Mr. Seward has added a very shabby and personally discredit-
able act to the long list of his official follies, blunders, and sins. He wrote on the 21st of November to Mr. Motley, the eminent historian of the Netherlands, and then also United States' Ambas- sador at the Court of Vienna, to state that a United States' citizen, resident in Paris, had written to the President to say that most of the United States' Ministers abroad were bitterly hostile to the Administration. Of Mr. Motley in particular this was asserted :— -" He adds that you do not pretend to conceal your disgust, as he says you style it, at the President's whole conduct ; that you de- spise American democracy, and loudly proclaim that an English gentleman is the model of human perfection ; that the President has deserted his pledges and principles in common with Mr. Seward, who, yoe say, is hopelessly degraded. Your denial or affirmation of the truth of these reports is requested." Mr. Motley of course replied, in a very dignified letter, that his personal views have been hostile to the President's policy, and that in his own private house they have been expressed, and that he had never -conceived that he was deprived of the right of having and ex- pressing private opinions by his official position. Of course he denies very warmly the silly and violent expressions imputed to him, and resigns his post. When an American Minister takes to cross-examining his Ambassadors on their private opinions and -conversation, at the instigation of anonymous citizen spies, it does not want careful political criticism to estimate either his calibre -as a Minister, or his moral weight as a man.
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