356 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE -XXV 



As to the present condition, then, of our diplomatic 

 service, it seems to me a mixture of good and evil. It 

 is by no means so bad as it once was, and by no means 

 so good as it ought to be and as it could very easily be 

 made. There has been great improvement in it since 

 the days of the Civil War. The diplomatic service of no 

 other country, probably, was so disfigured by eminently 

 unworthy members as was our own during the quarter 

 of a century preceding the inauguration of President 

 Lincoln, and, indeed, during a part of the Lincoln admin 

 istration itself. 



During one presidential term previous to that time 

 our ministers at three of the most important centers 

 of Europe were making unedifying spectacles of them 

 selves, whenever it was possible for them to do so, before 

 the courts to which they were accredited. On one occa 

 sion of court festivity, one of them, in a gorgeous uni 

 form such as American ministers formerly wore, ran 

 howling through the mud in the streets of St. Petersburg, 

 the high personages of the empire looking out upon him 

 from the windows of the Winter Palace. Sundry other 

 performances of his, to which I have referred in the ac 

 count of my Russian mission, were quite as discreditable. 



Another American representative, stationed at Berlin 

 during that same period, disgraced his country by notori 

 ous drunkenness; and though some of our countrymen 

 at that capital sought to keep him sober for his first pres 

 entation to the King, they were unsuccessful. Happily, 

 his wild conduct did not culminate abroad ; for a murder 

 which he committed in a drunken fit did not occur until 

 after his return to our country. A third American repre 

 sentative at that period published regularly, in his home 

 newspaper, such scurrilous letters regarding the authori 

 ties of the country to which he was accredited, his col 

 leagues in the diplomatic service, and, indeed, the coun 

 try itself, that, according to common report, his early 

 return home was caused by his desire to escape the conse 

 quences. These were the worst, but there were others 



