CHAPTER III.
But the chaotic vortex of civil war approached, and fell destruction, often procrastinated, brooded in storm.* As the English people may like to know what was really the origin of the rebellion, I have no hesitation in giving them the true and only cause. Slavery had nothing to do with it, although the violation of the Declaration of Independence, in the disregard by the North of the Fugitive Slave Law,** might have provoked a less fiery people than the Southrons. At the inception of the struggle a large amount of Southern indebtedness was held by the people of the North. To force payment from the generous but insolvent debtor—to obtain liquidation from the Southern planter—was really the soulless and mercenary object of the craven Northerners. Let the common people of England look to this. Let the improvident literary hack; the starved impecunious Grub Street debtor; the newspaper frequenter of sponging-houses, remember this in their criticisms of the vile and slavish Yankee.
* I make no pretension to fine writing, but perhaps Mrs. Hardinge can lay over that. O, of course! M. McG.
** The Declaration of Independence grants to each subject "the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness." A fugitive slave may be said to personify "life, liberty, and happiness." Hence his pursuit is really legal. This is logic. G. A. S.
CHAPTER IV.
The roasting of an Abolitionist, by a greatly infuriated community, was my first taste of the horrors of civil war. Heavens! Why will the North persist in this fratricidal warfare? The expulsion of several Union refugees, which soon followed, now fairly plunged my beloved State in the seething vortex.
I was sitting at the piano one afternoon, singing that stirring refrain, so justly celebrated, but which a craven spirit, unworthy of England, has excluded from some of her principal restaurants, and was dwelling with some enthusiasm on the following line:—
"Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!"
when a fragment of that scum, clothed in that detestable blue uniform which is the symbol of oppression, entered the apartment. "I have the honor of addressing the celebrated rebel spy, Miss McGillup," said the Vandal officer.
In a moment I was perfectly calm. With the exception of slightly expectorating twice in the face of the minion, I did not betray my agitation. Haughtily, yet firmly, I replied:—