The Hon. W. Woodward, formerly Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and
now a Democratic Member for Congress for that State, has written a letter on the Alabama question, which is sensible, though rather stilted, as far as the American side of the question is con- cerned, but not quite so sensible on the English side of it. He is very scornful against "such politicians as Sumner and Chand- ler, who will always be crying out for war, as ravens screech over battle-fields for carcases on which to feed ;" but they represent not, he says, "the heart, or life, or sense of the nation." But when he goes on to talk of England he is less master of his subject. "And if every man of us should deter- mine to fight England, she wouldn't fight us. She would pay all the damages of the Alabama, and give us the Canadas to boot, rather than have a year's war with tut." The Hon. W. Wood- ward scarcely knows how very little insult it would take not only to make us fight, —but, we regret to say,—to make us fight with a will, not to say a sense of ferocious enjoyment. It is very dreadful to say so, but it is true. We would rather at present do anything on earth than fight with America, but a deliberate insult or two would make us rather do anything on earth than not fight with her.
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