass of sherry and three Boston crackers. I am getting very entertaining, I perceive, not to say sensational. By the way, what an amazingly clever book in the sensational line is * Black Sheep.' I read Vol. II. in going up to Ampthill, and it was so enchaining that I couldn't leave off even in the fly which brought me from the station to the door. It was luckily finished then. Otherwise I should have declined r 1807.] LORD WENSLEYDALE. 289 getting out until I came to " Finis." This brings me by easy and artistic transition to the dear old Wensleydales. (In a parenthesis let me answer your question as to who wrote * Cometh up as a flower.' It is a Miss Broughton, of a good family in shire — I forget which — a young lady. As you mentioned it, I took up the second volume this morning and read it through to the bitter end. It shows talent, originality, gushingness and go, certainly. I should think the author might do even better another time.) I believe I told you all there was to tell of the party at the Sydneys'. I came up on Monday, and that day dined at Holland House again. Thursday I went to the Wensleydales' as aforesaid. There was no party, as I knew beforehand. There had been people staying there when I was first invited and could not accept. However, I was quite as well pleased. Certainly the spec- tacle of this extremely kind-hearted and most intensely mutually affectionate old couple is as beautiful a picture in its way as the more romantic and commonplace portraits in the spasmodic novels. Washington Irving or the Spectator could have made the world smile and weep at the same time by depicting them. The second day there was a great party of school children, two or three hundred in number, with an unlimited number of school teachers and country parsons, to disport in the grounds, play games, and be fed with tea and bread and butter — mostly children of the humbler classes, day labourers and the like. They enjoyed themselves from 2 to 7 p.m. very thoroughly. Simultaneously there was an afternoon tea party of the neighbouring gentry from the country round. Among them was Mrs. Thynne (Edith Sheridan), who looked rather prettier than ever. Also there were Lady Cowper, Lady Florence and Lady Amabel, who by the way came over and dined the day before with us. Ever most lovingly yours, J. L. M. VOL. II. 290 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. YIII. To Ms Wife. Maurigy's, September 6ih, 1867. My deakest Maky, — Your long, interesting letter of September 2nd gave me infinite pleasure. Only it increased my home-sickness, for I am every day more and more aware how much I depend upon you, and how impossible it is for me to get on long without being able to consult with you and talk with you about things important and unimportant. Not to put too poetical a point upon it, a scissor parted from its other half is not a more useless article than I am in my present isolated condition. This I believe is the real reason, apart from the fact that it is not easy to write interesting letters in railway carriages and in country houses, where they are always amusing you, — of my comparative taciturnity. I will try to do better, but really in the circumstances it seems to me that a letter every four and a half days, according to a very accurate calculation which I have just made in the interests of statistical science, is not so very bad. When we come together again — and thank Heaven the period is fast diminishing — we shall see which of us has been the most copious correspondent. I have just returned from Westbrook Hay (the Stratford de Eedcliffes'), where I have spent three or four days (from Tuesday dinner to Friday morning) most agreeably. Nothing can be kinder or more affectionate almost than the Stratfords. She insists on my coming again and again, wanted me only to go to London and come back again the same day, and so on. He is charming, interesting and straightforward, as he always was — a fine specimen of a manly, incorruptible, prejudiced, choleric, handsome, sympathetic, diplomatic, thoughtful, wrong-thinking octogenarian of the elder epoch. By the way, Lyons was to come, but was summoned to Balmoral. I should have liked to talk American politics with him privately. I generally eschew them with others. The other guests were the dear delightful Stanhopes — three ; Professor Owen, whom I like most hugely — we met him, if you remember, at the Bates's at Sheen — a tall, thin, cadaverous, lantern-jawed, bright- eyed, long-chinned, bald-headed old man, full of talk on his 1867.] WESTBROOK HAY. 291 own subject of the animal creation, a great friend and admirer of Agassiz — an immense man, I humbly think, and ever ready to be pumped on scientific matters : I only wish I had pro- fited by my opportunities of listening. Miss C and Miss M were very cordial and nice. The eldest was away on a visit. A pretty little Irishwoman, Lady Sophia Macnamara, and her husband and Lord Beauchamp completed the party. Our days were passed in eating and drinking and going about to look at country places — Ashridge (the family. Lady Marian Alford, and her son. Lord Brownlow, were absent) and Moor Park, where Lady Ebury did the honours and gave us tea. Lord Ebury, brother of Lord Westminster, was absent. On returning this morning I find an invitation from Tom Baring to Norman Court, for now — which I decline, being engaged at the Sturgises'. Another from Lady Cowper to Wrest for the 14th. Lovingly yours, J. L. M. To Ms Wife. Frampton Court, Dorchester, September 19th, 1867. My dearest Mary, — To answer your most important sug- gestions first, I inform you that I hope to embrace you and my dear children by the 1st of October at Geneva. I will also say nothing of politics ; we can talk enough of that when we meet. Alas ! I fear we shall never again have those long walks and talks under the chestnut trees in the Husarzewski Palais. I came to this delightful house last night. I shall write to the Duchess of Argyll, to Mr. Howard, to the Wensleydales, and many others to whom I have engaged to make visits, that I have decided to skedaddle to the Continent. I have grave doubts whether it would be worth while to get myself steeped again in the fascinations of Albion. The cultivated luxury of these regions has poison in it, I fear. It is well to enjoy it once — twice — even thrice, as I have done. But, after all, one is an exotic here, and it is difficult to become more than a u 2 292 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIIL half-hardy plant in an atmosphere and soil where one is not indigenous. Nothing can exceed the kindness and hospitality which I have received from everybody, and I haven't heard one unpleasant word from any one. I believe that my last letter to Lily told my adventures up to my arrival at Madresfield Court. I passed five days there most delightfully. The only other guests were the Ponsonbys, who went away a day before I did. They were friendly, sociable people. Madresfield is an old moated house, dating far back into the Plantagenet days ; but of those days nothing is left in the house but the moat and the foundation walls. The rest is a modern structure, to which the present proprietor i& putting the last touches ; and it is really an imposing pic- turesque house in very excellent taste. The estates are immense. A year or two hence, when the great drawing- rooms are finished, the gardens laid out about the house, and the lumber cleared away, it will be one of the most charming places in England. I have vaguely promised to visit it again at some such epoch, but I suspect that this is a very hazy future indeed. I like Lord Beauchamp very much. He is rather an homme serieux, and excessively mediaeval, genial, companionable, and genuine — very good-looking, very much of a scholar and student. You will like to hear how I have been passing my time. Well, one day we went — the Ponsonbys and we two — to visit Witley, the magnificent place of Lord Dudley, which I did not admire. They say that £200,000 have been spent in remodelling and furnishing it, since he bought it of Lord Foley, brother of our Vienna colonel. But it is altogether too smart, gilt gingerbready, for my taste. We ascended to the summit of the Malvern Hills, and enjoyed the view over the smiling hills and vales of Hereford- shire on one side, with the hills of Wales in the background, and the wide sweep of beautiful, highly-cultivated hills and dales of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and I know not ifhat else. Another day I went with Lord Beauchamp and a ve^ intelligent clergyman, Mr. Munn, to Worcester, to visit 1867.] VISIT TO MADRESFIELD. 293 the cathedral, which is a not very admirable, but still in many respects historically interesting, church. We also visited and went duly through the famous Worcestershire potteries ; but I daresay you know more about Worcestershire porcelain now than I do. On the road I saw a splendid villa built by the proprietor of the Worcestershire Sauce. Subsequently I went with Lord Beauchamp to Tewkesbury, famous for the bloody meadow fight where " false, fleeting, perjured Clarence " committed his celebrated stabbing exploits, for its beautiful, stately, most imposing Norman abbey, and for its mustard. I will give you no more descriptions. We drove back thirteen miles to Madresfield, stopping a moment in the gloaming to inspect a most delicious old timber-skeletoned, many-gabled, antique old manor house, called Severn End, because on the Severn — a property of the Lechmere family, a branch of which once lived in Boston, and gave the name to Lechmere Point in our harbour. Lord Beauchamp, on my stating this, said that he would tell the fact to Sir E. Lechmere. God bless you, my dearest dear, and my children ! I hunger and thirst to see you again, which will be in a fortnight, I hope, at Geneva. I will try to write to-morrow. With love and remembrances to all, Ever your most loving J. L. M. To his Wife. Frampton Court, Dorchester, September 23rd, 1867. My deaeest Mary, — My last was from this place, dated 19th September. I have not much to add concerning my plans. I expect to leave England by Tuesday, 1st October, and to make not more than one night's delay before joining you in Geneva. If I should be obliged to make any little change, I will telegraph. So please don't be frightened or flurried in the least degree if you get one of those villainous despatches. It will be perfectly innocuous in such a case. 294 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. VIII. I have just been sending off my notes of regret to invita- tions for visits in various parts of the country. I don't think there is any danger of my losing my Ame- rican feelings and my Eepublican tastes, and I trust that I can look on these scenes of exquisite and intelligent luxury objectively, as the Germans say, without confounding the characters of spectator and actor. I trust never to ask my contemporaries to get out of my way for fear I should walk over them, because I have been living among the Brobdignags. Moreover, it is only in one sense that these are Brobdignags. And I have a sincere belief that a Brobdignag people like ours is the most gigantic phenomenon that traveller or philosopher has ever seen or imagined, and that it is because the giant is so big and so near, and grows so fast, and feels his bigness so much more and more every day, that one sees the superficial defects of his complexion and the warts on his nose. I am most sincere when I say that I should never wish America to be Anglicised, in the aristocratic sense. Much as I can appreciate and enjoy aesthetically, sentimentally, and sensuously the infinite charm, refinement, and grace of Eng- lish life, especially country life, yet I feel too keenly what a fearful price is paid by the English people in order that this splendid aristocracy, with their parks and castles, and shoot- ings and fishings and fox-huntings, their stately and un- limited hospitality, their lettered ease and learned leisure, may grow fat, ever to be in danger of finding my judgment corrupted by it. At the same time, it is as well not to indulge too long and too copiously in the Circean draughts of English hospitality. I do wish I could convey to you a spiritual photograph of this charming place. You know the Sheridans ; she is so simple-hearted, kind-hearted, good, and yet so strenuous, straightforward, with cultivated tastes, appreciation of ex- cellence, charitable, conscientious, and true. As for Sheridan, he is sunshine itself, and you are warmed on a rainy day by knowing, that he is in the same room with you. He is so 1867] FRAMPTON COURT. 295 handsome, gentle, genial, with as much real charm I think as it is possible for a man to have. I intended to stay here a couple of days, but I have got to consider myself almost a part of the establishment ; and although to-day completes my week, they won't hear of my going just yet. To-morrow we are going by rail on a little excursion to Weymouth and Portland. We were to have done so to-day, but a rainy equinoctial storm seems to have set in, and it is postponed until to-morrow. I have a little business in town, which can be done in two or three days, and I should like to pass one night at the Lefevres', and see the Milmans (who are their next-door neighbours) once more. I also hope to go to the Sturgises' for one night. There has been some little company here, Mr. and Mrs. Dawson Damer. She is the daughter of Lord Kokeby, whose place we went to see when I was staying at the Stratford de Redcli£fes'. He is a Crimean colonel, son of (I believe) Lord Portarlington, jolly, friendly, and noisy, knowing everybody in the world intimately, from Mr. Jerome and young Bennett of the New York Herald to the Prince of Wales and the Emperor of the French. Two or three other ladies, one of the young Villiers, another young officer or two, and last and not least, Mrs. Norton. She is, I think, in pretty good spirits, and particularly agreeable. She continues to take it for granted that I am going to stay here as long as she does, and that I am to make a long visit at Keir, where she goes next month. I have undeceived her, but she continues to know best. She talks very much about you all every day. Two sons of the Sheridans left us yesterday — one a young cavalry man, remarkably handsome, gentleman-like ; the other, Algernon, a jolly young naval hero, very fat, funny and intelligent, evidently the noisy favourite of every- body far and near. Carlotta is here, and she trots about quietly and gently, and seems very obedient and well-dis- posed. The place is charming: a square grey stone house, with £ne library, big dining-room, drawing-room, conservatories, aviaries, and a wilderness of bedrooms; grounds laid out 296 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII. with remarkable taste, beautiful verdure, splendid oaks and beeches ; a smooth and silver trout stream, the Frome, sliding sweetly along the lawn. From Frome comes the name of Frampton, which is a little bit of a village, with gable-ended, honeysuckled, geranium-decked, ivy-mantled cottages, and an exquisite church beneath the yew trees' shade, as pretty a village as can be found even in England. There, I have written enough of this weak-minded rubbish, and had better conclude. I am delighted at the thought of seeing you so soon again, my dearest ; and as that happy time is so near at hand, I will say nothing of politics or plans, particularly as I have for the moment precious little to say. Mr. Sheridan has been wondering why and who has been sending him the Boston Daily Advertiser, which he has kept carefully in his study, and has pored over conscientiously to find out some passage in which he might be interested. On the cover of one in the waste-basket I have just showed him the little yellow blob as big as a thumb-nail on which the name of yours truly was printed. Thus the mystery was solved. Also the mystery for you that they have not been reaching you regularly. God bless you, dearest, and my children three. Ever your loving J. L. M. From Earl Bussell. December ith, 1867. Mr DEAR Motley, — I write to you, in the first place, to thank you for yoiir kind present of your new volumes, and, in the next place, to express to you the great pleasure I have derived from the one volume (the third) I have had time to read. Nothing more true or more just than your delineation of the characters and proceedings of Philip the Second, Eliza- beth, and Henry the Fourth. There is no one who unites our sympathy so much as William the Silent ; but the skill in war of Prince Maurice and in negotiation of BarnevelcJ, together with the courage and perseverance of both in assert- 1868.] ENGAGEMENT OF MR. ODO RUSSELL. 297 ing the independence of their country, are admirably pour- trayed, so that I shan't wish you to go to sleep again ; and I trust your Kepublic, though it has such trials still to go through, will never again encounter such dangers and such conflicts as the late civil war brought forth. If you ever again enter the ranks of diplomacy, I hope we may see you here. Adams, I suspect, must be nearly tired of us. Amberley is delighted with his tour. With my best regards to your family, I remain, Yours faithfully, KUSSELL. To Lady William Russell. Rome, 7 Casa Zuccaro, Gi Via Sistina, March 1th, 1868. Dear Lady William, — I will write you a line this morning, having not exactly a respite from pain, but feeling a slight slackening of the grip with which the foul fiend has held me for these three months past. I cannot bear that you should think me ungrateful or un- mindful of your constant kindness and friendship, and I hope that Odo has told you how nothing but physical incapacity to put pen to paper would have kept me silent so long, especially as I had a most kind and affectionate letter of yours to reply to almost immediately after my arrival in this place. But more than all I have wished to congratulate you on Odo's approaching marriage. You cannot doubt that so interesting an event to him has awakened my warm sympathy, and that I most sincerely wish him joy. Not having been able to go into the world at all this winter, it is only within a few days that I have had the pleasure of making Lady Emily's acquaintance, and I am glad to be able to congratulate you warmly on having gained so charming a daughter without having lost a son. I know that Odo is the apple of your eye, animss dimidium tuse, and I am delighted that his happiness 298 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. VIII. is soon to increase yours. I thought Lord Clarendon was looking rather delicate, but he was as delightful as he always is. Lady Clarendon as agreeable and attractive as ever. I regretted that my constant seclusion had allowed me but a single glimpse of them. I hope most earnestly that the winter winds of your bleak island have treated you with tolerable civility, and not visited you too roughly. I should like so much to hear of yourself from yourself. I don't dare to ask, I don't even hope that you will ever write to me again, but I assure you that writing has been to me an impossibility. Business letters I have occasionally dictated with much effort. The hag, fiend, fury — Megeera-Tisiphone-Alecto all in one poisoner sorceress Canidia — who has been torturing me, is named Neuralgia. Neuralgia of the chest and back. In the clutches of this demon I have lain for eight weeks, and have envied St. Lawrence on his gridiron, and Montezuma on his bed of coals, as being in comparatively cool and refreshing circumstances. One-half, the right half of the nerve-network of the back, breast, side, and arm has been one eternal pain, and I have been howling like Prometheus oime ! oime ! But enough of my groanings and gruntings ; and I should not have said so much of them, had I not wished to prove to you that if I have forfeited one of the great enjoyments of my life — that of receiving a letter from you — when it is not in my power to converse with you face to face, it is from no negligence, no wilful shortcoming, no lack in constant interest in you and all that is dear to you. There is not much stirring in my hermitage — I don't see the Storys half as much as I wish to do, for it is almost never that I can accept their hospitable invitations. His ' Peabody ' is an immense success, and I hope that the London folk will have the sense to discover that they have got a great work of art, really a triumph of genius, in the smoky atmosphere of Thread- needledom — a great statue of a good man. There have been several conquerors and statesmen, from time to time, on this planet, but there has never been but one Peabody. No man before, I believe, ever gave away in his lifetime one and a half million pounds sterling for the good of his fellow- 18C8.] ROME. 299 creatures. This he has done, and he hasn't yet stopped giving. He is a Christian, if there ever was or is to be one. The precept of Socrates, uttered 400 B.C., Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you, which Philosopher Kant denounces as folly and humbug, has at last found one practical expounder. The Houghtons have just reached Kome. The " Bird of Paradox " is fuller of paradoxes than ever. I delight in him immensely. He has a fine intellect and a warm heart, full of kindness and LeutseligJceit, a thinker and a good talker. My wife and daughter beg to send you their warmest love. Lily is, I am glad to say, a good deal better, and has found much comfort in going very constantly to the San Onofrio Hospital, to minister to the poor wounded Garibaldians. The remnant of those left alive are going to- day to Florence, and her occupation will be gone. Most aflfectionately yours, Varius Prometheus Maesyas. From Mr. George Ticknor. Boston, March 22nd, 18C8. My dear Mr. Motley, — Your nephew, Mr. Stackpole, was at your request good .enough to send me above a week ago the third and fourth volumes of your * History of the Nether- lands,' and I intended to have acknowledged the leceipt of them at once and to have thanked you for remembering me in the distribution of your treasures ; but when a man is past seventy-six he does what he can and not what he may most desire to do. However, in justice to myself, I must say that I had been beforehand with you, and had not only run through my copy but lent it to my old friend General Thayer, the maker of West Point, with whom I have been familiarly inti- mate sixty-three years, and who at eighty-three is as capable of enjoying and valuing your book as he was at fifty. I thank you therefore on his account as well as on my own. But 800 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. YIII. I liave been over it only in haste thus far, and when I see you^ — you must come soon or I shall be gone — I intend to be able to speak of it more becomingly to yourself in person. At present I will only venture to say that I took great pleasure in all that related to France. It was newer ground to me than much of the rest. Mrs. Ticknor desires to be kindly remembered to Mrs. Motley as well as yourself — so do I. Yours faithfully, Geo. Ticknok. ( 301 ) CHAPTEE IX. UNITED STATES MINISTER TO ENGLAND. Bctam to Boston — "Washington — Interview with Mr. Sumner and other members of Government — General Thomas — Washington Society — Dinner with Mr. Evarts — M. de Magalhacns, M. Berthemy, General Lawrence, etc. — Letter to Dr. O. W. Holmes on Mr. Motley's appointment as Minister to England — Letter from Mr. J. R. Lowell introducing Mr. Spelraan — Letters from Count Bismarck — Invitation to Varzin — Mr. George Bancroft — Letter to the Duchesa of Argyll — London fog — Confidence in Mr. Gladstone's Government — Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland — Letter from Dr. O. W. Holmes — The Club^Emerson — Longfellow. [In June, 1868, Mr. Motley returned with his family to Boston. In the autumn he made an important speech in favour of the election of General Grant to the Presidency, and in the following winter he delivered an address before the New York Historical Society. In the spring of 1869 he was appointed by President Grant Minister to England.] To Us Wife. Washington, Friday morning^ February 5th, 1869. My DEAREST Mary, — I am writing a line before breakfast merely to tell you that I arrived most safely at 5.30 yesterday afternoon. It was really impossible for me to write to you before. The journey was perfectly comfortable. The snow persisted in a weak-minded way, amounting to nothing at all, for the first three or four hours ; then gave up the attempt altogether, and faded into a mild rain. We got to New York at five exactly. In the evening there was thunder and light- 302 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX. ning, with heavy rain showers, altogether befitting the tropical winter. I found an excellent room all ready for me at the Brevoort. The next morning at 8.40 the journey begins from the Ferry to Jersey City ; and we reached Washington at 5.30. I mention these facts for your future benefit — not as interesting otherwise. I had no cause to regret my exclusion from the compartment car, for the general through car to Washington was high, airy, very clean, not overheated, and not more than half full. There were one or two men and brothers comfortably seated in it, and not a being spat. The floor was of inlaid wood, the roof provided with venti- lators. I found my host kindly waiting for me on the plat- form, to take me up in his coupe to his comfortable and elegant mansion. Sumner came to dine at six, and we all talked comfortably till ten, when he went off to work at his own house, and then Hooper read me a speech, which he is to speak probably to-day — a very sound, sagacious, and practical speech, in excellent style, clear and simple, altogether very creditable to him, and which I think will do good. I beg you to read it when it comes out. It shall be sent to you when delivered. It was understood by Grinnell, whom I saw in New York, that General and Mrs. Grant, who accompanies him, were to stay with the Hamilton Fishes. But Sumner said last night that Mrs. Grant told him they had decided to go to an hotel. Whether anything is to be discussed or decided in this visit about the Cabinet I don't know ; this I do know, that up to that moment — i.e., Wednesday night — he had not said one Avord to Hamilton Fish on the subject, nor to Grinnell, nor to any one. Mrs. Grant asked Sumner on Monday if he knew anything about the Cabinet, to which of course he said no, for he knows no more than you do, and she added that the General said to her that day, " Jule, if you say anything more about it I'll get leave of absence, go off West, and not come back till the 4th of March." I am, of course, unable to guess the conundrum, and am tired of trying, and give it up like the rest of the world. I am called to breakfast, and 1869.] VISIT TO WASHINGTON. 803 must break off suddenly, else I might not be able to write to- day at all, 80 good-bye and God bless you, dearest. Love to the girls. Ever thine, J. L. M. To his Wife. Washington, February 8th, 1869. My dearest Mary, — I wrote to you Friday morning, and I have really nothing to say as yet worth your reading. That evening we had Governor Boutwell and Senator Conkling to dinner. Next day Sumner had a little dinner; the only guests besides ourselves being Under-Secretary Hunter and Senator Frelinghuysen. Sumner's house is arranged with great taste, and is a very pretty establishment. It is quite a museum of art. He has a good many very good paintings and a vast number of very valuable engravings. The dinner was very good, and all the appointments excellent. Sunday we had Senator Howe, whom I like as much as ever, finding him very sympathetic and agreeable ; Mr. Judd, the former Minister to Berlin, a very lively, jolly little man, quick, in- telligent, and most friendly, who had a great deal to say of Bismarck's affection for me, and that he was always talking about me, and so on ; General Thomas, the hero of Chickamauga and Nashville, a splendid, soldierly-looking man, very friendly. All have an intense feeling about the Seward-McCracken business, and it seems as if nobody could ever express enough indignation about it. I have been up at the Capitol once, going on the floor of both houses. I was introduced to about twenty senators and as many representatives. I really don't think I could amuse you by describing them, even if I could recollect their characteristics. I went to the Magalhaens,^ of course, sent up my card, heard a wild shriek, and he came flying down the staircase to pre- > M. do Magalhaens, then Brazilian Minister at "Washington, had been a colleague of Mr. Motley in Austria. 304 MOTLEY'S LETTEES. [Chap. IX. cipitate himself into my arms, followed by the whole family. We had a meeting full of efifusion and expansion. It was really refreshing to find people so glad to see one. I went to a reception at the Colfaxes' on Friday evening. They were both very friendly, and I was introduced to a good many people. The same evening we went to a reception at Mrs. McCuUoch's, where also there were a lot of introductions. I made a few calls on senators and on some of the dips with Sumner. I found Berthemy at home, and liked him. Thorn- ton, just before I came into Sumner's, had been waiting to see me there half an hour. We called there subsequently, but he was still out. We saw Mrs. Thornton. I saw Favernay a moment at Berthemy's. Lee has been to see me two or three times, likewise Judge Loring and Mrs. Loring, who thought you were here. I am going to call on Evarts to-day, that is to say, to leave a card, as he too waited some time at Sumner's the same day, and expressed a strong wish to make my acquaintance. I saw Stanton at his house yesterday. He has a bad attack of bronchial asthma, but was glad to receive visitors. He was so exactly what I expected to find him, and the girls know him so well, that I shan't describe him. I went last evening to a large ball or dancing party at Senator Morgan's, who has a fine and very large house close by ours. There were not a great many interesting people there. I was introduced to a great many des deux sexes at autres. Ever most affectionately yours, J. L. M. To his Wife. Washington, Monday, February 15th, 1869. My deakest Maky, — I can speak at first of nothing but the weather. I am writing by a wide-open window, without a spark on the hearth. Thermometer at ten o'clock 60° in the shade. Saturday and Sunday were like the finest winter days of Nice — finer than Eome, because there, when the weather is 1869.] WASHINGTON. 305 perfectly clear, as it has been here, there is always a sharp tramontana, and the difference between sna and shade is great. Here there is a faint breeze from the south, and the atmosphere cloudless. Last night it rained in torrents — a warm summer rain — and to-day it is like a fine morning in I\Iay. Enough of the weather, which I hope will be only half as fine when you arrive. Saturday I dined at the Evarts'. He is very agreeable, lively, full of fun, very good company, brilliant, ambitious. Mrs. Evarts is agreeable and ladylike. I went in to dinner with Mrs. Senator Sherman, who sat on the Attorney-General's left ; on his right was Mrs. Thornton ; next to her, Sumner. On Mrs. Evarts's right was the Chief Justice ; on her left, Mr. Thornton. The other guests were Senator Sherman, Senator Williams of Oregon, mit frau; Mr. and Mrs. Riggs, Miss Chase, Senator Frelinghuysen, sammt frau ; Miss Hoar, sister of our Massachusetts judge, staying in the house, and one or two others. The dinner was good. There were twenty-two ; and the table was placed diagonally across the room, a dodge to gain space which I have never seen before. I have not much to report about this banquet. I liked J\rrs. Sherman very much, as I do her husband. The General is expected here next week. He is brother to the Senator, and I shall like to make his acquaintance. Everybody says he is a man of genius, and very magnetic. I like the Thorntons. He has been two or three times to see me, but I never met him before. I shall go there to-day. Yesterday, Hooper and I both dined at Berthemy's, the French Envoy, a man's dinner. Cerrutti, the Italian Minister, Bille, Favemay, Sumner, Ford, and Ward, an unfortunate Envoy from the Ucited States of Colombia, supposed to be a General and a President in his own country, but who literally speaks nothing but Spanish, not one word of French or English, and with whom conversation is therefore limited. General Lawrence was also there, with whom I dine Wednesday. He lost an arm in the war. Berthemy is a serious, agreeable, thinking, observing, capable man, who has probably a considerable future before him. His present ambition is the Embassy at Constantinople. jNfy dinner to-day is with the VOL. II. X 306 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. IX, Magalhaens, at which Ulysses is expected. By the way, he dines out no more after Lawrence's dinner. I went up Satur- day morning to make a call on Mrs. Grant, it being her reception day. We found the General there likewise. The room was so dark, the curtains and blinds being closed tight on account of Mrs. Grant's eyes, that I really, coming out of the intense sunshine, couldn't see either of them plainly. There were many visitors coming and going, so that beyond a few formal words I saw and heard nothing. Ever thine, J. L. M. To his Wife. Washington, Wednesday, February llth, 1869. My dearest Mary, — I forget where my last letter left off. I think I told you that I dined Sunday with Berthemy ; Mon- day I dined at the Magalhaens'. Mrs. Grant didn't come ; she has as bad a cold as you, I fear. We got General Grant to talk very glibly of his Mexican adventures in youth and Western life, and he was very nice and genial. The other guests were the Gerolts, General Lawrence and his wife, ""a pleasing woman, blonde and young ; Badeau, the Portuguese Minister, Berthemy, and I don't remember any others. The dining- room is small, holding hardly more than a dozen or fourteen, and a tight fit at that. After dinner we went up, four or five of us, to Magalhaens' study and smoked. Grant was chatty, genial, and nice. Yesterday, Hooper and I both dined with Blaque Bey, the Turkish Envoy, a facile, knowing, agreeable sort of man, like many of those Levantines. He is a Catholic, so he told me, because he happened to be born so. He would as lief have been a Mussulman, only the renegades are not well con- sidered, only their conversion is held a triumph for the Church of Mahomet. The party was of men only. The company was Berthemy, Thornton, Sumner, Delfosse the Belgian Minister, General Schenk, and the Portugee. I think 1869.] DINNER PARTIES. 307 these were all, except a secretary or two. It was rather a good and jolly dinner, and it seems like old times to be among dips again, who all receive me as a colleague and old friend. Berthemy had a good deal to say about the McCrac- ken affair, and of the immense sensation it produced, and the indignation excited in Washington and all over the country, far greater, he said, than it was possible for me to conceive of. He had written at that time a long despatch to his Government entirely about that incident, and he attributed very much of the subsequent unpopularity of Seward and Johnson to their conduct on that occasion. To-day I dine with the Lawrences, to meet Grant. To-morrow we have half a dozen gentlemen to dine here. It is the greatest dining-place I have seen since London. I could run on for an hour more, dear Mary, but I really must stop short, as I shall not accomplish half the nothings that must be done to-day. God bless you. To his Wife. Washington, February 19 Mra. Motley died Dec. 31, 1874. 1875.] DEATH OF MRS. MOTLEY. 383 To Dr. 0. W. Holmes. Frainpton Court, Dorchester, March 29th, 1875. My dear Holmes, — I must try to write a single line to thank you for your letters — all of which were very grateful to me. I must also thank you for that most touching and tender tribute to her in the paper which moved me deeply. You can hardly conceive of the intense emotion which every word of appreciation of her causes in my heart. I think but little ot myself. Indeed it almost seems as if there were no such person now — so completely was my identity in many ways blended with hers. The loss of that almost life-long companionship with one much nobler, purer, wiser, and truer than I could ever hope to become, has left me a wreck in which I can take but little interest. I am than kful for the many expressions of sympathy with my misery which I receive, for I know how warmly and tenderly they are meant, but I find the only possible alleviations in hearing her virtues and high qualities acknowledged by those who had known her best and longest. All that you say is most truly, delicately, and affectionately said. But you could not know, none but myself and God only ever knew, all that she was. There is hardly any one to whom I should so much long to speak of her as I should to yourself. You knew her so well and so long, and she had such true affection and admiration for you, that I should feel myself justified in speaking in a way that to many would seem exaggeration. Yet I know that I could not if I tried even to do justice to the highest qualities of her character, and I should not be afraid of speaking of them to you. She stands before me now almost transfigured. Every hour she becomes to me more and more a kind of religion. I cannot believe that the simple and unwavering religious faith with whose aid she confronted death with such unaffected courage and simplicity, and bore with such gentle patience the prolonged tortures of a most painful malady, during which her chief thoughts, as they had been all her life, were for others rather than herself, was all 384 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. XI. delusion and mockery. And yet I am compelled to struggle daily with doubt which often turns to despair, and to cling to hopes which vanish almost as soon as they form themselves. I expect to come home in June for a few months, and trust that I may often have the chance of talking with you. I cannot write of her, for my physical weakness makes it almost impossible, but I should like to speak of her to one who would at least not wonder at the kind of worship I feel for her ; and I should like to speak to you, and hear you speak of themes which you as a thinker and poet, a physiologist, a man of heart, and my life-long friend are so singularly competent to discuss. I am not strong enough to say more to-day. I hope you will write to me as often as you are able. Kindest regards to your wife. Always affectionately yours, J. L. M. From Mr. Carlyle. 5, Cheyne Eow, Chelsea, Afril 19th, 1875. Dear Motley, — Your letter of Saturday last touches me to the very heart ; not for many years have I had any word addressed to me which stirs up so many deep and tender feel- ings. Alas ! I know too well what depths of suffering you are struggling with ; how dark and solitary, is all the universe to you — suddenly eclipsed in this manner ; and how vain is all human sympathy, how impossible all human help. Courage, courage, nevertheless ! Time and pious patience do bring relief by slow degrees. Oblivion can never come, should never come ; but the piercing vehemency of these feelings will at length subside into composure, and only a voice of love, in- finitely mournful, yet infinitely beautiful, be the requiem of those we have lost for this world. Immortality itself, with all its infinitudes of splendour, if there were to be no meeting again, would be worth nothing or even less to us. As Goethe says, " Wir heissen euch hoffen." It is a real regret to me that you are not to be in London 1876.] DEATH OF MRS. MOTLEY. 385 " in a week or two," that there is no chance of my seeing you for the present ; I feel for my own behoof, too, as if there were no man with whom I might have so much of genial, profitable, and cordial discourse as even with yourself, when bodily illness permitted you. I was too procrastinative and inert while you were still in my neighbourhood ; but it is a fixed purpose that should a new possibility be offered, I will make a far more effectual use of it. God bless you, help you, and be with you always. Believe me ever, if it be the least comfort to you, Yours, with deep sympathy, affection, and respect, T. Carlyle. To Mrs. W. W. Wadsworth, America. New Lodge, Windsor Forest, January 3rd, 1876. My dear Emmeline, — You wrote me a most kind and touch- ing letter exactly a month ago. I should have answered it much sooner were writing as easy to me as it once was. But the physical discomfort which seems to be in the arm (although I know very well that the arm is a liar, and the real culprit is the brain) has made me the worst correspondent in the world. I used to tell my beloved Mary that she would lose all her friends, if she persisted in the absolute abstention from all letter writing, which came over her in the later days of her life. But she felt instinctively perhaps that it was impossible for her to lose a friend. No one who ever loved her could forget her, however silent in absence she might be, and cer- tainly she never allowed a friend to slide out of her heart with any lapse of time. No one knows that better than you, dear Emmeline, to whom she was always so fondly attached. I did not mean to speak of her at all this morning, but as she is always present with me, it was natural that she should join with me in these New Year's greetings to you. All that you say of Lily gives me great pleasure. She has certainly been a most devoted and loving daughter to her mother and to me, and I sincerely hope and honestly believe that her future VOL. II. 2 u 386 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XL happiness is as safe as can be expected in this world, and that is saying as much and hoping as much as ought to be said or hi )ped. For certainly happiness is not, and was never intended to be, the object of human life. I was expressing this thought to Carlyle the other day, and he replied " Certainly, if to be happy in this world was the reason for man's being put here, the Maker of it is a wretched blunderer." Meantime, I am contriving as well as may be to accommo- date myself to my new circumstances, and I must say that no human being could be more loving and more devoted to another, than my dear Susie is to me. We haven't yet fixed on a scheme of life, except temporarily. We are staying for a few days with our old and kind friend, Madame Van de Weyer, and there are some agreeable people here or coming to-day, among others the Princess Louise and Lord Lome, whom I always like to meet. She is singularly sympathetic and attractive, and was always very kind to my dear Mary. We shall make one or two more visits, and then, until Easter, we have taken a small house or, rather, the best part of it, in Clarges Street. Our house in Seamore Place is to be sold. Mter Easter, when the London season begins, in which turmoil I never mean to take part again, having neither the health nor the heart for it, Susie and I go down to Dorsetshire, to stay a couple of months with Mary, in the quietest and most secluded manner possible. And I am going to try if I can do a little head-work, or to satisfy myself that the hole made in my skull three years ago is beyond mending. " Not as broad as a barn door, or as deep as a well, but it will do," I am afraid. At any rate, we shall have the pleasure of being with Mary, and enjoying the society of my little eldest granddaughter, who is certainly the most dainty and exquisite little creature, to my thinking, in the universe. But this you will think my dotage. I am quite ashamed of the egotism of this letter. If I should pick all the I's out of it, the whole would vanish into thin air. I hope the air of Cannes suits you. That climate is cer- tainly a very positive one. It either suits or it doesn't. It is also a treacherous one to those with weak chests. That 187G.] THE MONOTONY OP LECTURING. 387 mistral runs you through the lungs, even while the sun is grinning in your face, as it does all day long. It is funny to think of the sun. That orb has not been seen here for weeks, and we have a daily deluge. I hope you see a good deal of the dear Harris's. They are most charming people. I love them all dearly, and wish I could look in upon them to- morrow. Pray greet them affectionately from Susie and me. Has Herbert inveigled them into his yacht, for I don't think, for an Admiral's daughters, they are specially nautical ? Do you know Dr. Frank ? If so, pray give him and Lady Agnes our warmest remembrances. He is a most superior man, intellectual and sympathetic, besides being a very skilful and devoted physician. You don't say anything of your health, but I hope that the sunshine has done you good, and I believe that the climate must suit you. Susie joins me in most loving remembrances, and with kindest regards to Herbert, believe me Always, dear Emmeline, Your very affectionate friend, J. L. M. From Dr. 0. W. Holmes. Boston, May 8th, 1876. My dear Motley, — I am most devoutly thankful that my seven months' lectures are at last over, and I am gradually beginning to come to myself like one awakening from a trance or a fit of intoxication. You know that the steady tramp of a regiment would rock the Menai Bridge from its fastenings, and so all military bodies break the step in crossing it. This reiteration of lectures in even march, month after month, pro- duces some such oscillations of one's mind, and one longs after a certain time to break up their uniformity. If they kept on long enough. Harvard would move over to Somerville. Your letter of March 26th gave me great pleasure. It relieved me from the fear that you were condemned to the disuse of your eyes, which had seemed to me under the circumstances a trial 2 0 2 388 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XI. too hard to think of. I am rejoiced to find that you can read, even though you have to use glasses — as I have had to do these twenty-six years. I was pleased, too, to know that you were thinking of a little possible work for the summer. If it is in place of another visit to America, Boston, Nahant, Home, I should personally regret it more than I can tell you, for I count the hours I passed with you last summer among the sweetest, the holiest, the dearest, and, in one sense, the happiest of all my social life. It seems strange to speak of this happi- ness when I saw you so often with all the freshness of grief coming over you. But these are the hours when friendship means the most, when we feel that we come nearer than at any other time to our intimates ; and the sense that we are, perhaps, lightening another's burden, makes even the com- monest intercourse a source of satisfaction. Besides this, you must not forget that you, whose presence from your natural gifts was always so peculiarly agreeable to me, have known the world in such a way that your conversation cannot help being interesting to one who has lived so purely provincial a life as I have. So when your sorrow came over you, my heart was for the time full of it, and when you for a little while were beguiled into forgetfulness and talked with the life of earlier times, I was sure of being pleased with hearing a hundred things nobody else could tell me. I have told you, and I must tell you again and again, that my life has run in a deeper channel since the hours I spent in your society last summer. They come back to me from time to time like visi- tations from another and higher sphere. No, I never felt the depths and the heights of sorrow so before, and I count it as a rare privilege that I could be with you so often at one ot those periods when the sharpest impressions are taken from the seal of friendship. You may be sure that I copied every word you said about Dana, and sent it to him. He was greatly pleased with your remembrance and with what you had said. We have had three new Boston books since I have written, I think — Ticknor's Life and Letters, eminently readable, much sought for; a new Life of Hamilton, by my wife's nephew. 187C.] FAILING POWERS. 389 J. T. 3Iorse, junior ; and within a few days Tom Appleton's * Nile Journey,' which I find very pleasant and lively, much more like his talk than the other little book. I dined with Longfellow at Mr. Fields's the other evening. He seemed pretty well, but still complained somewhat. Lowell was at my house the other day ; he has been complaining, but is now better. Affectionately yours, 0. W. H. Do not forget my kind remembrances to your children. My wife will not let me close this letter without a postscript of kind remembrance. To Dr. 0. W. Holmes. 5, Seamore Place, Mayfair, May 26th, 1876. My dear Holmes, — I do not like to give in and acknow- ledge myself incapable of responding by a word or two to your kind and interesting letter (Feb. 18th), which I need not assure you gave me great pleasure. How often I look back to your eagerly looked for visits at Nahant.^ I hardly thought it possible for me to add to my past anything of sadness and regret, but I do constantly remember those long conversations by the shores of the infinite sea, which is so perpetual a living symbol of that invisible infinite, to whose mournful, and some- times inspiring and gladdening, voice we are always listen- ing. A word about my condition, because to you, as a physical and mental pathologist and philosopher, I know I should always have some interest as a case, even if we were not tried and life-long friends. My failing eyesight has little to do with the eyes. I need not tell you that this is no paradox. The same little clot on the brain is the subtle thief that has stolen the strength out of my right arm, and the vigour from my thought, and now the clearness from my vision. At least ' Mr. Motley went to America for passed many weeks at the house of an thelast time in the summer and autumn intimate friend, Mrs. J. E. Lodge, at of 1875, where he and his daughters Nahant, a seaside resort near Boston. 390 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. XI. this is the opinion of Gull and of the oculist Baeder, a German, who has, on the whole, as high a reputation as any one here. But the thing is not so very bad, and with a peculiar kind of spectacles which he has recommended to read with (I never read with glasses before, having always been near-sighted, and having always bragged of it), I shall do very well. Do not consider me an egotist for these details, for you will find them curious I am sure. Do not believe me inclined to complain, or to pass what remains of life in feeble lamen- tations. When I think of all the blessings I have had, and of the measure of this world's goods infinitely beyond my deservings that have been heaped upon me, I should despise myself if I should not find strength enough to bear the sorrows which the Omnipotent has now chosen to send. We are still quite ignorant as to the fate of Dana's nomina- tion in the Senate. Most devoutly do I hope he is coming. It is better than anything I dared to hope for. Tell him when you see him that he can scarcely realise how intense was the satisfaction with which his appointment was hailed by the best and most influential people here, and how universal the delight expressed by all the leading organs of public opinion. But I have not the power yet to write much objec- tively. A good many people come to see me, and I have dined out at small dinners with very intimate friends. I do it from a sense of duty, especially to my daughters, but it is rather a pain than a distraction to myself. If you will pardon one other bit of egotism, I will say that I was pleased a few A\ eeks ago by reading in an English newspaper that I had been elected a member of the French Institute. I had never thought of it or spoken about it to a living soul, and did not know that an election was to be held. The notification of my having been chosen was sent to Boston, so that it was slow in reaching me. I was made a " Correspondant," or Correspond- ing Member, fifteen years ago, but this is full membership to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, in which there are but seven foreigners in all. I was glad to know that I was still supposed to be alive, although I am but too conscious 187C.] THE QUEEN OF THE NETHERLANDS. 391 that there are many far more deserviDg of the honour than I pretend to be.* I had better conclude this before I fall into any more of it. 1 wish that Lowell had accepted the appointment to Peters- burg, not for his own sake so much as that it would have been good for us to have his name on our Fasti. I hope we are not to be again disappointed in Dana's. AVhen you see Susan, will you tell her that we are all very well, and that I mean very soon to answer her kind letter ? Farewell, and with my love to your wife and all yours. Believe me most affectionately yours, J. L. M. To Br. 0. W. Holmes. House in the Wood, " Huis ten Bosch-," ^the Hague, August IStli, 1876, My dear Holmes, — We came in a steamer from Harwich to Eotterdam, and so by an hour's rail to this spot, a week ago. We shall return by the same route (about fourteen hours) to London at the beginning of next week. The Huis ten Bosch, where we are staying, is the summer palace or villa of the Queen of this country, and we came only for the purpose of making her a visit. You have often heard me speak of her in terms of deepest admiration, re- spect, and affection. I have known few persons in my life more deserving of these feelings. She is very accomplished. Half a dozen languages are to her like her mother tongue. She is singularly accurate in modern European history, and very familiar with most important personages who have played a part in politics, letters, and science in our day, * The official notiflcation of the a note confirming tho rumour, honour rcferreil to was contained in a By a further accident the official letter from IL Mignet, which had gone note, directed and sent to to America, and the first information "Monsieur Moth-y (Lothrop), received was therefore contained in a Membre de I'lustitut de France,'* paragraph in the Pall Mall Gazette. A was by mibtako the one intended for friend (Lady Arthur Russell) volun- M. Minglit-tti, who was elected at the teered to inquire as to tho correctness same time, and wlio doubtless received of the paragraph, and wrote Mr. Motley the one addressed to Mr. Motley. 392 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [CnAr. XI. from actual acquaintance, or in several previous generations from intimate and intuitive study and reflection. She has a noble presence, and has had very considerable beauty. Her manner is almost perfection, combining the innate grace and dignity belonging to her station with perfect simplicity, absence of vanity and egotism, and most abundant sympathy. Full of charity, constantly occupied with thoughts of others, forgetful of self, and deeply interested in all great subjects which occupy the attention of the more elevated intellects. I hardly know why I am speaking so fully of her at this moment, except that I am, as I have often been, domesticated under her roof, and because I always feel when I see her that it will be for the last time. Her health is shattered. She herself considers that her life hangs by a thread. She had an alarming illness early in this year, and the doctors have no doubt that she has disease of the heart. She is much changed in the three years which have elapsed since I saw her. More than and most of all I am attached to her because of her undying and unabated affection for my beloved Mary. No one on this side of the water more truly loved her, and more finely, accurately, and warmly aj)preciated that great and noble nature than she does. This house is swallowed up, literally embowered, in the beechen forest which surrounds the Hague. It is about two miles from the town, and in this forest I used to walk with her almost daily during our residence. You may judge whether or not she is actually visible to me at every turn in every path. But I will forswear this egotism of grief. Even you will begin to think me unmanly, although I hardly need say that I scarcely speak or write to any one else as I am doing to you, and this occasional relief is almost a necessity. It is not easy to make a very interesting letter from this distance. The place is full of memories for me, and besides there are a few acquaintances and friends whom we are very glad to see again. It is the dead season here, but within twenty minutes' drive is the North Sea, with the cool and comfortable bathing- place of Scheveningen ; and it is difficult to imagine that land and water could throw themselves into forms so absolutely 1876.] THE "HUIS TEN BOSCH." 393 different from each other as Scheveningen and Nahant. Here there is nothing but one long mathematically straight line of sea beach, running fifty miles without cove, rock, indentation, nor any shadow of turning. The Crown Prince and Princess of Germany, with their children, have been staying there. The parents were gone before we came, but the young ones, five or six, remain. Yesterday we went with the Queen to dine (at 2 p.m.) with her uncle (or rather the King's uncle), Prince Frederic, a most excellent old man, at a very beautiful summer chateau, to which three of these German princesses, from sixteen to six, and one little prince of seven or eight, were invited — all merry and natural and browned in the sun, and furnished with English and French and German governesses and bonnes and conscience-keepers. It was pleasant enough, and the dejuner dinatoire was worthy of the imperial guestlings. I am afraid you have had enough of my babble. Otherwise I would talk of a fine portrait of Jean de Witt, and another of his brother and fellow-victim, Cornelius, which hang over my writing- table. The house which John, the great Pensionary, lived in at the time they were both murdered is the same we lived in for two years. It is now the residence of the Queen's youngest son, Prince Alexander. This House in the Wood is the especial residence and pro- perty of the Queen, and she lives here in perfect liberty, and has those she likes to dinner and as her guests, the King never coming here, and being always absent from the Hague in the summer. You will forgive my prosing so much about the country of your maternal ancestors. Do write to me soon. You know how much I value your letters, and what comfort they are to me. Both my daughters join me in kindest remembrances to your wife and yourself. Affectionately yours, J. L. M. 394 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XI. To Ms Second Daughter. Allonheads, AUondale,^ Northumberland. Friday, September Ist, 1876. My daeling Maky, — Your letter of the 30th to Susie was received just now, and I said I should like to write to you instead of her doing so. . . . This is a small but pretty and comfortable house, standing 1400 feet above the sea level — the highest gentleman's house in England. It is surrounded by vast, wild-looking moors, abounding in grouse, which the young guests staying here slaughter faithfully every day, and filled beneath by vast mines filled with lead. . . . The air is pure, stimulating and bracing. To-day, after three days of storm, wind, and rain, we have a bright clear sky and a sharp, almost frosty air. We are going to lunch out of doors, somewhere in the moors, although Beaumont advised sticking to the dining-room, opening all the doors and windows so as to establish a thorough and chilling draught, which would answer the purpose as well. I like being here. Lady Margaret is always so kind and agreeable. K is a very sweet intelligent, and attractive little girl. Good-bye, my dear child. To tJie Duchess of Argyll. Isel Hall, Cockermouth, October 13th, 1876. My dear Duchess, — I was not able, as I intended, to write a line the day after we arrived here to tell you once more how very glad I was to have been able to make the journey to Inveraray, and to satisfy myself with my own eyes that the condition of your own health was so much better than I had ventured to hope This is a lovely place, with almost as much natural charm and artistic grace as the beautiful chatelaine herself. I like • Belonging to Wentworth Beaumont, Esq. 187G.] THE EASTERN QUESTION. 395 ]\Ir. Wyndham very much also. We have taken drives to Bassenthwaite Lake and Cockermouth Castle, and I dare say may make one or two more excursions into the pretty and famous lake country before we leave next Monday for London. Mr. E. Doyle is here, who has been making some beautiful sketches at Drumlanrig, and I believe that some young people are coming back with our host and hostess, who went last night to the county ball at Carlisle. You may suppose that the politics of this house are some- what different from those at Inveraray. But as the great Eastern matter is to me, an outsider, a very wide and general one, and I should think swelling every day into dimensions beyond the control of diplomats, I like to hear everything that can be said about it. I entirely agree with the Duke and yourself and Mr. Gladstone as to the Turks, but I can't put much faith in temporary measures, and feel as though the fifth act of the five centuries' tragedy has got to be played out before long. Awful for the spectators, still more so for the actors! And I hope that the spectacle may be postponed a little longer, but it is almost hoping against hope. Believe me, my dear Duchess, Always affectionately yours, J. L. Motley. To Dean Stanley. 5, Seamorc Place, Mayfair, November 10th, 1876. My dear Dean, — I a\ ish it were in my power to tell you adequately how very grateful I am for the pleasure and solace which I have been deriving from your third volume on the Jewish Church. As I think I mentioned to you one day, if you had written the volumes expressly for my own behalf, it could not have been better adapted for the purpose. For it deals with subjects which exceedingly occupy my mind, and abounds with suggestions, explanations, and sympathetic aid towards the solution of problems and mysteries which press 396 MOTLEY'S LETTEKS. [Chap. XI. more and more upon the thoughts of those whose life's even- ing is closing in dark shadows and sorrows. You and I have both been struck almost simultaneously by that irremediable blow which drives the soul forth into the vast and unknown void, and causes it to rebel at times at the bars which must restrain it so long as those mortal conditions last. I have been reading the book very slowly, for my mind wanders after attempting for a time to grasp great subjects, and I am obliged to take rest. How glad I am that your mind and body are both so vigorous and fresh, notwithstanding the great calamity which God has sent to you, and that you are not only able to find some relief in work, but furnish relief to others. How acutely you must have felt in the painful but sacred circum- stances attending your work that lahorare est orare. The delicate and masterly manner in which you have traced out the connection between the ideas of the one invisible God revealing Himself at many intervals of space and time, and through differing races, to the highest of what we call human intellects ; and the idea of a future life under unknown and unimaginable conditions, is to me most striking. Intense love seems to me to annihilate death, and love is the founda- tion of the Christian revelation. But it is not only for this steady sequence of thought on the one great subject that I have taken so much pleasure in your volume. I have learned in it a great deal on the historical themes in which I especially desired instruction, and have thus learned from one in whose teachings I feel absolute confidence. The story of the capti- vity, the return, the restitution, of the records of Ezra and Nehemiah, especially the history of the rise and fall of the Asmonean dynasty, are full of deep interest and abound in passages and pictures of remarkable power and splendour. I would venture especially to allude to the description of Baby- Ion and of its destruction, to the most heroic and pathetic presentment of the great achievements of Judas Maccabseus and his brethren ; above all to the tragic story of Herod and the august and noble Mariamna. How much I envy — no, non equidem invideo, miror magis — the transparent purity of the style in which, however tempted by enthusiasm or intensity of 1876.] LONDON IN WINTER. 397 feeling, you have always the reserve, the temperance which, as Hamlet says, " doth give the torrent smoothness." But I beg your pardon for writing so much in what was intended as a simple letter of thanks. Meantime, my dear Dean, believe me, with deep regard, Very sincerely your friend, J. L. Motley. To his Eldest Daughter . 5, Seamore Place, Friday evening, December, 1876. . . . The quantity of rain is appalling. There is little chance of any kind of loafing here, and won't be until they organise some kind of boats. That gondola of London, as the great Dizzy calls a hansom, is entirely inadequate to the occasion. I have seen scarcely a soul. I paddle sometimes to the club, and see a lot of fogies in a comatose state. I rarely find an acquaintance. Sometimes the voice of old Abram, I hear it complain from the whist room, which is refreshing. I hope you admire the beauty of my handwriting to-day. It is because I am using a swan quill, one of six Melbury ones which Mrs. Wyndham has just sent me as a New- Year's gift, with a very agreeable letter. . . . ]May is perfectly well, and diviner than ever. She interrupts me every minute or two, and she is running a railroad between the drawing-room and library, and insists on my taking tickets for " London station." . . . Your account of the dinner at the Kings' reminds me of the ballet they used to give so much at Vienna, ' Les Willis.' I am glad you saw those dear, jolly people. Tuesday we go to the Van der Weyers for a week. . . . 5, Seomoro Place, December Wth, 1876. My deabest Lily, — I was glad to see by your letter^ to Susie, received this morning, that you are well and happy, and enjoying yourself. I had a letter from the Queen of the 398 MOTLEY'S LETTERS. [Chap. XL Netherlands, in which she speaks very kindly of you and your marriage, and alludes to the letter she had received from you. I had also a letter from W. Story to the same effect. . . . Tuesday, I went at about half-past six to call at Kent House. Miss Hosmer came rushing down with a message to collar me and retain me to dinner. I had been prevented from dining there the day before. We had a most pleasant little scratch dinner with Lady Ashburton at a little after seven. That hour was because Miss Baring and two or three others of the party were going to the Geographical Society meeting. The two or three others were one of the Arctic expedition officers, Conybeare by name, and his father and mother. Lady Marian Alford also came to dinner. After the Arctic explorers went off, we had a pleasant evening, H and I being the only gentlemen. Lady Marian had been painting some fans — one for the Queen, She was persuaded to send over to her house for them. They are wonderful. I stood aghast, and felt convinced that Fra Angelico must have really done them. Lots of little Cupids or angels' heads, it doesn't signify much which, lovely trellises of grape vines and allegorical groups of various kinds, with bits of landscape. Truly, I never saw anything so exquisite. . . . H was full of fun as usual, so that there could hardly have been found better company in the world than I stumbled upon that evening. Yesterday I went with Mary and Susie to take May and Toto to Hengler's Circus. May was quietly and deeply interested, especially by the " beautiful fairy on horseback in a golden dress," as she expressed herself — said fairy being a battered kind of harridan on an awful screw of a horse. Toto wished the clown might be removed and the geegees come back. I rather liked the clown. He was the very same I used to see, when I was a small boy, at the Boston circus — the same face, the same voice, the same jokes. The circus is at least a conservative institution, quite proof against progress. . . . God bless you, my dear child. . . . 1877.] THE EASTERN QUESTION, 399 To his Eldest Daughter. Ampthill Park, Atnpthill, January ll;ue, 303, ii. 321 ; appointed United States Minister to Austria, ii. 30 ; hia father's death, 160 ; grief on the death of his mother, 200 ; runiour of his recall, 218; sufferings from neu- ralgia, 298 ; ai)ixiintcd Minister to England, 308 ; letter to Dr. Holmes on his son's ap])roaching marriage, 319; recall from England, 320; dis- like to letter-writing, 321 ; popu- larity of his works in Holland, 337 ; at Varzin, 343 ; receives his D. C. L. degree at Oxford, 345 ; at Bourne- mouth, 356 ; hid illness, nska advice of Dr. Holmes, 361, 376 ; sudden attack, 374 ; goes to Cannes, 376 ; on the death of Mr. Sumner, 377; return to America, 339, n. ; member of the Institute of France, 390 ; letter to Dean Stanley on vol. iii. of his 'Jewish Church,' 395 ; to Dr. Holmes on the death of his son-in-law, 405 ; increase of suffering and weakness, 408; his death, 411. Motley, IVIrs., gift from English ladies, ii. 324 ; her death, 382. , Miss Lily, her first marriage, i. • 209 ; second marriage, 400. , Miss Mary, engagement to Mr. Sheridan, ii. 320. , Mr. E., his generous assistance, i. 183. Mount Felix, i. 301. MuUer, Max, i. 288. Murchison, Sir R., i. 256. Murray, Mr. John, i. 167 ; on publish- ing the ' United Netherlands,' 134 ; dinner at Wimbledon, ii. 270. N. Naples, i. 44 ; Hadrian's Villa, 44 ; second visit, 58. Nassfeld valley. Cascade, i. 41. Naworth Castle, ii. 381. Nesselrode, Count, i. 94. Neubach, i. 37. New England and Virginia, first settlers in, ii. 111. Niccolosi, i. 52. Nice, i. 206 ; climate and position, 206 ; dear living, 208. North, the, successes of, ii. 7.3, 112; English and French sympathy with, 96. Northumberland House, fete at, ii. 371. Norton, Mrs., i. 242 ; persons, 243 ; kindness to Motley, 250, 256 ; her ballads, 263 ; description of Disraeli, 264 ; wondrous beauty, 276, 290, 296. 420 INDEX. OATLANDS. o. Oatlands Park, i. 329. Opera, the, i. 242 ; Alboni and Picco- lomini, i. 146, 232. Orange, Prince of, ii. 314. Owen, Prof., i. 333, ii. 290. Oxford Commemoration, i. 345. P. Palfrey, Mr., ii. 9, 282. Palmerston, Lord, i. 254 ; Lis im- promptu speeches, 255; active life, 326. , Lady, ii. 254, 260. Panshanger, ii. 367. Paris, Congress of, the 4 articles, i. 380. Paris, i. 106, 180 ; work of improve- ment tmder Louis Napoleon, 181 ; journey from Rome, 322 ; dislike of, 123, 180, 324, ii. 37. Paris, Comte de, ii. 187. Patterson, Gen., ii. 14. Patti, Adelina, at Vienna, ii. 123. Paul's, St., Charity Children, annual ceremony, i. 252. Peabody, Mr., excursion to see the Leviathan, i. 243 ; dinner at Bla?k- wall, 244 ; Story's statue of, ii. 298. Peasantry, the Au&trian, condition of, ii. 184. Pembroke Lodge, visit to Lord and Lady Russell, i. 275, ii. 271. Pe'rier, Casimir, and the diplomatic squabble, i. 98. Peter the Great, statue of, i. 96 ; house, 117. Petersburg, Grant's repulse at, ii. 171. Petersburg, St., journey from Taurog- gen, i. 73; weather, 76; expenses, 77 ; climate, 79 ; water, 80 ; fcooiety, 81 ; Court presentation, 82 ; Winter Palace, 83 ; morning costume, 84 ; Ball, in Salle Blanche, 87 ; banquets, 88 ; churches, 95 ; quays, &c., 96 ; public institutions, 97; Foundling Hospitals, 97 ; Gostivoi Dvor, Nevski Prospect, 108 ; want of proportion, 111 ; Academy of Science, 115 ; blessing of the water, 116 ; House ot Peter the Great, 117; military hos- pitals, 117 ; Hermitage gallery, 119 ; the ' Enfants Trouves,' 120. Philobiblon Society, breakfast with Mr. Turner, ii. 274. Fierce, Gen., i. 332. Plesse Castle, i. 25. EODMAN. Poland, insurrection in, ii. 119. Political Economy, first principles of, ii. 176 ; ebb and flow of gold, 177 ; paper currency, 177; national economy, 179. Politics, state of, in 1858, i. 249 ; Eng- lish and American compared, 170 (See England). Pollock, Mr. F,, ii. 269. Poltimore Park, visit to, ii. 360. Porter, Sir R., i. 83, 93. , Miss, authoress of ' Thaddeus of Warsaw,' i. 93. Postilions, German, i. 17, 36. Potomac river, the, i. 384. Potsdam, i. 32 ; ball at, 33. Prescott, Mr. W. H., i. 171 ; letter in praise of the ' Dutch Republic,' 191. Presidency, candidates for, ii. 174 ; election, 191. Press, the English, on the War, ii. 35. Prince Consort, the, interview with, ii. 36. Prinsterer, Mr. Groen van, i. 210. Procter, Mrs., i. 239. Prussia, Government of, i. 70 ; vicissi- tudes and condition, i. 76 ; state of, 324 ; the future of, ii. 223 ; position, 236. , King of, visit to Vienna, ii. 172 ; Motley's introduction to, 173 ; Crown Princess of, ii. 105. Prussian Army, advance of, ii. 233 ; rapidity of the 1866 campaign, 236. Public Galleries, Libraries, &c., want of in America, i. 29. Putnam, Willie, death of, ii. 41. Q. Queen Victoria, interview at Balmoral, ii. 36. Quincy, Mr. J., ii. 28, 68. E. Radicalism in America, ii. 255. Randolph, J., description of St. Peters- burg, i. 80. Rappahannock, concentration of the troops of the Union army, ii. 90. Reeve, Mr. H., i. 233. Reform Bill, the, ii. 264, 267. Rhine, the, in Holland, i. 124; Dra- chenfels, 125. Richmond, dinner at, i. 257, 272 ; view from the hill, ii. 271. battles, the, ii. 83. Rodman, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 274. INDEX. 421 HOME. BORBKiTTO. ilomo, tho Apollo Belvedere, i. 42; Guido's Aurora, 47 ; domestic life in, 319. RothBchild, Baron L., i. 281. , BaronoBs Alphonse, her oriental beauty, i. 281. Meyer do, letter from Motley, ii. 364 ; on the death of his wife, 382. Rotterdam, voyage to, i. 301. Bound Hill School at Northampton, i. 3 ; reading-room, 7. Royal Aoa'lomy dinner, i. 342 ; Motley's speech, 343. Ruben's picture of the ' Descent from the Cross' at Antwerp, i. 1G4. Ruskin, Mr., i. 332. Russell, Earl, i. 247 ; his conversation, '249; luncheon with, 300; letter to Mr. Everett, ii. 24 ; Motley at Aber- g^eldie, 35 ; on vol. iii. of tho ' United Netherlands; 29G. , Lady William, i. 234, 256, 257; letter from Motley with New Year's greeting, ii. 109 ; Viennese society, 131 ; on the condition of Austria, 250 ; on her son Odo's marriage, 297 ; congratulation on her son's promo- tion. 322. , Lord Arthur, illness of his little son, ii. 325. Ilussia, state of, i. 96 ; emancipation of the Serfs, ii. 119. and America, i. 170; affection between, ii. 119, 336: See Peters- BURO. •'*' ' Russian taxes and guilds, i. 110; slaves, 110; social rank, 112; food supply, army, 113; manufactures, 114. S. Salisbury, i. 59 ; cathedral, 160. Salzach, valley of the, i. 40. Salzburg, i. 38 ; gateway, ancient her- mitage, 38 ; curious tombs, 39 ; Hal- lein suit mines, 39. Sardinia, King of, his fine character, i. 323 ; alliance with tho French Em- peror, 323. Sarjjent, Mr. Turner-, death, ii. 403. * Saturday Review,' notice of ' Poet of tho Breakfast Table,' ii. 360. Savigny, Mr. Von. i. 29; lectures on the Pandects, 30. Saxony, King and Queen of, presenta- tion to, i. 150; costumes and etiquette, 151. Scliovoningon, ii. 392 Schleswig-Uolstein questioij.tlie,!!. 156, 159. 214. Schonbruun, festivities, ii. 172. Scott, Gen., his plans and preparations, i. 374 ; soldierly appearance, 378 ; and his officers, 392, ii. 5, 15, 17; reception of his name at Harvard University, ii. 17. Secessionists and public opinion in England, i. 364. Secretary of Legation to the Russian Mission, Motley appointed, i. 62: resignation, 95. Seobach, M. and Mdme., ii. 327. Sefton, Lord, i. 296. Semester, first, at Gcittingen, i. 14. Senior, Mr. Nassau, i. 254, 287. , Mrs. Nassau, Junr., i. 288. Seward, Mr., i, 377; negotiations with England, 381 ; his ability, ii. 138. Seymour. Sir H., i. 276. , Mr. Danby, i. 280. Shaftesbury, Lord, i. 287. , Lady, i. 287. Shah, tlie, at Chiswick, ii. 369. Shaw, Col. R., his death, poem to bis memory, ii. 151. Shelburno, Lady, i. 263. Shelley, Sir Percy, ii. 359; relics of his father, 359. Sheridan, Mr. B., i. 277 ; his wife, ii. 294. , Mr. A, letter from Motley on tho birth of his son, ii 581. Sherman, Lieut., ii. 234. , Senator, ii. 305. Shuter's Hill, fortifications at, i. 385. Sicily, I. 48 ; its fruits and flowers, 49. Silchoster, remains of an ancient Roman town, ii. 281. Sina, Baron, ii. 110, 123. Skirmish of tho 18th July, ii. 18. Slavery question, i. 147, 381 ; in America, 358. ii. 150. party in England, ii. 53. Slaves, the emanci|)ation, their singing to raise money, ii. 372. Slideil, arrest of, ii. 46. Smitli, Prof. Ooldwin, article on the war in the * Daily News,' ii. 112. 261. , Dr. W., ii. 270. , Vernon, i. 296. Soeterwonde, M. Elout de, i. 305. Somerset, Duchess of, i. 246 ; breakfast party at Wimbledon, 247. Sontag, at Dresden, i. 131. Sorrento, excursion to, i. 195. 422 INDEX. Speigel, Count, visit to his chateau, ii. 184-186. Stackpole, Mr. Lewis, i. 364. Stafford House, i. 282; pictures, 282; K ball, ii. 263. Stanhope, Lord, i. 2S3, 287. , Lady, ii. 275. Stanley, Dean, i. 288; on Motley's speech, ii. 374 ; on receiving the ' Life of Barneveld,' 375 ; his sermon in Westminster Abbey, 411; letter to, on the ' History of the Jews, ii. 395. , Lady Augusta, ii. 263. , Lady, of Alderlev, i. 240, 245, 258. , Miss, i. 251. , Lyulph, ii. 264. Stanton, Edwin, ii. 210. Stirling-Maxwell, W., i. £27, ii. 270 ; ' Cloister Life of Ciiarles V.,' i. 331. Stockliausen, Baron, ii. 32U. Stoke Park, i. 292. Stonehenge, i. 60. Storks, Sir H., ii. 270. Story, Mr., his sculpture, i. 319. Stratford de Kedcliffe, Lord, i. 260 ; ii. 266, 290. Strathfieldsaye, ii. 279. Students, German, costumes, pipes, i. 19 ; duelling, 20 ; Landsmannschaf- ten, 20 ; ' Dummer Junge,' 22 ; Brii- dprschaft, 23, 25 ; taste for music, 23. Studies, various, at Kound Hill, i. 5 ; classical, 6. Studley Royal, Ripoii, 1, 349. Sturgis, Mr., i. 169, et seq. Sumner, Mr. ii. 20; urges Motley's appointment to Vienna, 31, 354 ; his death, 377 ; Schurz's eulogy, 378. Styria, journey to, i. 36. Sutherland, Duchess of, i. 277, ii. 277. T. Taglioni, i. 31, 93. Taormina, i. 49. Tauroggen, i. 72. Taylor, Mr. H. i. 298. Taymouth Castle, i. 353. Temple church and gardens, i, 253. Tennessee, East, fund. Motley's sub- scription to, ii. 156. Thackeray, on the 'Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,' i. 226 ; his appear- ance, 229; dinner with, 235, 261; lecture at Lady Stanley's, 241 ; and the ' Virginians,' 279. VETTUBINO. Thackeray, Miss, ii. 365. Tliale, ii. 349. Thiers, i. 105. 106. ' Thirty Years' War,' intention of writ- ing a history of, ii. 188. Thomas, Gen., ii. 30:1 Thouvenel, M., ii. 37, 43. Thynne, Lady E., i. 250. Ticknor, Mr., i. 143 ; letter acknowledg- ing the ' United Netherlands,' 299. Tieck's works, i. 35. Tilsit, i. 72. ' Times,' the, articles on the ' United Netherlands,' i. 358 ; Motley's letter on the Civil War, 372, 380 ; supports the Southern Confederacy, ii. 48 ; ex- tent of its influence, 114. Todd, Col., i. 65, 74. ' Tom Brown's Schooldays,' i. 285 ; American edition, ii. 29. Townley, Col., journey from St. Peters- burg to Berlin, i. 99. Townsend, Mr., ii. 278. Traunstein mountain, i. 37. Trench, Aichbishop, letter from Motley thanking him for his work on the Thirty Years' War, ii. 3^)2. ' Trent,' the, affair of, ii. 45, 59, 71. Trollope, Anthony, ii. 265. Troops, massing of, at Washington, i. 385 ; number of, in the United States, ii. 14 ; commanders, 14. Turco-Eussian War, ii. 401. Twisleton, Hon. E., ii. 134. Tyler's Brigade, ii. 18. U. Uncle Tom's Cabin,' i. 148. United Netherlands, History of the, progress of, i. 207 ; difficulties, 317, 329 ; doubts about title, 318 ; unex- pected length, 348 ; sale of, 355 : pub- lication in America, 363 ; progiess of, ii. 188 ; completion of the concluding volumes, 253; passing through the press, 257. Van der Weyer, ii. 202. Van Eyck, J. and H., i. 107. 'Varius,' ii. 110. Varzin, Motley's visit to, ii. 320. Vasa, Princess, married to Prince Albert of Saxony, i. 153, 157. Vaughan, Sir C. i. 68. Venables, Mr., i. 280. Venice, ii. 186. Vetturino, journey to Italy, i. 181. INDEX. 423 V«VAY. Vevay, residenco nt, 180. Vicksburg, surremlor of, ii. 135. Vienna, i. 35 ; life in, ii. 39 ; society oompnrod with London, 55, ii. 69, 72, 109-125,240-250, 117, 131-148, 189; theatres, 01 ; Court at, 09 ; ' iSalons,' 117, 131; Climate, 133; drousfiit, 143 ; Court dinner, 152 ; winter, 195 ; panic in, 232. Conference, ii. 170 ; Peace Con- ference, 191. "Virginia, counter revolution in, i. 389. ' Von,' the three magical letters, i. 32. W. "NVadsworth, Gen., ii. 106. , Mrs., letter from Motley on the death of hia wife, ii. 385 ; his future plans, 386. Wales, Prince of, at Rome, i. 320 ; ap- pearance and character, 321 ; visit to America, 354, 372. War, the Civil in America, prepara- tions, ii. 6 ; objects and prospects of, 13; inevitability of it, 27 ; reflections on, 75, 80, 89, 192 ; sovereignty of the people, 79 ; forecasts of, 57-75, 85 ; drawing to a close, 149, 197. Warrc, Mrs., i. 231, 252. Warsaw, Committee of Pablio Safelv, ii. 132. Washington, i. 377; the army at, 379 ; journey to, ii. 301. , George, letter to the, Rev. J. Lothrop, i. 27 n. Webster, Daniel, death, i. 147, 149. Weimar, i. 103. Wellington, 2nd Duke of, ii. 275-280, , Duchess, her beauty, ii. 280. Wensleydale, Lord, i. 282, 299 ; letter on International Questions and Law, ii. 58, 209, 289. Werfen. i. 40. Westminster, Marchioness of, i. 272. Whewell, Dr., on the war, ii. 112. Wilberforce, S., Bishop of Oxford, i. 287; his pulpit eloquence, ii. 285. William I. of Orange, i. 146. Williams, Lady, i. 269, 293. Wlnthrop, Major, killed at Great Bethel, i. 385. Witley, ii. 292. Witt, de J., residence of, ii. 332. Women's League, the, ii. 176, 179. Woronzow, Countess, her fortnightlv balls, i. 91. Wylie, Sir W., i. 95. Wynford, Lord, i. 134, 170. LONDON: P.RINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, STAMFORD STBKET AKD CHAEING CEOSS. ? I :^^f" PS 2^36 M 1889 V.2 Motley, John Lothrop The correspondence of John Lothrop Motley PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY