HUMBOLDT COMrLlMEXTS TRESCOTT. 44S 



fearlessly debated. The debates had been published, 

 and the voice of a liberal party heard all over Germany. 



" Baron Humboldt himself is a liberal, a firm believer 

 in progress and improvement, knovrn and recognised as 

 sympathizing with that great political party which has 

 for its lofty aim the greatest good to the greatest num- 

 ber, bettering the condition of the masses, and increasing 

 the sum of human happiness; and while throughout the 

 civilized world he has filled ' the measure of his fame' as 

 a traveller and philosopher, in Prussia he is regarded 

 besides as one of her soundest and best statesmen. 



" Out of Europe, Mexico seemed to be the country 

 which interested him most ; perhaps from its connexion 

 with those countries which had brought me to his 

 acquaintance, or, more probably, because it was the 

 foundation of his own early fame. He spoke of Mr. 

 Prescott's History of the Conquest, and said that I might, 

 when the opportunity offered, say to that gentleman, as 

 from himself, that there was no historian of the age, in 

 England or Germany, equal to him. ♦ 



" And he was keenly alive to the present condition of 

 Mexico ; he was full of our Mexican war ; his eyes were 

 upon General Taylor and the American army. I was 

 well aware that, in the conduct of this war. General Tay- 

 lor was drawing upon himself the eyes of all Europe ; 

 and that, whatever might be the differences of opinion as 

 to its necessity or justice, it was producing everywhere, 

 in monarchical and anti-republican countries, a strong 

 impression of our ability and power for war — which in 

 enlightened (?) Europe, even at this day, more than all 

 the fruits of peace, industry, and extended commerce, 

 more than the exhibition of twenty millions of people 



