April 18.—As long as England is ruled by her aristocracy, whether Tories or Whigs, a Hannibalian hate ought to be the creed of every American. Let the government of England pass into the hands of John S. Mill, and into those of the Lancashire working classes, and then the two peoples may be friends.
April 18.—Hooker is to move. If Hooker brings out the army victorious from the bad strategic position wherein the army was put by Halleck-Burnside, then the people can never sufficiently admire Hooker's genius. Such a manœuvre will be a revelation.
April 18.—I learn that General Hunter has about seven thousand disposable men in his whole department, for the attack of Charleston. If he is to storm the batteries by land, then Hunter has not men enough to do it; it is therefore folly and crime to order, or to allow, the attack of the defenses of Charleston.
April 18.—Mr. Seward has not at all given up his firm decision to violate the national statutes and the international rules, by insisting upon the restoration to England of the mails of that Anglo-Piratic vessel, the Peterhoff. A mail on a blockade-runner enjoys no immunity, since regular mail steamers, or at least mail agents and carriers are established by England. Even previously, neutral private vessels could not always claim the immunity for the mail, when they are caught in an unlawful trade. But, of course, the State Department knows better.
In the case of the ship Labuan, an English blockade-runner, Mr. Seward, backed by Mr. Lincoln, ordered the judge how to decide, ordered the judge to give up the prize, and Mr. Seward urged the English agents not to lose time in prosecuting American captors for costs and damages. The Labuan was a good prize, but Mr. Seward is the incarnation of wisdom and of justice!
April 20.—The not quite heavenly trio—Lincoln, Seward and Halleck—maintain, and find imbeciles and lickspittles enough to believe them, that they, the trio, could not as yet, act decidedly in the Emancipation question, they being in this, as in other questions, too far in advance of the people. What blasphemy! Those lumina mundi believe that the people will forget their records. To be sure, the Americans, good-natured as they are, easily forget the misdeeds of yesterday, but this yesterday shall be somehow recalled to their memory.
If all the West Pointers were like Grant, Rosecrans, Hooker, Barnard and thousands of them throughout all grades, then West Point would be a blessing for the country. Unhappily, hitherto, the small, bad clique of West Point engineers No. one, exercised a preponderating influence on the conduct of the war, and thus West Point became in disrespect, nay, in horror. I believe that the good West Pointers are more numerous than the altogether bad ones, but they often mar their best qualities by a certain, not altogether admirable, esprit du corps.
April 20.—The generation crowding on this fogyish one will sit in court of justice over the evil-doers, over the helpless, over the egotists who are to-day at work. That generation will begin the assizes during the lifetime of these great leaders in Administration, in politics, in war.
Discite justitiam moniti nec temere divos!
April 20.—Yesterday, April 19th, Mr. Lincoln and his Aide, Halleck, went to Acquia Creek to visit Hooker, to have a peep into his plans, and, of course to babble about them. I hope Hooker will most politely keep his own secrets.