Hostilities with America are spoken of as the possible result
of difficulties in which the relations between the British Government and the Government of the United States have fallen. Not that there has been any formal threat of war from this side ; certainly there has been none from America. But there has been an in- creasing uneasiness. From the other side, we have reports of the prosecution instituted by the local authorities of the. Eastern divi- sion of Pennsylvania against agents for the recruitment of the British Legion: The local officers appear to have behaved as if they were impelled by a conscientious sense of duty to vindicate the neutrality of the State; but the formal proceedings have been made an occasion for the use of language very offensive towards this country from the pen of Mr. Attorney-General Cushing. There has also been some stir in the Union of a kind by no means intelligible from an English point of view. There was even a talk of "an invasion of Ireland' by Anglo-Irish; but, although the words when they first came over were caught up by alarmists, the notion was too ridiculous to last for a week. The idea of a war between England and America seems equally absurd. With reference to conduct on the other side, we may bear in mind that this is a period when every kind of party device is employed, by those who have little scruple, as a means of fanning public excitement in preparation for the Presidential election. Any kind of dodge is current at that time, and parties are as anxious for excitement as advertising playhouse-managers. When the excitement is over, the party that loses turns round against the projects that have disappointed it ; the party that wins finds itself under no compulsion to fulfil its promises, and then the cries of election-time are laughed out of memory. With reaped to the demonstrations on our own side, they are not of an afield character, beyond the sailing. of the fleet; a measure of doubtful necessity in the first place, since there is no well-grounded evidence of the movements which it is said to counteract : and if there were any real apprehension of privateers to aid Russia, they could, no doubt, be as well intercepted by a fleet stationed at Cork as by one sent over to menace the Americana in their own waters. On the whole, there seems to have been rather a reckless disposition to create excitement, which will prove to be harmless in proportion as its unreal character is understood.
