I had one passage of arms with the Superintendent during that week. I have an idea that I spoke somewhat freely with regard to the Administration that he had the honor to serve, pressing him for a justification of its conduct in my own especial case.
The official listened quite coolly and calmly, with a twinkle of amusement in his shrewd cynical eyes, and answered:
"Well, we've had a good bit of trouble with England and English this year; and I reckon they think they've got a pretty fair-sized fish now, and mean to keep him, whether or no."
"That's Republican justice, all over," I said; "to make the one that you can catch, pay for the dozen that you can't, or that you are afraid to grapple with."
"I don't know about justice," was the reply; "but it's d——d good policy."
And so we parted—not a whit worse friends than before.
Delicta, majorum, immeritus lues,
if memory had not failed me, I might have quoted that line often and appropriately enough. But every agent in the "robbery"—from the vainglorious Virginian, my chief captor, down to the smooth Secretary, whose velvet gripe was so loth to unclose—seemed provokingly bent on exaggerating the importance of their prize. Perhaps the very interest felt in my release, and the exertions unsparingly used—especially in Baltimore—to secure it, strengthened the false impressions or pretenses of the Federal powers. I write in the firm assurance that no Southern friend will deem these words ungracious or ungrateful.
There is no stone, above or below ground, white enough to mark, worthily, in my calender, the fifth day of last June. I hereby abjure, for evermore, any superstitious prejudice against the ill luck of Fridays. Late in the afternoon, I was pacing to and fro in the narrow exercise-ground, speculating idly as to the delay of my dinner, which was overdue—not that I felt any interest in the subject, but it was a sort of break, and fresh starting-point in the monotony of hours—when I was summoned once more into official presence. They took me to the room on the ground-floor, where I had waited on the first day of my imprisonment while the cell above was preparing. I found there the lieutenant commanding the guard, and two or three more officers, one of whom, I understood, was a deputy of the Judge-Advocate. They read out a paper, of which the following is an exact copy, and asked if I had any objection to sign it:
/P District of Columbia, County of Washington.