hearts of the most sanguine. Confidence began to yield to mistrust and despondency; and when, in the inonth of November, after the battle of Inkermann, it was discovered that but twelve thousand of our troops could be mustered on the field of battle, we began to look with something approaching to dismay at the decimation of our ranks, and to experience a depressing uncertainty as to how they were to be filled up. We all remember this; and with what alacrity we turned to the prospect of a fresh supply held out by the proposal of recruiting in friendly countries for the British army. The Foreign Enlistment Act was passed; and we naturally turned our eyes to America, where so many thousand native British subjects resided. We saw at once what use they might be turned to-but here we were met at once by the Neutrality Laws, which were comprehensive and stringent, and which we were bound to respect. At the same time, we had no reason to believe, judging from the moral code of America in this respect, that provided a breach of those laws was avoided, there could be any objection on the part of its goverment to our working out our own purposes as we could; and accordingly, acting on this idea, and having been informed by the consuls of the principal cities of the United States that there were men eager to avail themselves of the opportunity to enlist, Government determined to establish recruiting stations outside the limits of the States (which would satisfy the requirements of the law) and invite residents within their limits to repair to them. In furthering this project, Mr. Crampton, to whom the first suggestions were made by the British consuls at New York, Philadelphia, and Cinciunati, exerted himself to the utmost, and spared no labour or pains on the one hand to prevent any formal violation of the laws, and on the other to send forward as many effective men to the frontier for enlistment as he could. In this he was encouraged by instructions from home, and aided by numbers of experienced military men of different nations, who volunteered their services-some, we fear, with objects very different from the ostensible ones. Now, had there been no other point at issue between the

countries, and had it not been the policy of others to foment discord between them, there can be little doubt, judging from the past and present conduct of the United States in similar circumstances, that their government, if it had not connived at their proceedings, would at least have winked at them; and suffered the most favourable construction to be put upon the movement which was openly set on foot within the States. Had it been their policy, even up to the last, to deal equitably with the case, they would not have dreamt of cherishing a feeling of hostility, or reiterating a demand of satisfaction, when the whole affair had passed over, and the Powers whose quarrel had led to the difficulty, had shaken hands with each other.

Up to the month of March, 1855, the home government urged Mr. Crampton by every possible means to induce foreigners or British subjects in the United States to enlist in her Majesty's service. "The subject," says Lord Clarendon, in a despatch of the 16th of February, "is one which engages the earnest attention of her Majesty's government, and you will use your best endeavours to give effect to their wishes." The above injunction was coupled, at the same time, with a caution against affording any cause of complaint to the United States government on account of a violation of their laws.

Mr. Crampton's reply bears date the 12th of March. It contains the following passages :—

In order that no misconception or mistake should arise in regard to this matter, which is justly regarded by Her Majesty's Government as one of primary importance, and which is indeed an indispensable condition to success in the objects they desire to effect, I have caused the legal opinion in regard to the bearing of the Neutrality Laws of the United States in this matter, of which I have the honour to inclose a copy, to be drawn up by an eminent American lawyer, in the soundness of whose views-both professional and political-I place the firmest reliance. have sent copies of the same to such of Her Majesty's Consuls as may be required to act

in the matter we have in hand.

I

Your Lordship will no doubt percieve that the provisions of the Neutrality Act will restrict our operations within very narrow limits, but I feel convinced that your Lordship will approve of my having strictly enjoined upon Her Majesty's Consuls to keep

rigidly within the limits of the law according to its true meaning and intent, as well as according to the letter of its provisions.

The " opinion"
" is then given at

length.

To this despatch Lord Clarendon replied on the 12th of April. He says:

I entirely approve of your proceedings as reported in your despatch of the 12th ultimo, with respect to the proposed enlistment in the Queen's service of foreigners and British subjects in the United States.

In the meantime Mr. Crampton had put himself in communication with Sir Gaspard Le Marchant, the Governor of Nova Scotia, with a view to establishing a recruiting depôt in that province; and had at last deemed it advisable to visit him there. In his absence Mr. Savile Lumley, who was charged with his duties, wrote a despatch to Lord Clarendon on the 7th of May, to an extract from which we beg the reader's attention:

At an interview which I had with Mr. Marcy I told him that he had judged rightly in supposing that Mr. Crampton's visit to Canada had reference to the English question.

I stated that, from the first moment this question was mooted, Mr. Crampton had shown the greatest anxiety that it should in no way lead to violations of the laws of the United States, that he believed everything that could be done might be effected legally, and that he was determined, as far as lay in his power, to prevent anything like infraction or evasion of the Neutrality Laws of this country. Unfortunately the very stringent nature of the provisions of these laws was not generally understood, and several persons had on their own responsibility acted at variance with them, and it was for the purpose of fully explaining the bearings of the law, and of preventing such infractions, that Mr. Crampton had undertaken his journey to the British Provinces.

I then told Mr. Marcy that as I thought it would interest him to see your Lordship's last instructions on the subject I had brought them with me, and I said that I was certain a perusal of this paper would convince him of two things: first, that the view which had been taken, and the opinions which had been expressed by Mr. Crampton on this suject, were precisely such as Mr. Marcy might have expected from his knowledge of Mr. Crampton; and secondly, that those opinions had been responded to by Her Majesty's Government in the same frank and honourable man

ner.

I then read to Mr. Marcy a copy of your

Lordship's despatch of the 12th ultimo. Mr. Marcy appeared much pleased with this communication, and said that as the question was one which had engaged the attention of the United States' Government he should be very glad to be able to show this despatch to the Cabinet. I told Mr. Marcy that I had no instructions to leave it with him, but I would take upon myself to do so if he would consider it in the light of a private memorandum.

Mr. Marcy said he would note it as such, and that if at any time Mr. Crampton wished, he might recall it; "the question," Mr. Marcy added, "will no doubt come before Congress, and I should be glad if this despatch could be found among the papers called for."

I am aware that in leaving this despatch with Mr. Marcy I have transgressed the regulations of Her Majesty's service, for which I must throw myself on your Lordship's indulgence; but Mr. Crampton was anxious that the United States' Government should not for a moment suppose that a project for enlisting troops for Her Majesty's service within the United States had ever been contemplated.

After reading the despatch himself, Mr. Marcy said he had no doubt that the course pursued by Mr. Crampton was the proper one; he was, indeed, convinced of this from having seen Mr. Crampton's instructions to Her Majesty's Consuls when the question of recruiting in the United States first arose.

Now up to this date it will be seen that there was not room for the shadow of a suspicion that in what the British ministers in America were engaged about there was anything which could possibly cause a misunderstanding, or bring the countries into unfriendly collision, provided only the letter of the law was strictly observed; and not even in case of its violation, unless it was brought home to them. Mr. Crampton accordingly felt it in accordance with both his duty and his patriotic sympathies, to make the organization he had planned as extensive and as efficient as possible, and believed that he was earning the gratitude of his country when he spread the network over the whole face of the States. He became thus the centre of a wide-spread system, and found himself in constant and confidential communication with a host of persons, strangers to him, of every nation and character, disaffected politicians, restless spirits, needy adventurers-in short, as might be supposed, that portion of society which is more valuable numerically than in any other aspect.

It was in the midst of these efforts that a dispatch from Lord Clarendon, dated the 22nd of June, reached Mr. Crampton, enjoining him to stay all further proceedings in the matter of enlistment, and to abandon the project definitively. It may easily be conceived in what a predicament this injunction, prudent and proper though it certainly was, left the British Minister. There he was, surrounded by a labyrinth of machinery of his own. construction, dangerous enough in the working, but trebly dangerous when interfered with, obliged to put a sudden and violent stop to its motions, and disjoint and safely take to pieces, as it were, the whole of what he had put together. No easy task, certainly; but still more dangerous than difficult. A host of expectants had to be disappointed a host of needy wretches had to be turned adrift a host of desperadoes to be summarily got rid of. Ill-humour, malignity, revenge were to be encountered. The odium which always attaches to the ostensible promoter of an abortive scheme had to be endured. All this time there were at his elbow the ministers of the very country against whom these schemes were directed. They were looking over his shoulder, as he played his cards, and may be supposed to have made their own signs to his enemies, who must now have been numerous. A man placed in such a situation can scarcely expect to get off scathless. In point of fact, Mr. Crampton, who had been the choice of the Americans themselves-whose singular suavity and grace of manner, as well as higher accomplishments and qualities, had made him up to that time perhaps the most popular minister who ever represented British interests in America, suddenly lost his prestige with both government and people, and became an object of public opprobrium. In the prosecutions which were instituted against various individuals for alleged violation of the neutrality laws, and especially on the trial of Hertz, the authorities who acted for the government made no secret of its being their chief endeavour to implicate the ambassador-to expose him as a "malefactor." It is unfortunately beyond the scope of an article like this, to enter upon an examination of the evidence upon which

it has been sought to criminate the British Minister. We must content ourselves with explaining two circumstances. First, the individuals, Strobel, Hertz, Burgthal and Reuss, upon whose evidence the enemies of Mr. Crampton principally rested for their proofs of his complicity, were men of notoriously loose, not to say infamous character. The second circumstance is best explained in the words of Mr. Crampton himself. He says:

"The Attorney-General of the United States has acknowledged, nay, he has proclaimed, that the proceedings in the trial of Hertz were, in reality, directed against Her Majesty's consuls and myself; yet he was aware that I could not, and he was determined that they should not appear in their own defence.

"The offence thus charged against us amounts to a misdemeanour.

"Prosecutions for misdemeanour by the State, whether by indictment or information, are subject in this country, as in England, to certain regulations, providing that the defendants shall have copies of the indictment or information, and a list of the witnesses, as well as other legal safeguards.

"Now, Her Majesty's Consuls and myself have stood in the position of defendants in this case, and I would beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General Cushing whether we had the benefit of any of the means of defence which the law allows to persons charged with misdemeanour ?"

No-they had not. The AttorneyGeneral had taken care, by express instructions addressed to the District Attorney, to contrive so that no British officer should be permitted to interfere in the trials in question. Yet up to the very last despatch received from Mr. Marcy during the month that is just past, it is still insisted that Mr. Crampton has no right, in self-defence, to impugn the testimony of witnesses admitted and credited in courts of justice in America! The result of the contest indeed cannot be doubtful,

readers the whole of that masterly despatch, in which Mr. Crampton, at the solicitation of Lord Clarendon, makes a formal statement of his case. This document should be in the hands of everybody who wishes to understand this affair thoroughly; and should especially be read in connection with the final note of Mr. Marcy, explanatory of Mr. Crampton's dismissal. It is a pity that Lord Clarendon had not the boldness to transmit it to the American minister as it stood. It might have had a wholesome effect at the time. Arriving, as it did, in the "Blue Book" the other day, it was simply calculated to increase those elements of repulsiveness which seem by that time to have rendered any intercourse between our Minister and the present government of America impossible.

On what grounds, then, is this extreme act of dismissal sought to be justified? Let the answer be supplied from the despatch we have just referred to. They are shortly these: that he undertook to do what was contrary to the municipal laws of the country, as well as derogatory of its sovereign rights, in "hiring or retaining" recruits for a nation at war with a friendly power. That he continued to authorize this infringement of the law after instructions had reached him from his government to desist--both these allegations being sustained solely by that evidence which Mr. Crampton was not allowed to question, and which he has given such good reasons for discrediting unless indeed the verbal contradiction of Mr. Marcy, supported by some unsatisfactory allegations which he calls "cumulative evidence," is to be admitted as impugning the solemn, clear, and deliberate statement of Mr. Crampton himself. That, notwithstanding the satisfactory arrangement of the dispute between the governments of the two countries, consisting of an apology on our part, and the acceptance of it on that of America, the Minister who it is insisted is guilty, but who has had no means allowed him of proving his innocence and who besides must be understood to have already apologized in the apology of his government, can on personal grounds no longer be endured or communicated with as Her Majesty's representative. That even ware the President disposed to wait

until the "cumulative proofs" should have been submitted, so as to give an opportunity of reply, the "exceptional character" of Mr. Crampton's despatches, recently come to his notice in the "Blue Book," would have precluded any such thought of delay.

Here it is that the shoe pinches, as regards Mr. Crampton. At least, this, and his participation in the ClaytonBulwer Treaty, are enough. He must be got rid of. He was a party to the policy of 1850. Moreover, he has seen through, and spoken out about, the policy of 1855.

He had said, on the 16th of July in the latter year :—

I believe Mr. Rowcroft to be entirely innocent; and it would appear, even from the newspaper reports, that the means employed to get up the charge, reflect anything but credit on the law officers of the United States at Cincinnati.

What, however, renders the want of information under which Mr. Marcy evidently laboured when he made the statement in question, more extraordinary, is the fact that on the day he wrote his despatch, viz., the 13th of October, I had addressed to him an official note on the subject, calling his attention not only to the reports of the proceedings in question, published in the American newspapers, but to the communications I have received from Her Majesty's Consuls at Boston, Cincinnati, and New York, on the subject, and to the handbill circulated secretly among the Irish societies, of which I inclosed to Mr. Marcy a printed copy.

In the following passage of Mr. Crampton's "statement," he remarks upon this refusal to permit Her Majesty's ministers to be heard in their own defence:-

I think, my lord, that we have some reason to complain of this treatment, as very little in harmony with what might be ex

pected at the hands of a friendly power; as showing needless distrust of Her Majesty's representative and Consuls; and, if I may be permitted to say so, as unmerited by the personal character and reputation of those gentlemen or myself.

Mr. Marcy, as well as the President, I had flattered myself would have felt convinced that, however erroneous they might suppose my views of the Neutrality Laws to be, I should have disdained to shield myself from their consequences by concealment or subterfuge; and that, upon inquiry of me, every act and proceeding of mine would have been frankly communicated to them. It would then have been unnecessary for the law officers of the United States to resort to the aid of spies and informers, in order to obtain evidence against us. By so doing they have been (as might have been expeeted) grossly misled; and it will now be my duty to refute, as far as I am able, the misrepresentations and calumnies which have resulted from the ill-conceived method of obtaining information resorted to by the Government of the United States.

The insinuations contained in the following passage from the same document are not very flattering to Mr. Marcy:-

Conceiving that the object of the American Government, in making through M. Buchanan the remonstrance against recruitment in the United States contained in that Minister's note of the 16th of July, had now been fully attained, I addressed to Mr. Marcy (on the 8th of August) a private letter, suggesting to him, on my own personal responsibility and without instructions from my Government, the expediency, with a view to avoiding the appearance of any want of harmony between the two Governments, of dropping the legal proceedings which had been instituted against Her Majesty's Consul at Cincinnati, and against other parties at New York, for a violation of the Neutrality Laws.

To this friendly overture I received no reply from Mr. Marcy, although he bad returned to Washington and I had several conversations with him on other subjects, but at which he never alluded to the subject of the recruitment.

On the 24th of August I ventured to enquire of Mr. Marcy whether my letter had ever reached him; he replied that it had, that the subject of it was under advisement, and that he would shortly communicate with me in regard to it.

This was all that passed, nor did Mr. Marcy make the slightest allusion either to the correspondence which had taken place between Mr. Buchanan and yourself, to the new point of view in which the Government of the United States now regarded the question, or to the pretended "disclosures" upon which charges

have since been brought forward against Her Majesty's Diplomatie and Consular Agents, and against the British provincial authorities.

Had Mr. Marcy informed me of these matters, I should at all events have been able to demonstrate to him the falsehood of those charges. And even supposing that I might not have succeeded in changing his view of the subject, and he still should have conceived that he had grounds for complaint against Her Majesty's Government and their Agents, he would at least have been obliged to weigh my statements as to facts against those of the witnesses who have been brought forward as "State's evidence" to depose in a Court of Justice to the grossest falsehoods, and he would have been able to ground his complaints, if he still had thought it necessary to make them, upon my statements and not upon evi. dence of a character which reflects little credit upon the parties who have had recourse to it.

Finally, the observations embodied in the despatch of March 14th, 1856, are too significant to be easily borne. The topic is still the recruitment of men in the States :

It was only by Mr. Marcy's note of the 5th of September, that I was at once informed both of the view taken of the matter by the United States' government, and of their belief that I myself was implicated in the affair of which they complained.

From June 6, therefore, to September 5, during the whole of which time, with the exception of six days (from June 20 to June 26), I was at Washington, and during the whole of which time Mr. Marcy, as it has since appeared, believed that recruitments were successfully going on, which recruitments it was natural to suppose I might have had some influence in stopping or preventing, no remonstrance or communication of any sort was made to me on the subject, and during the greater part of that time, while evidence was being industriously collected by the United States' District Attor neys, through the means of paid spies and informers, against myself and other officers of her Majesty's service, it was not thought expedient by the United States' government to give either myself or them any notice of what was going forward, or to break silence on the subject to us at all, until a case against us had been matured and completed, by which it was hoped and expressly and avowedly intended to convict us publicly of the offence of a violation of the law."

It is not for me to speculate as to the motives by which the United States' government were actuated in this course of proceeding, but it certainly would seem that it was dietated rather by a desire to ensure the public conviction of certain parties of an offence, by silently watching their proceedings until they had involved themselves in some illegal not,