anians, has not created despondency, nor shaken our abiding faith in our success. Not to the eye of the enthusiastic patriot alone, who might be expected to color events with his hopes, but to the more impassioned gaze of the statesman that success was certain from the beginning. It is only the timid, the unreflecting, and the prop erty owner, who thinks more of his possessions than his country, that will succumb to the depressing influences of disaster. The great heart of the people has swelled with more intense aspirations for the cause the more it seemed to totter. Their confidence is well founded. The possession by the enemy of our seaboard and main water-courses ought to have been foreseen by us. His overwhelming naval force necessarily accomplished the same results attained by the British with the same force in their war of subjuga. tion. The final result will be the same," etc., etc.

CHAPTER XX.

GENERAL BUTLER AND THE FOREIGN CONSULS.

"WHATEVER else may be said of business in New Orleans," remarked the humorous Delta, "one thing is certain, consuls are lower."

Consuls were very high indeed during the first few weeks of the occupation of the city. Their position in New Orleans had been one of first-rate importance during the rebellion; for it was chiefly through the foreign capitalists of the city that the Confederacy had been supplied with arms and munitions of war, and it had been the congenial office of the consuls to afford them aid and pro tection in that lucrative business. They forgot that they were only consuls. They forgot the United States. Often communicating directly with the cabinet ministers of their countries, always flattered and made much of by the supporters of the rebellion, expecting with the most perfect confidence the triumph of secession, representing powers every one of which desired or counted upon

its success, they assumed the tone of embassadors; they courted the power which they assumed would finally rule in New Orleans, and held in contempt or aversion the one to which they were accredited.

These gentlemen gave General Butler more trouble, caused him more hard work, than any other class in New Orleans. They opposed every measure of his which could be supposed to bear upon any man of foreign origin. Mr. Seward was overrun with their protests, complaints and petitions. If the secretary of the treasury approved the commander of the Department of the Gulf as the cheapest of generals, the secretary of state found him much the most troublesome. The correspondence relating to this single subject would fill two or three volumes as large as this.

A collision between the foreign consuls and General Butler almost necessarily involved a difference between General Butler and Mr. Seward. The two men are moral antipodes. Mr. Seward has too little, General Butler has enough, of the spirit of warfare. Mr. Seward, by the constitution of his mind and the habits of thirty years, is a conciliator, one who shrinks from the final ordeal, who is reluctant to face the last consequences, skillful to postpone, explain away, and "make things pleasant." General Butler, on the contrary, rejoices in a clear issue, goes straight to the point, uses language that bears but one meaning, and "takes the responsibility" as naturally as he takes his breakfast. Mr. Seward so dreaded the approach of the war, that he was more than willing to make concessions which would pass the final, the inevitable conflict over to the next generation. General Butler picked up the glove with a feeling akin to exultation, and adopted war as the business of the country and his own, desiring no pause till the controversy was settled absolutely and for ever. Mr. Seward regarded the southern oligarchy as erring fellow-citizens, who could be won back to their allegiance. General Butler regarded them as traitors, utterly incapable of conversion, who could be rendered harmless only by being made powerless. Mr. Seward, as the head of the foreign department, felt that all his duties were subordinate to the one cardinal, central object of his policy, the maintenance of peace with foreign nations while the rebellion showed front. General Butler, always breasting the foremost wave of the rebellion, could not be very sensitive to the gentle murmurs of Mr.

Seward's reception-room. The men were subject to two opposite, antagonistic magnetisms. General Butler was John Heenan pegging away at Sayers, thinking of nothing but getting in fair blows. Mr. Seward was the distressed bottle-holder who wanted Heenan to win, but thought Sayers too good a fellow to be smashed.

Hence we find that when the foreign ministers brought their complaints to the department of state, Mr. Seward generally, and at once, took it for granted that General Butler was wrong. He could do no other way, without insincerity. The men are so essentially antagonistic, that no really characteristic act of either could fail to excite in the other an instinctive disapproval.

Similar remarks apply to Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, the eminent and very able lawyer who was sent by Mr. Seward to New Orleans to investigate the consular imbroglio. In the Charleston Convention of 1860, he said that "under almost any corceivable circumstances, Maryland will acknowledge her rights as a southern state, and will vote with the people of the South." He spoke then from his heart. If, in 1862, he thought secession a mistake and a crime, in all other particulars he was in accord with his southern friends. His heart and mind, his friends and habits, were southern. In New Orleans he associated almost exclusively with secessionists-who felt, who avowed, who boasted that he was their friend. Granting that he had the most honorable intentions (I am sure he had no other), it was not in human nature that he should judge justly between General Butler and the rebels of New Orleans. Nor can we doubt that he was sent to New Orleans, and knew that he was sent, to comply with the demands of foreign powers, if it could be done without concessions too palpably humiliating.

Here is the point: every one knows the difference that may exist between a law case as presented in the law papers, and the known facts of the case. A merchant, for example, finds it convenient to "make over" his property to a friend. The papers show that he has not a dollar in the world, while the fact is, that he possesses a quarter of a million. Every one in the court may know the fact; yet the papers carry the day. A bank may find it advantageous to seem to possess no coin. Any lawyer can suggest a mode by which this can be done, and a judge in ordinary times

might be obliged to decide in accordance with the documents. What General Butler would have liked was a commissioner who would have sought out the hidden fact, not one who was content with the paper case. But Mr. Seward was chiefly concerned to keep the peace with foreign powers, to deprive them not merely of all cause of complaint, but of all pretext. Far be it from me to presume to say that he was wrong. "One at a time" is a good rule, when a nation has a war on its hands. His course may have been

justified by necessity.

It is impossible to detail here all the General Butler and the foreign consuls. were the following:

points of collision between The more important cases

Case of the British Guard.

The British Guard consisted of fifty or sixty Englishmen, old residents of New Orleans, many of them men of large property and extensive business. On returning to their armory, late in the evening, after the disbanding of the Foreign Legion, they had held a formal meeting, at which it was voted to send their arms, accouterments, and uniforms to the camp of General Beauregard. On learning this, a few days after the occupation of the city, General Butler sent for Captain Burrows, the commander of the company, who confessed the fact. The general then directed him to order his company to leave New Orleans within twenty-four hours; and declared his intention to arrest and confine in Fort Jackson any who should fail to obey the order. The violation of the law of neutrality had been clear and indefensible. These men had enjoyed for many years the protection of the United States government, under which they acquired wealth and distinction, and then embraced the first opportunity that had offered to give material aid to its enemies. Captain Burrows could only object that part of the company had been absent from the meeting, and it would be unfair to punish the innocent with the guilty. General Butler assented, and ordered those of the company who had not participated in the offense, to appear before him with their arms and uniforms, the rest to obey the previous order.

The acting British consul, Mr. George Coppell, hastened to inter

pose. He could not deny that the act charged against his country. men was a violation of the law; but he said they had done it with "no idea of wrong or harm." He enlarged upon the inconvenience it would be to those highly respectable gentlemen to leave the city, where their affairs were extensive and important. In fact, it would not be even "possible" for some of them to leave; and if General Butler should persist, it would be the duty of the consul to solemnly protest against the "verbal order of questionable legality, the enforcement of which would infringe the rights of British subjects residing in New Orleans."

The general replied by recounting the facts with the exactness of a lawyer. "These people," he added, "thought it of consequence that Beauregard should have sixty more uniforms and rifles. I think it of the same consequence that he should have sixty more of these faithless men, who may fill them if they choose. I intend this order to be strictly enforced. I am content for the present to suffer open enemies to remain in the city of their nativity; but lawdefying and treacherous alien enemies shall not. I welcome all neutrals and foreigners who have kept aloof from these troubles which have been brought upon the city, and will, to the extent of my power, protect them and their property. They shall have the same hospitable and just treatment they have always received at the hands of the United States government. They will see, however, for themselves, that it is for the interest of all to have the unworthy among them rooted out; because the acts of such bring suspicion upon all. All the facts above set forth can easily be substantiated, and indeed, are all evasively admitted in your note by the very apology made for them. That apology says, that these men, when they took this action-sent these arms and munitions of war to Beauregard' did it with no idea of wrong or harm.' I do not understand this. Can it be that such men, of age to enroll themselves as a military body, did not know that it was wrong to supply the enemies of the United States with arms? If so, I think they should be absent from the city long enough to learn so much international law; or do you mean to say, knowing their social proclivities, and the lateness of the hour when the vote was taken, therefore they were not responsible? There is another difficulty, however, in those people taking any protection under the British flag. The company received a charter or commission, or some form of rebel au