aed SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
hints regarding questions likely to arise, or information which 
it is desirable to have, in the interest of his own country. 
Among typical examples of men who have served our country 
admirably in this way, in days gone by, are such as Elihu B. Wash- 
burne at Paris during the most critical moments of the Franco- 
Prussian War, the Invasion, and the Commune. 
Typical also, in a very different way, was George P. Marsh, first 
at Constantinople, and afterward in Italy, at the formation period 
of the present Italian kingdom. In his quiet way, he prevented no 
end of difficulties, first throughout the Levant and later along the 
whole Northern coast of the Mediterranean. 
Mention may also here be made of the late Henry Shelton San- 
ford. Though a minister to one of the smaller European powers, 
he became one of Secretary Seward’s most valuable representatives 
in Europe during our Civil War, and did much, both by direct 
political and by well arranged social means, to ascertain the ten- 
dency of leading European statesmen and to influence them favor- 
ably toward American ideas and interests during that most critical 
period. 
It is in this field that the statesmanship of Great Britain has 
shown its wisdom. Our mother country has by no means been a 
popular nation in the world. She seems to have preferred the 
respect of the world to its love; she has been at times too aggressive 
to be pleasing; but no one can deny that the way in which that little 
group of islands has baffled great despots like Louis XIV., Napoleon, 
and Nicholas I., has brought hundreds of millions beneath its sway, 
and has stretched its sceptre over every continent, without giving 
up its own constitutional liberty, is one of the wonderful things in 
human history. Whether we like it or not, we cannot but respect 
it. Yet a main factor in the accomplishment of this result is found 
not merely in the fleets and armies of Great Britain, but in the 
common sense of her diplomacy. As a rule, she has taken pains to 
send thoroughly fitted men into important diplomatic positions and 
to keep them there as long as they have done well. More than 
this, she has supplied them with the means to do their work: she 
has not stinted them; and the common sense of the English people 
is seen in the fact that at-the great capitals of the world where her 
influence is to be exercised, she has always a large, commodious, 
and attractive residence for her representative, and makes his remun- 
eration such that he can afford to devote all his thoughts to her 
interests. The demagogue may denounce this sort of thing; the 
doctrinaire may pooh-pooh it; but the fact remains that humanity, 
