302 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



There is that, with nations whose fortune it is to have thrived and 

 prospered under the assumption and exercise of rights which were 

 not theirs, that they grow infatuated with their too easily-earned 

 successes, and become rash, and daring, and reckless, ever ready to 

 jump over abysses of difficulty in pursuit of a cherished object, and 

 in the extravagant conceit that whatever they wish to attain, it is in 

 their power to grasp, and whatever they grasp is legitimately theirs. 

 Such is England. She knows where lies the secret and the great 

 fountain of your power. She loathes to see those naval nurseries of 

 yours almost stuck to her shore, those hives of whizzing seamen 

 pitched upon the waters of what she would have you call her seas, 

 and her gulfs, and her bays, as so many advanced posts watching over 

 the deep, that none may dare to claim its mastery and hold it in 

 thraldom. She cannot but look with extreme jealousy and concern 

 on the growing prosperity of this country. She may think that it 

 were well for her if she could bar its progress while it has not yet 

 reached its acme. Who can say, that in some of those wild dreams 

 that come, at times, over the mind and darken the intellect of na- 

 tions, she has not conceived that by timely interposition she might, per- 

 chance, slacken our march, arrest the tide of our fortune, and assign 

 limits to our greatness? I will not say that she has. Still, 

 179 how are we to conciliate her well-known sagacity with the in- 

 tention attributed to her of coercing us into a Treaty by so 

 insulting a premonition of her purposes and designs ? Depend upon 

 it, Mr. President, she has been emboldened by her late triumphs in 

 the Nicaragua and Mexican questions; and she may expect to deter 

 us from holding on to our rights in the fisheries, as we were deterred, 

 it is said, by omenous warnings, from entertaining the proifer lately 

 made to persons in high places, of isles impatient to throw themselves 

 in our lap. 



Sir, what does England mean? What is she after? But, hush! 

 She is negotiating. So says her Admiral ; so says Sir John Paking- 

 ton. She is negotiating? No! she has negotiated, if we are to be- 

 lieve the semi-official announcement made in a Whig paper of this 

 city, under the caption of ADJUSTMENT or THE FISHERIES DIFFICULTIES. 

 Here it is : 



We are enabled to announce upon what we regard as entirely satisfactory 

 authority, that the subject of the recent excitement in regard to the New Eng- 

 land fisheries, has been arranged between Mr. Webster and Mr. Cranipton in 

 a manner that will prove wholly satisfactory to the American people. 



Mr. SEWARD. Will the honourable Senator allow me to ask him. 

 from what paper he reads ? 



Mr. SOULE. The Daily Telegraph. The honourable Senator under- 

 stands, I imagine, that, when speaking of a semi-official announce- 

 ment, I meant not to impart a character to the paper, but to the 

 announcement alone. The peculiar language in which the intelli- 

 gence which it imparts is couched, fully justifies the denomination 

 under which I have presented it to the Senate. The honourable 

 Senator, besides, is presumed not to be unfriendly to the paper; and, 

 in all probability, knows more of its whereabouts than I do. 



I was going to remark, when I was interrupted, that the announce- 

 ment which I have just now read had scarcely gone out from the 

 press, than the magnetic wires were transmitting to us another an- 



