clusion is clear and irresistible from the events of the last year.

escape for the present is an escape for good. | ish regard for international law, and even For whatever may now be England's policy British neutrality and impartiality are, we or feeling towards us, an event has recently are now well informed. We had been in a occurred which will keep the peace between habit of presuming much on the friendship us and England for a long time to come. secured to us by the interest which England The experiment of iron-clad vessels in con- had in our commerce. But we have now flict with wooden sides recently had in Hamp- learned that her interest to see our nationton Roads, has in effect for any hostile pur-ality destroyed preponderates over all the poses against us, annihilated the British navy interest involved in commerce. This con-as it has our own. So compelling both nations to start anew in creating a navy, it puts it within our power to be equal with her on the sea and its coasts, both in the means of offence and defence. And as the occasions of our present war impel us to speed the work of building iron-clad vessels, and she has no such occasions, the probabilities are that in this line of armament we shall soon be in advance of her. This puts us beyond all fear of a war with England. And for this immunity we are indebted to that arrangement of Providence which brought us into that difficulty with England touching Mason and Slidell. Had it not been for those arch traitors and their arrest, we should before this without doubt have been involved in such a war. Here then is another wonderworking of the providence of God to save us by means that threatened to destroy us.

FROM facts which we have given in previous papers, it will be evident that it has ceased to be our duty, as a nation, to stand in any fear of England. This franchise has been secured for us by wonderful arrangements of Providence, causing our nation's sun to break forth from behind a dense and gloomy cloud. God be thanked, that we are now not to be hindered from any efforts to save our country by any frowns or threats of England.

Another plain duty is to make no reliance on either the justice or the friendship of England to secure from her that immunity from future harms, which Providence has given us the means of making sure for ourselves. What British national justice, Brit

We do not undertake to account for this. We have a pamphlet before us under the title, "THE PRESENT ATTEMPT TO DISSOLVE THE AMERICAN UNION A BRITISH ARISTOCRATIC PLOT." The design of it is to show that ever since and before the war of 1812, when the notorious John Henry came over, under a secret commission from the British ministry, to act as an agent to bring about a dissolution of the Union, that same design originating with the English aristocracy-because, if free institutions here went up, that aristocracy must go downhas been followed up with a constant succession of efforts under various disguises. The argument has very much of verisimilitude, and will make a great impression wherever it is read, though we are not prepared to say that it is in its whole reach conclusive. That among the English aristocracy this desire to see our experiment of free government fail, exists-that John Henry's mission originated in that desire, and that, following it, many other unfriendly acts toward us have proceeded from the same source, is plain. But in the light of that argument we have not been able to range them all, as the writer does, in one continuous series of acts proceeding from the same body of men consciously acting in that design. Or, in other words, the acts subsequent upon John Henry's mission which are specified, are not so easily traced to an organized and responsible agency, as was that.

But the pamphlet carries our conviction so far as this-that the same feeling and policy which sent that agent of mischief hither, has ever since animated the ruling aristocracy of England, so that they were ready, not perhaps to sustain a continuous agency, but to improve any occasion in the course of events to do what they might under decent pretexts, to destroy us. So much

we are warranted to believe by the events | vious duty, which we owe to our own counof the year now spent.*

try—that is, to sustain a policy which shall make this country independent of England's friendship or enmity. In relation to us, England has gone upon the principle that

that all the interest she had in our commerce was no bar to her giving her heart and hand to our enemies. Our experience has taught us that we put a vain reliance on the friendship that our large commerce with her was to secure. This teaching should now be improved to the conclusion to have no regard

So every true American owes it to himself, to his country, and to England, to settle it in his mind, that however many friends our country may have in that country, what-" there is no friendship in trade," or rather, ever claims the religious people of England may have upon our regards and co-operation in any good work-however much the Protestant religion may stand in England's prosperity-as to national interests, this country, as long as it sustains its present free government and gives promise of advancement, is ever to have either the sup-to her commerce in our future legislation. pressed or the out-spoken hostility of the ruling powers of Britain. The aristocracy especially will feel it, because our success is their defeat. For if Americans are seen to advance more rapidly than Englishmen in commerce and arts, and all the elements of wealth and civilization, it would be the most natural of all things for the middle classes, the bone and muscle of English society, to get the idea that this aristocracy, with its sinecure offices, its expensive privileges, with all the manifold burdens it creates, is not a necessary of life for England. Herenity put upon us in the interests of our eneis an ever potent reason why the privileged classes of England pray for the explosion of our experiment of a free government.

But as this cause is not confined to them, we find a cause more broadly working in the jealousy of the rapid growth of this country, threatening the supremacy of England-that which in previous papers we have more fully described. On these grounds, we are ever to carry a settled conclusion that that power, whatever it be, that controls the nationality of England, is hostile to the continuance of our nationality.

We should first settle what will most conduce to the fostering of our own resources, so as to make us independent of her in war and peace. Let us never again see the time when purchases made in her marts of commerce of supplies for our national occasions, are annulled by an edict from the throne, and the materials forbidden to leave the ports. If we had not trusted in the friendship of trade, but had been true in fostering the industry of our own people, we should have saved ourselves from that indig

mies. The following remarks of the Journal are here in point :

Britain-neither raw materials nor manu"We need nothing whatever from Great factures; neither food nor clothing; neither merchandise nor money, if we will but depend upon and cultivate our own resources, and the sooner we adopt this system the sooner shall we become indifferent to her to make her the special mark of our policy, opinions and her power. We have no need but simply to adopt the policy of encouragement to our own manufactures of all kinds and let the effect fall where it may. The From this conviction we gather an ob- same rates of duties on fabrics of cotton, We have suggested in a former number of wool, iron, steel, etc., which we place upon The Living Age, the probability that the conspir- sugar, coffee, and tea, will answer all the acy which has for so many years, and at the ex- purpose and lead to complete independpense of so much talent and money been in prep-ence.' The revenue result will be, a dimiaration was not carried into act without the nution on manufactures, but a corresponding complicity of some of the British Statesmen. It is certain that the rebels expected co-operation, increase on other articles, growing out of and the encouragement they received from the the greater ability to consume them, which hasty and unnecessary acknowledgment of them necessarily follows an increased demand for as belligerents,-astonished America. Let us ac- labor; so that even in that view of the case knowledge as another thing to be grateful to Providence for-that this acknowledgement made our we should lose nothing of the national inblockade more unassailable. come on imports."

While we shall not yearn for the sympathy of the Mother Country hereafter, we may comfort ourselves in the belief that she now knows that this child is beyond her correction. As she will hereafter respect us more than she has done, she may come to a really cordial friendship.

We would counsel nothing to be done in a spirit of revenge for the injuries received. But it is lawful to learn wisdom from experience, and when we have seen our depen

dence fail us, to seek to become indepen- | other. But when we leave the nation, and dent. If England withholds her saltpetre come to appreciate the individual, we find in because she thinks it will help us against our enemies, it is fitting that we should be careful not to seek that commodity again in her ports, since on the face of our broad land, we have abundant materials for producing the article. And so of the rest.

English society some of the noblest specimens of Christian character; and only regret that both there and here, the men of that class are not the ruling class. Nor should the sinister course of the British Government induce us to undervalue the noble Christian and philanthropic enterprises in regard to which that people deserve to stand so high in the estimation of the Christian world.

That arrangement of Divine Providence which puts it in our power to be a match for England on land and sea, as we have contemplated, calls upon us to use our advantages so as to make sure of our independence While we regret to see such national reof her; and therein make sure of perpetu-pellances between us and the mother counating our peace with her. Late experience try-and the more because it is the mother has taught us that our "extremity is Eng-country-we should be so much the more land's opportunity," that a temptation to careful to keep the unity of the spirit in the assail the weaker is a special weakness with her. And lest we should throw a stumbling block in her way, and tempt her to fall upon us again, we owe it as a special duty to her, to be always prepared against any emergency with her. And the best preparation is, as far as possible to encourage the production of all that we need within our own borders. Such are some of our duties that should give shape to our national policy towards England. But in showing how our nation ought to stand towards the English nation, we require a different line of remark from that which shows how as individual Christians we ought to feel and act towards English Christians. For the English nation and English Christians are far from being the same. And the same men acting in national affairs, will often do what they would shrink from as being mean in individual conduct. Gross selfishness is condemned in the individual, while selfishness is a universal law of conduct with nations. We only ask of a nation that its selfishness shall be so enlightened as to pursue its ends by that which shall be best for it in the long run," England, with all thy faults I love thee still." and that which shall do no injustice to an

bonds of peace with the Christian element in the British empire. And while we have so much to accuse that nation of, as a nation, the Christian portion of that nation has laid us under special obligations to gratitude, in that they have come in at our time of need, and put their shoulders under our Christian works-and have placed at our disposal funds to carry on our missions and Bible distribution. What a contrast here, between the British Government and British Christians! The one chose our time of need to cripple us and threaten destruction, while the other chose our time of need to strengthen our weak hands and feeble knees, and to see that our Christian labors were not crippled. Thus have they taught us to distinguish between the national and the Christian element, and to find in England that which commands our love, even while her Government and governing classes, and her press, the spokesman of these classes, have roused our indignation—have taught us in spite of all to say,

THE LAND OF DREAMS.

On, dreadful is the land of dreams,
When all that world a chaos seems

Of thoughts so fixed before!

Or, dearer to our hearts than ever,
Keep stretching forth with vain endeavor,
Their pale and palsied hands,
To clasp us phantoms, as we go
Along the void like drifting snow,

When heaven's own face is tinged with blood! To far-off nameless lands!

And friends cross o'er our solitude,

Now friends of ours no more!

JOHN WILSON.

From Chambers's Journal.

A TERRIBLE PATIENT.

resentation arises from the same undue exaltation of valor which we have already mentioned, and which in this case is even more excusable, since that is the virtue without which no campaign could ever be brought to a successful issue. We are unwilling to associate the glorious game of war with brutal excesses, and still less with vulgarity; but War is a very brutal and vulgar business for all that. Commodore Trunnion must be sometimes excessively surprised to read in the pages of History the elegant sentences he had made use of to his assembled crew before laying his vessel alongside the enemy, and like Mr. Squeers in his new clothes, must feel astonished at finding himself so very respectable. The majority of our readers are probably under the impression that commanders-in-chief, admirals, generals of division, colonels of regiments, and the like, lead their men to battle vociferating little declamations of a patriotic and elevating

AMONG many popular fallacies that arise from the wishes rather than the experience of mankind, is the dogma that a cruel man is always a coward. A cruel man cannot, it is true, be said to possess that more exalted sort of courage with which not only are oppression and malignity incompatible, but to which a certain heroic tenderness is always allied; yet such a man may be habitually careless of life and limb in the case of himself as well as in that of others; nay, he may be even so brutal as to be totally unconscious of danger-by no means so uncommon a phenomenon as it may appear. The Irish gentleman who sat upon the very branch of the tree which he was engaged in sawing off, was not, indeed necessarily a hero, but most unquestionably he was not a coward. Even the wicked and contemptible thing that is called a bully is not so positively certain to be a poltroon as we would all wish him to character-allusions to Westminster Abbey be. The popular mistake arises, perhaps, (which, let it be considered, could affect not from a healthy but undue exaltation of cour- even their subalterns, and far less the bulk age. Courage, it is true, is a virtue without of those they are thus addressing), and rewhich a Nation is but an assemblage of minders that the eyes of the civilized world slaves who wait for their master; but Cru- are fixed upon them. Now, as a matter of elty is blasphemy in action—the hand of man fact, the language of most of these chiefraised, as it were, to strike the Father of tains, upon exciting occasions such as join⚫ Mercies. A coward is an object pitiful in ing battle, if set down word by word, would all eyes; but a cruel man is more and more sound rather coarse in the mouth of so polcontemptible in proportion to the height of ished a female as Miss Clio. Even the the nature from which he is regarded; most Times would shrink from repeating them contemptible, most abhorrent, therefore, in literally. I am certain the Editor of Chamthe sight of the Highest. It is creditable to bers's Journal would decline to insert them human nature, therefore, that we should as "not adapted for our columns." I have grudge the title of Brave to the Cruel; but had myself some little personal experience it must be confessed by the student of man- of these matters, and unless my ears dekind that it is sometimes withheld unjustly. ceived me in more than one instance, the It seems to have been agreed upon by all words of encouragement were not unmingled historians to represent war artificially. The with a little hard swearing. I trust I am actual horrors of it are indeed unimaginable, not guilty of a breach of confidence in sayand must therefore remain unwritten except ing this much. "On, Stanley, on," were by eye-witnesses, who have something else the last words of Marmion, as represented. to do than to record them; but besides this, by the great bard of romance; but what about all that is told, there plays a certain says the poet of more than ordinary life? light (irresistible, as it seems to the historic" What are they feared on ?-fools, od rot colorist), which never was on sea or shore while war was really raging. In all descriptions of battle-scenes which have come under my notice, blue and red fire (so to speak) are always burning at the wings. Experience and imagination give the most opposite narratives of the matter. This misrep

'em," were the last words of Higginbottom. I am no historian, and do not feel bound by that tacit agreement to be artificial which seems to exist among all narrators of campaigns. I am not a peacemonger, but I do not see why the truth should not be told about War as about other matters. The

"special correspondents "have stripped him | horse-pistol-their loved home-companion in of late years of many of his spangles, but the seeming far-back days of boyhood; remihe is a magnificent impostor still, and even niscences as touching to their hearts, and to Mr. Russell himself lets him discourse at mine, as any others, although totally unfit, times in the Cambyses' vein. If you really maybe, for the delicate uses of novelist and want to see the mighty Mars in his work-a-poet. Some of these men had a very strong day clothes, and without his "company man- though somewhat mechanical sense of duty. ners," you should serve, as I did, as assist- I saw one of them, with my own eyes, perant-surgeon in a fighting regiment.

When the Old Guard were surrounded after Waterloo, and threatened with cannonshot if they did not surrender, they replied -What?

form the self-same action which has made Sir Philip Sidney's name immortal, only instead of a cup of water, a cup of rum was concerned in the matter-which increases the sacrifice. Dick Smith, full private in the "The Guard die, but never surrender." 150th, had both legs carried away by a rebel Enthusiastic but insufficiently informed cannon-ball, and lay a-dying. The ordinary reader, they replied nothing of the sort; allowance of spirits which every man carried that is what History has replied for them. with him into action had been very properly It is not necessary, nor would it be becom-administered at once, but there was great ing, to set down here what they actually did An untouched flask of rum say, but they certainly did not say that. was lying by him, which nothing would inSimilarly, if the gallant 150th, to which I duce him to take. had the honor to belong, were asked to lay down its arms to any enemy, its reply whether cannon or no cannon-would be without doubt in the negative, but it would not be "the 150th never surrender," but some statement more curt and natural, though equally decisive.

With the regiment in question I served during the whole of the late Indian rebellion, nor was any of its officers, I think, better acquainted with the men than I. I may not, indeed, have known so many as the colonel, but those with whom my profession did bring me into contact (and in an Indian campaign almost every man in a regiment passes sooner or later through the doctor's hands), I got to know most thoroughly. The great majority of my patients were simple faithful fellows, brave as lions, and with no touch of the tiger about them, except when engaged in actual conflict. They suffered without complaint, they died without repining and without fear. The Hereafter of Death did not trouble them; their last words, for the most part, were some message (rarely, alas, to reach its destination!) to mother, or sister, or cousin, far away in their native land. In the rare case of their being married, they spoke of the wife, soon to be widow; but generally, it is a fact that a male cousin was the person most in their mind at that last moment; some Dick, or Tom, or Bob, who had snared rabbits, or shot sparrows with them turn-and-turn about with a

need for more.

"The major may likely want it," said he ; "it is the major's."

This officer (who did not take spirits except medicinally) had given the rum to Dick, with the proviso only, that if he (the major) were wounded, he should receive the precious liquid again. No representation could move the poor fellow to take this, until the major himself came to the Rear and bade him do so, when Dick Smith drank it off with a smile, happy to see his favorite officer was untouched (except, to his honor be it spoken, by this beautiful act of devotion)—and then died. If Dick had been a general, and the major but a private soldier, what a charming scene the historians would have made of it, and what elegant sentences would have been placed in both their mouths; whereas, in honest reality, there were some rather strongish expressions used by all parties in reference to the cause of the mischief— namely, "the Pandies.”

The rebel sepoys were an infamous and accursed race. They ate our salt with murder in their hearts; they hated us with the hate of those who have returned evil for good. Those smooth liars who slew our women and our children deserved the bayonet most richly. In the battle, and after the battle, I, for my part, would have always cried, "Spare not "-only it was never necessary. In War, there is no such thing as mercy in the hearts of most of the common soldiers, no matter of what nation they be.