CHAP. XIV.] CONVERSATIONS WITH MR. FOX. 203 



glish travelers wondered that I should set out on a long tour when 

 the English and American papers were descanting on the proba 

 bility of a war. He said, that &quot;when Macleod was detained 

 prisoner in 1841, there was really some risk, because he might 

 have been hanged any day by the New Yorkers, in spite of the 

 desire of the Federal Government to save him ; but now there 

 is no war party in England, and all reasonable men here, includ 

 ing the principal officers of the army and navy, are against it. 

 Some of the western people may be warlike, for there are many 

 patriots who believe that it is their destiny to rise on the ruins 

 of the British empire ; but when the President, according to 

 treaty, shall have given notice of a partition of Oregon, there will 

 be time for negotiation. If one of two disputants threatens to 

 knock the other down eighteen months hence, would you appre 

 hend immediate mischief?&quot; &quot;They are not arming,&quot; said I. 

 &quot;No augury can be drawn from that fact,&quot; he replied; &quot;the 

 people are against large peace establishments, knowing that there 

 is no fear of hostile attacks from without unless they provoke 

 them, and satisfied that their wealth and population are annually 

 increasing. They are full of courage, and would develop extraor 

 dinary resources in a war, however much they would suffer at 

 the first onset.&quot; 



We then conversed freely on the future prospects of civiliza 

 tion in the North American continent. He had formed far less 

 sanguine expectations than I had, but confessed, that though he 

 had resided so many years in the country, he knew little or noth 

 ing of the northern states, especially of New England. When 

 I dwelt on the progress I had witnessed, even in four years, in 

 the schools and educational institutions, the increase of readers 

 and of good books, and the preparations making for future scien 

 tific achievements, he frankly admitted that he had habitually 

 contemplated the Union from a somewhat unfavorable point of 

 view. I observed to him that Washington was not a metropo 

 lis, like London, nor even like Edinburgh or Dublin, but a town 

 which had not thriven, in spite of government patronage. The 

 members of Congress did not bring their families to it, because it 

 \vould often take them away from larger cities, where they were 



