CHAP. XVI.] ANTI-ENGLISH FEELING. 305 



article called &amp;lt; hatred to England/ as so much political capital, 

 just as a southern merchant trades in cotton, or a Canadian one 

 in lumber. They court the multitude by blustering and by 

 threatening England. There is a natural leaning in the South 

 toward Great Britain, as furnishing a market for their cotton, 

 and they are averse to the high tariff which the northerners have 

 inflicted on them. But these feelings are neutralized by a dis 

 like of the abolitionist party in England, and by a strong spirit 

 of antagonism to Great Britain, which the Irish bring over here. 

 All these sources of estrangement, however, are as nothing in 

 comparison with the baneful effect of your press, and its persever 

 ing misrepresentation of every thing American. Almost every 

 white man here is a reader and a politician, and all that is said 

 against us in England is immediately cited in our newspapers, 

 because it serves to augment that political capital of which I 

 have spoken.&quot; I remarked that the nation arid its government 

 are not answerable for all the thoughtless effusions of anonymous 

 newspaper writers, and that the tone of the English journals, 

 since the agitation of the Oregon affair, had been temperate, 

 guarded, and even courteous. &quot;It is very true,&quot; he said ; &quot; the 

 Times, in particular, formerly one of the most insolent and ma 

 lignant. But the change has been too sudden, and the motive 

 too transparent. The English know that the world can never 

 suspect them of want of courage if they show a disinclination to 

 go to war. Not wishing to waste their blood and treasure for 

 so useless a possession as Oregon, they are behaving like a man 

 who, having insulted another, has no mind, when called out, to 

 fight a duel about nothing. He therefore makes an apology. 

 But such civility will not last, and if the anonymous abuse 

 habitually indulged in. were not popular, it would long ago have 

 ceased.&quot; 



A short time after this conversation, I fell in with a young 

 officer of the American navy who was wishing for war, partly 

 for the sake of active service, but chiefly from intense nationality. 

 &quot; We may get the worst of it,&quot; he said, &quot;for a year or two, but 

 England will not come out of the struggle without being forced 

 to acknowledge that she has had to deal with a first-rate instead 



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