President Grant, rather to the surprise, we suspect, of General
Schenck's friends, has treated his resignation as final, and has nominated Mr. R. H. Dana Minister to England. This is a return to the ancient practice of selecting American diplomatists from among the cultivated men of the United States who, what- ever they may do, will not soil their fingers with money-making jobs. Mr. Dana is the sixth in descent from a Puritan emigrant, whose descendants have, ever since the Revolution, held a high position in the Union, and is the author of a book, once extremely popular, and still circulated by the Admiralty; called "Two
Years before the Mast," the best account of a sailor's life perhaps- in existence. Mr. Dana will be well received in London, and Americans may be glad that the President has for once broken away from the circle of professional politicians and men who did him service in the war. The only better nomination would have been that of Mr. Moran, but work abroad for the Union does not secure influential friends within it.
