LORD LYONS AND AMERICA.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In his excellent review of the volumes on Lord Lyons, Lord Cromer has, quite naturally, confused the sequence of two leading events in the relations between Great Britain and the United States in 1861 and 1862. Gladstone's speech at Newcastle came nearly a year after the seizure by Captain Wilkes of the Confederate commissioners on the British vessel ' Trent.' It was the grant of belligerent rights to the South by the Palmerston Government which gave rise to a strong feeling of resentment in America against England, and contributed to the exultation displayed over Wilkes's act. Gladstone's speech left an impression which would have been lasting had he not royally repented and made reparation in the Treaty of Washington. The whole subject was treated by Mr. C. F. Adams in his lectures before Oxford University last spring, and with a notable breadth of view, as he did justice to the good intentions and conduct of Earl Russell in according belligerent rights to the South, and of Gladstone in his desire to repair the mischief done by his Newcastle utterance. These lectures will be issued by the Clarendon
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