56 The National Geographic Magazine 



and I do not hesitate to say it here. 

 Russia does not resent honest criticism. 

 She criticises herself. Her statesmen 

 are sensible of her relations to the spirit 

 of the age and are conscious of her diffi- 

 culties and shortcomings. She only 

 asks — and does she not rightly ask ? — 

 that judgment shall be pronounced in 

 good faith, and with an honest purpose 

 to be fair. She is often silent when in 

 justice to herself she ought to speak. 

 To my mind it is a mistaken policy, for 

 while it avoids answer where answer 

 would sometimes be difficult, it leaves a 

 hundred misrepresentations to pass un- 

 challenged ; but, mistaken or not, it is 

 the tradition of a power which meets 

 political hostility or thrifty sensational- 

 ism with disdain. 



And certainly, if there be a grateful 

 sense of invaluable service, we of Amer- 

 ica ought at least to seek to be fair. 

 We never can be deaf to the call of 

 humanity. We cannot be blind to the 

 errors which have followed unfortunate 

 counsels. We must deal with living 

 issues and with present events as truth 

 requires ; but we can and we ought to 

 fulfill the obligations of duty and speak 

 the voice of judgment in the spirit of 

 honest and manly friendship. For Rus- 

 sia was our truest friend in the hour 

 of our supreme trial. Tradition has 

 lianded down this impressive truth, and 

 footh the public archives and the un- 

 written records confirm it. You know 

 that in the critical period of the civil 

 war, when we were threatened with 

 French and English intervention, the 

 Russian fleet appeared in the harbor 

 of New York. The testimony is not 

 wanting which discloses the inspiration 

 and the purposes that placed it within 

 that friendly and protecting proximity. 

 There has been some dispute over this 

 question, and the attempt has been 

 made to discredit the sympathetic atti- 

 tude and the actual service of Russia, 

 but the evidence is clear and conclu- 

 sive. 



Shortly after the war began in 1861, 

 the Secretary of State, Mr Seward, 

 addressed the European governments, 

 setting forth the American position. 

 Prince Gortchakoff, the great Russian 

 chancellor, wrote these words in reply : 



"The Union is not simply in our 

 eyes an element essential to the univer- 

 sal political equilibrium. It constitutes 

 besides a nation to which our august 

 master and all Russia have pledged the 

 most friendly interest, for the two 

 countries, placed at the extremities of 

 the two worlds, both in the ascending 

 period of their development, appear 

 called to a natural community of inter- 

 est and of sympathies, of which they 

 have already given mutual proofs to 

 each other." 



That unequivocal answer, made at the 

 very beginning, plainly indicated the 

 friendly attitude of Russia. Through 

 the Russian government, with its spe- 

 cial sources of information, President 

 Lincoln's administration was kept ad- 

 vised of what the other governments of 

 Europe were meditating and proposing. 

 Official France was hostile. The French 

 people were sympathetic, as they had 

 been from the days of the American 

 Revolution. But Louis Napoleon, who 

 was then on the throne, had his own 

 designs, which were disclosed in Mex- 

 ico. Official England, unlike the offi- 

 cial England of these later years, was 

 also hostile. A large proportion of the 

 English people, many of whom in Lan- 

 cashire deeply suffered on account of 

 our war and the deprivation of cotton, 

 were right in their instincts. The great 

 and good Queen was our steadfast friend. 

 But Palmerston and Lord Russell, and 

 even Mr Gladstone, whom we have all 

 so greatly admired and honored, looked 

 on our struggle with unkindly thought. 



In the early days of the war Secretary 

 Seward was apprised, through the lega- 

 tion at St Petersburg, that the French 

 and English governments had come to 

 an understanding for joint action re- 



