It was no such perilous juncture as
exists now, when law and right are really controverted on sustainable or
plausible grounds, and a naval commander may at any moment fire off the
first cannon of a terrible contest. If I remember it correctly, it was a
mere diplomatic squabble, which the British ministers, with the politic
generosity which they are in the habit of showing towards their official
subordinates, had tried to browbeat us for the purpose of sustaining an
ambassador in an indefensible proceeding; and the American Government
(for God had not denied us an administration of Statesmen then) had
retaliated with stanch courage and exquisite skill, putting inevitably a
cruel mortification upon their opponents, but indulging them with no
pretence whatever for active resentment.
Now the Lord-Mayor, like any other Englishman, probably fancied that War
was on the western gale, and was glad to lay hold of even so
insignificant an American as myself, who might be made to harp on the
rusty old strings of national sympathies, identity of blood and
interest, and community of language and literature, and whisper peace
where there was no peace, in however weak an utterance.
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