[127] There had always been a more or less tacit understanding that whilst the Northern States were to be allowed to have their manufactures protected, the Southern States, as a set-off, were to have slavery tolerated and safeguarded.
[128] Life of Lord Shaftesbury, by Edwin Hodder. Vol. III., p. 136.
[129] At the time, credit was given to M. Thouvenel, the Foreign Minister of France, for bringing the American Government to reason. Count Vitzthum, however, states that “the French Ambassador at Washington knew that at the eleventh hour the American Cabinet would yield, and had advised his Government to this affect. When Thouvenel, therefore, in his despatch of December 3rd, represented strongly the justice of the English demands, he risked little, and only gave a fresh proof that the Tuileries prefer siding with the gods to Cato.”—Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 177.
[130] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 146.
[131] It was decided by the House of Commons that the liability to a rate-in-aid of the other parishes of a Union should arise when the rate came to 3s. in the £, and that Guardians, subject to the sanction of the Local Government Board, might raise loans on the security of the rates, when the aggregate expenditure of the whole Union reached 3s. in the £ of its rateable property.
[132] Prior to 1860 there were four duties—1s., 1s. 9d., 2s. 5d., and 2s. 11d.—on wines, with varying degrees of alcohol, from 18 up to 42 degrees. In 1862 Mr. Gladstone substituted for these two duties—1s. a gallon on wines below 26 degrees and 2s. 6d. on wines above 26 and below 42 degrees.
[133] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 172.
[134] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 278 (Cassell and Co.).
[135] It is well known that Count Ferrol, in “Endymion,” was drawn from Prince Bismarck. The novel was written in Lord Beaconsfield’s old age, and there is a passage in it which curiously confirms Count Vitzthum’s report of Count von Bismarck’s conversation with Mr. Disraeli. It is as follows:—“The Count of Ferrol about this time made a visit to England. He was always a welcome guest there, and had received the greatest distinction which England could bestow upon a foreigner—he had been elected an honorary member of White’s. ‘You may have troubles here,’ he said to Lady Mountfort, ‘but they will pass.... We shall not get off so cheaply. Everything is quite rotten throughout the Continent. This year is tranquillity to what the next will be. There is not a throne in Europe worth a year’s purchase. My worthy master wants me to return home and be Minister; I am to fashion for him a new Constitution. I will never have anything to do with new Constitutions; their inventors are always their first victims. Instead of making a Constitution, he should make a country, and convert his heterogeneous domains into a patriotic dominion.’ ‘But how is that to be done?’ ‘There is but one way—by blood and iron.’ ‘My dear Count, you shock me:’ ‘I shall have to shock you a great deal more before the inevitable is brought about.’”
[136] Pope at first pretended that he had discovered the line of Beauregard’s retreat, and had captured his rearguard. This turned out to be an impudent fabrication, put about to divert attention from the almost inconceivable incapacity of Halleck, who let his enemy slip through his fingers after wasting the season in looking at him.