AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR'S PRIVATE VIEW OF ENGLAND.*

WE are afraid we cannot take the view of the letters collected in the volume before us which the writer and his friends were inclined to hold. The bulk of them were the Ambassador's private notes to his chief, Mr. Cass, and, as we learn from a foot-note, they were all read to the Cabinet, and were " listened to with great interest." " Your facts and speculations," says Mr. Cass, " are just what we want, and what we can get nowhere else. I will say to you what I have said elsewhere, that since the days of Horace Walpole I have seen no more successful effort of this kind than is furnished by your life-like correspondence." Evidently all concerned, both the writer and his correspondents, thought they were at the centre of events, and that the Ambassador, while enlightening his Government, was making a valuable contribution to history. This is certainly not the case. Mr. Dallas was an average American gentleman, gossipping from London on English and European affairs, but without in- formation that was not open to all the world, and often with a singularly imperfect appreciation of notorious facts. Every cock- and-bull story in those pre-1860 years about Franco-Russian alliances, ruptures between France and England, menaces of an Anglo-French war, is retailed just as it might have been found in the newspapers of the day. Real events, such as the Plombieres interview between Napoleon and Cavour, are noted and commented on with as little insight into their meaning as the outside world possessed—often with much less insight than was possessed by the leading European journals of the time. As to English politics, we get nothing more than an echo of the loudest echoes of the day about the Indian Mutiny, the prospects of reform, the invasion panics, the Volunteer movement, the commercial treaty with France, and the other topics, which, mingled with foreign affairs, filled up the rather dull years just before 1860. Hint there is none of what was going on beneath the political surface of the hour—not the slightest mention of conversations with political leaders or followers as to the future of parties and the great home questions which were rising up. A shrewd foreign observer on the England of that time, who would really have con- densed the ideas of the day on policy and studied England else- where than in some small coterie, would have accomplished a valuable work ; but there is nothing of the sort here. Mr. Dallas was, in short, an outsider—an American agent in London, who was acquainted in the way of business with some English politicians and with foreign colleagues, but who from defect of imagination or sympathy, so far as these letters show, did not even try to understand the world about him or the larger world of England. To compare his work with that of old ambassadors who were active intriguers at the Courts they represented, or with the letters of Walpole, who was so much "in the game" of which he wrote and intimate with the principal actors, not to speak of personal qualifications for using the position, is to make Mr. Dallas ridiculous. No doubt it will be said that he was "in the game," transacting some diplomatic • A Series of Letters from London, Written during the Tears 1856, '57, '58, '59, and '60. By George Mifflin Dallas, then Minister of the United States at the British Court. Edited by his daughter Julia. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co. London : Triibner and Co. 1869.

business with this country about Central-American squabbles, the great recruiting question, and the dismissal of Sir John Crampton ; but seen at this distance, these were superficial enough questions, while Mr. Dallas hardly understood what connection they had with our internal politics,—the insignificance of any English in- terest involved in them, the strength of the wish for peace where war could be avoided, and the usefulness of America to the Radical party as an object-lesson, though not as the source of political ideas. One subject of some historical interest he had to do with, the English abandonment of the right of search of American vessels in pursuit of slavers ; but he sees in it little more than a triumph of American diplomacy, and not the progress of opinion on international questions. Occasionally he catches a feature in the character of the English Government, such as this :—

"I do not think it enters into the policy or character of this Govern- ment or people ever to resume an international doctrine which they have once formally surrendered. They fight to the last for a false position which props a bad practice ; but the instant they give it np, they rather hurry to deny they ever took it. This is a result of an exorbitant self- respect, the rivalry of political factions, and a quickly detective, press."

But generally his actual business brings him little into contact with the real England, only the official persons with whom he had to deal and who settled small business as business, and larger matters under the influence of motives with which he had nothing to do. The book, for all that, has its uses, though not what the eulogy of Mr. Cass or the opportunities of an able American Ambassador would lead us to expect.

One of its principal uses is the light which it throws on the American idea of ambassadoring to England, and indirectly the American idea of England,—at least, if the private letters of Mr.. Dallas and the recent conversations of Mr. Reverdy Johnson with. a New York correspondent, of which they remind us, are to be- taken as fair specimens of the current Yankee notions.. We are not without warrant, at any rate, in accepting Mr. Dallas, con- sidering the encouragement which he evidently had to continue his observations, and the naturalness of his tone to all his corre- spondents, which gives the impression of a thorough communion of spirit. What strikes an English reader is the anxiety displayed about the writer's position and possible treatment. Although the ambassador had been going to another planet, he could not have been more concerned as to the strange world he was to encounter, and his heart is cheered by every instance of ordinary civility to. which his high position entitled him from our Court and Ministers. " I confess myself," he says at one place, " agreeably dis- appointed by the hospitality and respect which have invariably been shown me." We could not fancy the ambassador of any European country writing thus, though when we think of it, it is not unnatural in the diplomatists of a country which is less limited• in its choice of representatives, and sends men who would not always as individuals be sure of an entrée among the class they officially mix with, or would at least feel a sense of strangeness and novelty in the society. The statement implies a confession of difference in the ways of political life which is very instructive.. It will not be made when America contains a highly cultivated political society, concentrating and guiding public opinion, the members of which have been accustomed to measure themselves with a similar class in other countries. This concern as to per- sonal treatment, however, is partly caused by, and blended with, a real democratic curiosity about a court and aristocracy,— a. struggle between the conviction or prejudice that courts and aris- tocracies are "barbarous," a fear that one may yet be overawed and snubbed by the members of these barbarous institutions, and the feminine hope that one may survive contact with them, and reflect ever after the glory of the acquaintance. The condemna- tion of the thing sought after and prediction of its downfall do nob deceive. When Mr. Dallas writes to Mr. J. P. H. :— " The ladies upstairs are all well, and not yet tired, as I am heartily, of the gaieties of the great London season. I wish you would bring two or three of your circle over, and give them a chance while I am here (not long, mark that) to see the Court of Queen Victoria, as splendid now as it ever has been or ever will be. All this magnificence of ceremonial and pretension is fast being undermined, even among the proudest peers, by our republican principles accompanied by our wonderful prosperity ; and before any one of your children reaches fifty, it will have vanished, like the hues of a rainbow, for ever. Let them see it before it fades away."

—we know very well that the point is in the first two sentences, and that the last are only a tribute to democratic principle put in as a matter of form. Mr. Dallas either knows that he is rousing the envy of Mr. J. P. H.'s " circle," whose ladies have not enjoyed the gaieties of the London season, or he is reminding them in genuine friendship of a most tempting opportunity. The unction with which he writes about his presentation to the Queen perhaps shows the sentiment better, though it is not quite free from the usual running-down formula. The italics are our own :-

u I have just returned from Buckingham Palace, having

delivered to the Queen my credential. Her Majesty asked about the health of the President, about my former visits to this country, and so on. She is not handsome, but her expression of face and her manner are engaging, and very soon put her visitors at ease. I was also presented to Prince Albert, who stood by the Queen on her left. While in the Picture Gallery, I made the acquaintance of Lord Lansdowne, Sir George Grey, Earl of Harrowby, Count Colorado (the Austrian Minister, recalled to be sent to Rome), Mr. Vernon Smith, of the Cabinet, and many others, who, I am happy to tell you, were in nowise repelled from the American Minister by his plain suit of black ; but, on the contrary, made his time, while waiting her Majesty's readiness, pass very pleasantly. My coat, which I am bold to say was as well made and of as good cloth as any in the Palace (except perhaps Prince Albert's), came from the shop of a tailor in Philadelphia, Sixth above Arch, of the name of Kelly ! The truth appears to be that our common sense is gradually getting the better of traditional fooleries, in honest reality, greatly improving social intercourse. Sir , a son of the minister we had in the United States, and who seems quite attached to our country, confessed, though himself an assistant of Sir Edward Cast, the Master of Ceremonies, that those idle points of Court etiquette were gradually wearing out."

The same liking is shown in his unaffected wonder at the refine- ment of the members of the Royal caste who came to England at the Princess Royal's marriage :—

" The Almanach de Gotha is enjoying its triumph in London. The bard names, complicated pedigree; and endless titles of German royalty are exercising the oldest and best of ns. The Palace swarms with the kindred of the Queen, actual and contemplated, for the wedding festivities :—and I must frankly own that these Continental foreigners, both male and female, are very conspicuous for refinement of manners, delicacy of look, and absence of affectation."

Mr. Dallas very soon gets to write familiarly enough of notables of every description, and by and by he betrays and confesses a liking for the London season. Writing to his sister from the Isle of Wight, where he and his have been to get a "swallow of sea air," he says :—

" Sophia and the girls have been enchanted by a short absence from the London heat, smoke, and dust, to which they have clung continuously for sixteen months ; and I sincerely hope it may brace them to boar another of those delirious ' seasons ' two of which have gone roaring by."

In one of his last letters he is quite outspoken, without any reservation :-

" This mission is very different from that at St. Petersburg. There, I could yawn and doze without end ; here, not an hour arrives without Ms budget, keeping me for ever either in the deeply reflective or the excitedly qui vice mood. Which post is the better? I am not yet old and cold enough to hesitate in preferring this. I am not disposed to be dead before I die. After all, there is a charm in living fast, in being on the rack of vigilance, eagerness, hope, and hurrah, which goes at once not so much to the heart, as to the immortal spirit within. Of course, I am referring to the enjoyments and bustle of the intellect, not to those of sense. London has an immense field for these, just below the Court and above the Counter ; and in that range vast herd; titled and untitled, the philosophers, the litterateurs, the lawyers, the clergy, the editors, the politicians, the experimentalists, on matter, mind, and morals, the painters, the sculptors, the musicians, the agriculturists, the florists, the photographers, &c., &c., &c. Any man who will anchor himself in this tide of incessant and roaring movement, and give himself to each wave of the flood as it passes, must, if he don't run mad, experience the highest degree of human enjoyment. All this is the bettor for not being exclusively English. Every country and every language contribute to the result. And all of it is essentially and absolutely apart from the pantomimic finery of royalty, or the grossness of mere money-changing. No dout)t, the individuals have each and all their repulsive qualities ; but as a stirring whole, the thing is marvellous !"

No wonder he should have dreaded about the same time that his Anglomania was getting the better of him, and feel it necessary

to protest once more against the barbarity of caste. It is not difficult to sympathize with him, but equally impossible to avoid more than a suspicion that political society is really more advanced in old Europe than in America ; that it is more specialized, various, and attractive, even by an educated American's admission ; and tint it is also more really democratic, in spite of the commingling of traditional titles of social precedence and the base title of wealth with the more solid claims of culture and refinement. In that immense field which Mr. Dallas describes,—just below the Court and above the counter, perhaps rather a vague descrip- tion,—there is, we suspect, more real liberalism, and more of the democratic idea of equality, without some of its odd social develop- ments, than is to be found in non-European communities.

We have spent so much time in studying Mr. Dallas's attitude towards Court and aristocracy that we have hardly room for other points. But we ought not to pass over his slavery to the American Demos, of which he constantly complains. The position of an American ambassador, the obedient servant of every unit of the

sovereign people, cannot be a very enviable one. Fancy being required by a senator, too, to look after his subscription for the Times and Illustrated News, and write a civil note about it. On the whole, though the ambassadors of another power we are more nearly concerned with are said to be supercilious to their masters individually, there is some virtue in a principle which makes a broad distinction between an ambassador's duty to the community and his duty to individuals. The ambassador is lowered when used as the Americans use theirs. Another thing to be noticed, is the remarkable spirit of hostility to England avowed throughout —previous to the American war. Mr. Dallas speaks of the Indian mutiny as an "indifferent stranger," and unfeignedly rejoices in all English troubles, the secret source of the feeling being shown in an incidental phrase about the " insolence " of English states- men and ruling classes, which may have had more to do with the bitterness of recent disputes than is sometimes thought. If there is any truth in this view, our relations with America ought not to be a difficulty to a new race of politicians, not affected by the old traditions. We must add that there is an occasionally happy personal sketch, as of Lord Palmerston at Broadlands, where Mr. Dallas had the pleasure of outshooting the veteran sportsman. If the book had been fuller of such sketches, it might not have been so undeserving of Mr. Cass's praise. There are some passages about one of her Majesty's confinements which a careful editor should have omitted ; nor is it good taste, if it is not even libelous, to publish a phrase about an eminent ex-diplomatist still living being considered " prone to indirection."