In common with John Leech and the ruling class of England generally, Mr. Tenniel was so unfortunate as to misinterpret the civil war in America. He was almost as much mistaken as to its nature and significance as some of our own politicians, who had not his excuse of distance from the scene. He began well, however. His "Divorce a Vinculo," published in January, 1861, when the news of the secession of South Carolina reached England, was too flattering to the North, though correct as to the attitude of the South. "Mrs. Carolina asserts her Right to 'larrup' her Nigger" was a rough statement of South Carolina's position, but we can not pretend that the Northern States objected from any interest they felt in the colored boy. On the part of the North it was simply a war for self-preservation. It was as truly such as if Scotland or Ireland, or both of them, had seceded from England in 1803, when the Peace of Amiens was broken, and the English people had taken the liberty to object. Again, Mr. Tenniel showed good feeling in admonishing Lord Palmerston, when the war had begun, to keep Great Britain neutral. "Well, Pam," says Mr. Punch to his workman, "of course I shall keep you on, but you must stick to peace-work." Nor could we object to the picture in May, 1861, of Mr. Lincoln's poking the fire and filling the room with particles of soot, saying, with downcast look, "What a nice White House this would be if it were not for the Blacks!"
Jeddo and Belfast; or, A Puzzle for Japan. (John Tenniel, in Punch, 1872.)
Japanese Embassador. "Then these people, your Grace, I suppose, are heathen?"
Archbishop of Canterbury. "On the contrary, your Excellency; those are among our most enthusiastic religionists."
But from that time to the end of the war all was misapprehension and perversity. In July, 1861, "Naughty Jonathan," an ill-favored little boy carrying a toy flag, addresses the majesty of Britain thus: "You sha'n't interfere, mother—and you ought to be on my side—and it's a great shame—and I don't care—and you shall interfere—and I won't have it." During the Mason and Slidell imbroglio the Tenniel cartoons were not "soothing" to the American mind. "Do what's right, my son," says the burly sailor, Jack Bull, to little Admiral Jonathan, "or I'll blow you out of the water." Again, we have a family dinner scene. John Bull at the head of the table, and Lord Russell the boy in waiting. Enter "Captain Jonathan, F.N.," who says, "Jist looked in to see if thar's any rebels he-arr." Upon which Mr. Bull remarks, "Oh, indeed! John, look after the plate-basket, and then fetch a policeman." This was in allusion to a supposed claim on the part of Mr. Seward of a right to search ships for rebel passengers. Then we have Mr. Lincoln as a "coon" in a tree, and Colonel Bull aiming his blunderbuss at him. "Air you in earnest, colonel?" asks the coon. "I am," replies the mighty Bull. "Don't fire," says the coon; "I'll come down." And accordingly Mason and Slidell were speedily released. In a similar spirit most of the events of the war were treated; and when the war had ended, there was still shown in Punch, as in the English press generally, the same curious, inexplicable, and total ignorance of the feelings of the American people. What an inconceivable perversity it was to attribute Mr. Sumner's statement of the damage done to the United States by the alliance which existed for four years between the owners of England and the masters of the South to a Yankee grab for excessive damages! In all the long catalogue of national misunderstandings there is none more remarkable than this. Mr. Tenniel from the first derided the idea that any particular damage had been done by the Alabama and her consorts: certainly there was no damage, he thought, upon which a "claim" could be founded. "Claim for damages against me?" cries big Britannia, in one of his pictures of October, 1865. "Nonsense, Columbia; don't be mean over money matters."
