It is possible that the godfathers and godmothers of Mr Cassius Marcellus Clay are, in principal degree, responsible for the efforts made by that gentleman to attain notoriety. It would be mean to sneak obscurely about the world under such magnificent appellations. Better, in such a case, be called John Thomas. Hence, without any quality apparent that would entitle the bearer of these historic names to claim distinction amid the company of a pothouse, his efforts to become known in the world have been as unceasing as if he were some wronged genius entitled to a hearing. At the outbreak of hostilities he launched from Paris a tremendous defiance against our unfortunate country. Then he published a letter in the ‘Times,’ telling us what we ought to do in the American quarrel, and, in case we should not comply, threatening our great-grandchildren with the vengeance of we forget how many millions of unborn Yankees. At this time he was on his way to St Petersburg as United States Minister to Russia. For his guidance he had received one of Mr Seward’s most elaborate moral essays, beginning in this remarkable way: “Sir,—Nations, like individuals, have three prominent wants: first, freedom; secondly, prosperity; thirdly, friends. The United States early secured the two first objects by the exercise of courage and enterprise. But, although they have always practised singular moderation, they nevertheless have been slow in winning friends.” Fortified with a great deal of this kind of composition, Mr Clay arrived in the Russian capital. From his own correspondence we learn that he found the Emperor “absent in the direction of Moscow,” and being advised by the Assistant-Secretary of State to await his Majesty’s return, “I presumed,” he says, “it would not be agreeable to the Emperor for me to follow on.” In a few days he had an interview with Prince Gortchakoff, who “asked after Pickens” (whether Pickens is something, or some place, or somebody, does not appear), “my family, and other things in a familiar way, when I was dismissed by again shaking hands.” Soon after we learn that he and “his suite, Green Clay, William C. Goodloe, and T. Williams,” set out for Peterhoff, where the Emperor received them, and addressed Mr Clay in a set speech, which was delivered in Russian, though, says he, “the Emperor spoke American mostly.” We are at liberty, therefore, to suppose that his Majesty, during great part of the interview, spoke through his nose; and, no doubt, Prince Gortchakoff, who spoke only English, beheld with wonder, not unmixed with envy, this exhibition of his Imperial master’s accomplishments as a linguist.
Mr Clay then addressed to the Emperor an essay on the moral government of Russia, which, from internal evidence, we pronounce to have been learnt by heart from a prize paper by Seward. “The Emperor,” he says, “seemed much gratified and really moved by this last remark,” possibly because it was the last; and, besides speaking Russian and American, Alexander was so ostentatious as to conclude the interview by speaking English, perhaps deeming it appropriate to the subject-matter. “He wanted to know if I thought England would interfere. I told him we did not care what she did; that her interference would tend to unite us the more; that we fought the South with reluctance; we were much intermarried and of a common history; but that the course of England had aroused our sensibilities towards her in no very pleasant manner. The Emperor seemed to like my defiance of old John Bull very much. He wanted to know if I was a relative of Henry Clay, and what was my military rank. I told him I was only a distant relation of Clay, and that I wore the uniform of an American colonel” (borrowed, perhaps, from another relation, Pipe Clay), “which rank I filled in my own country.” His Majesty then shook hands twice with the Ambassador, and dismissed him.
Before concluding the despatch from which we learn the foregoing interesting particulars, it seems to have occurred to Mr Clay that it would be judicious to show Mr Seward that moralising on the war was a game which two could play at; and he wound up in the following style:—
“I have already made this letter too long; but I cannot conclude without saying how much more and more I value the great and inestimable blessings of our Government, and how I trust in God that no compromise will be made of the great idea for which we have so long fought, but that General Scott, following out the programme of Mr Lincoln’s inaugural, will slowly and surely subdue the rebellion, ‘stock, lock, and gun-barrel,’ ‘hook and line, bob and sinker,’ and that we may all be spared to see once more the glorious old banner restored,—‘Liberty and union, now and for ever—one and inseparable.’”
These extracts from the Clay correspondence of 1861 will no doubt cause the reader keenly to regret that we cannot give more. But the fact is that, whether Mr Seward was jealous of Mr Clay’s native humour as displayed in these papers, or considered him a formidable rival as a moral essayist, or whatever the cause might be, the omissions are so numerous that a great part of the Ambassador’s correspondence consists of asterisks, leaving only the driest details, such as any ordinary John Thomas or Green Clay might have written. So numerous are the stars between the stripes of print, that the successive pages look like so many representations of the American banner. But in January last year he wrote an essay on the subject of the perfidy and general villainy of Great Britain, which has fortunately been preserved entire. “In this critical time,” he says, “whether war or peace with England ensues, I deem it my duty to give the President my impressions of European sentiment.” He then details the reasons why the monarchies and aristocracies of Europe have always regarded his republic with jealousy. “Their jealousy, their secret hate, their blind vengeance verges,” Mr Clay thinks, “upon insanity;.... they renew with us the fable of the wolf and the lamb; though we are below on the mountain stream, we are accused of muddying the waters.” His method of dealing with Secession is tersely expressed—“I have always thought that the whole property of the rebels, slaves and all, should be summarily confiscated.” But before prescribing this treatment for the South, he devotes a paragraph to the way in which England should be handled:—
“In case of war with England,” he says, “Canada should be seized at all hazards. A large force should be first placed in fortifications in some place suitable near the coast, which would cut off reinforcements from England. Union with us, with equal rights, should be offered the Canadians, and the lives and property of friends secured. Men and money should be sent to Ireland, India, and all the British dominions all over the world, to stir up revolt. Our cause is just; and vengeance will sooner or later overtake that perfidious aristocracy.”
Such was the esteem in which the Cabinet of Washington held either the practical qualities evinced in this essay, or the diplomatic services veiled under the asterisks, that they were considered to entitle him, on his return to America, to the position of a Brigadier-General. In the records of the war we cannot, however, find that Brigadier Cassius Marcellus ever performed any military achievement worthy either of the foe of Cæsar or the foe of Hannibal. He seems to have worn his warlike honours with remarkable meekness, and never to have done anything to fulfil his own aspiration that “liberty and union may be for ever inseparable,” by taking the smallest step towards the subjugation of the enemy. Under these circumstances Mr Seward, finding his military so inferior to his diplomatic talents, seems to have thought that the Brigadier who had failed to bid defiance to the South would find a more appropriate field of action in resuming his employment of gratifying the Emperor of Russia with other defiances of “old John Bull”—and accordingly we learn that the eminent statesman either is, or is to be, once more Minister to St Petersburg, and may possibly be at this moment engaged in his favourite occupations of shaking the hand of the Emperor, and shaking his own hand at the British monarchy. If it be so, we may perhaps hope to read, in another state paper, of his second reception at the Court of Russia—which, judging from the familiar cordiality displayed in the first, may, if the Czar should again deign to express himself in the American language, open something in this way,—“Wal, Cassius M. Clay, how air you, old hoss? Do you feel pretty brisk and spry, sir? How is it you ha’n’t chawed up them rebels yet, lock, stock, and gun-barrel, hook and line, bob and sinker? What do you think of our insurrection to Poland, sir?”
Future volumes of these documents will probably reveal Mr Seward as still assuring his correspondents that the end of the rebellion is at hand; that foreign Governments will soon see dire reason to repent their hostility; that the Union is growing stronger with every “reverse of our arms;” that discord and desertion and corruption are only “fresh developments of patriotism;” and that the flooding of the lands on the Mississippi, far from being an act of barbarous vindictiveness, will be as beneficent in its consequences as the overflowing of the Nile. We shall probably see, too, that American envoys, addressing themselves, not to Mr Seward, but to the masses behind him, his masters and theirs, are still denouncing our perfidious aristocracy and jealous monarchy. Is it a comedy or a tragedy that these men are acting? If unconscious absurdity and ludicrous unfitness for the conduct of grave affairs were all the elements of the exhibition, we might well afford to laugh; but, unfortunately, the grotesque display has its terrible side, and incapacity and conceit only increase the tremendous power of mischief wielded by the principal characters in the burlesque. Meanwhile the course of foreign Governments is not likely to be materially affected by the lucubrations of the American Secretary of State; and, amidst the strange displays of weakness made by the North, not the least strange will be the futility of its diplomacy.
THE BUDGET.
The soundness of the position taken up by the Opposition last year in regard to the national finances, has this year been fully established by the admissions and procedure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It may seem remarkable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should preface his financial statement by referring to a resolution of the House, which was adopted at the instance of the Opposition,—that he should avowedly base his present Budget upon that resolution. But Mr Gladstone is a Minister of consummate Parliamentary tact, who avails himself of every plea which best serves his purpose for the time; and, as we shall see in the sequel, he had a special reason for thus seeking to cover with the authority of Parliament a Budget which is not quite so accordant with the resolution of the House as he desires it to be thought. The resolution, which was adopted at the instance of the Opposition, and upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer professedly bases his present Budget, insisted upon the necessity of reducing the national expenditure. It was urged upon the Government that the financial administration of the three previous years had been such as to trench deeply upon the extraordinary resources of the country, and that, while ostensibly adding to the military strength of the country, we were really diminishing our power by exhausting the sources by which the expenses of war and national defence could be sustained. It was pointed out that during these years we had not only abolished, and put out of reach, several important taxes for the remission of which there was no urgent necessity, but that, in order to do so, we had actually incurred a considerable deficit. Of late years not only the leaders of the Opposition, but some of the highest financial authorities on the Ministerial side of the House—including Lord Overstone, Lord Monteagle, and Earl Grey—had denounced as most impolitic the hand-to-mouth system pursued by Mr Gladstone, and had urged the necessity of framing the estimates with a view to obtaining a substantial yearly surplus. These were the considerations which led the House of Commons last summer to adopt the resolution to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer now appeals in justification of his Budget; and they must not be forgotten when examining how far the financial programme of the present year is in accordance with that resolution.