• The advices from the United States are not satisfactory
; but we have watched the world of statecraft too long to be greatly impressed by the aspects of the passing day. While President Pierce is pro- *ssing an absolute neutrality, America keeping to herself, and refusing almost common humanity with Europe, private letters speak with concern of a manifest increase to the Russian feeling, which exhibits itself in hopes that England will not this time es- cape a thrashing. The party is loud, but, for the sake of Ame- rica, we hope not numerous ; and we doubt its influence. Pre- sident Pierce, an able official, a successful soldier on occasion, is
• by the business of his life a lawyer; and his statement of the -Greytown affair is the first example of law-stationery in a Pre- sident's message. The affair is his opprobrium. Charged with feebleness in Cuba, he bethought him of displaying his energy on Greytown ; but his own supporters blushed, and he now knows his mistake. Presidents have not yet reached that stage of phi- losophy in which they could make the globe their confessional ; but in his endeavour to throw a veil over the whole subject and its stultified issue, President Pierce confesses while he would dis- guise the wrong, and proclaims that better influences still control his actions and the councils of the Union.
Previous page
