Collier,
they did what Government officers generally do, and as promptly,--a
telegraphic message went down to Liverpool to order that this vessel
should be seized, and she happened to sail an hour or two before the
message arrived. She has never been into a Confederate port--they have
not got any ports; she hoists the English flag when she wants to come
alongside a ship; she sets a ship on fire in the night, and when, seeing
fire, another ship bears down to lend help, she seizes it, and pillages
and burns it. I think that, if we were citizens of New York, it would
require a little more calmness than is shown in this country to look at
all this as if it was a matter with which we had no concern. And
therefore I do not so much blame the language that has been used in
America in reference to the question of the _Alabama_.
But they do not know in America so much as we know--the whole truth
about public opinion here. There are ministers in our Cabinet as
resolved to be no traitors to freedom, on this question, as I am; and
there are members of the English aristocracy, and in the very highest
rank, as I know for a certainty, who hold the same opinion.
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