principle of civilization, yet that certain cases must form exceptions to the observance of the principle, and the correspondence on this subject terminated by Mr. Webster's declaration that

"The President is content to receive these " acknowledgments and assurances in the con"ciliatory spirit which marks your Lordship's "letter, and will make this subject, as a complaint of violation of territory, the topic of 66 no further discussion between the two Go"vernments."

But, independently of the advantage which each country secured to itself by this friendly arrangement of what at one time bore a very unpromising aspect, another important point connected with the subject has been conceded to Great Britain, which removes all apprehension of a recurrence of similar difficulties upon the frontier. The Federal Government having declared that no British subject can be held responsible by the State Courts for an act committed by the command of his sovereign, the Congress has now enacted a law, whereby the States surrender to the Federal Government the exclusive jurisdiction over cases similar to that of Mc Leod; so that hereafter no similar excitement can be created by the interference of State Courts. On this subject Mr. Webster, in

the same letter, where he apologetically states that "it was a subject of regret that the release " of Mc Leod was so long delayed," declares "that the Government of the United States "holds itself not only fully disposed, but fully "competent to carry into practice every principle which it avows or acknowledges, and to fulfil every duty and obligation which it owes "to foreign governments, their citizens or "subjects."

So that not only the point of honour has been satisfactorily adjusted on both sides, but all the security that could be asked has been given to Great Britain, that the Federal Government will exercise its power to prevent the recurrence of the evil that led to this painful and dangerous misunderstanding*.

If Mr. Lemoinne has sent out his paper to the world as the deliberate judgment of a man of candour and intelligence upon the merits of the Treaty of Washington, it is to be regretted that not even an allusion is made either to the friendly spirit in which this part of the negotiation was carried on, or to the great importance both to Great Britain and America of the Act of Con

* If we may judge from the congratulations offered by the Parliament of Canada, to the Governor General, Sir Charles Bagot, the Treaty of Washington is as popular in that Province as it is in New Brunswick.

gress which has been alluded to. These guarantees of future friendship, with which the final close of this troublesome affair of the "Caroline" was accompanied, would seem to have been sufficiently apparent to any who had read the correspondence, as Mr. Lemoinne professes to have done.

Respecting the case of the "Creole," this writer has entirely adopted the principle upon which Great Britain has acted. He considers human liberty to constitute a general law of mankind, and that the local laws of states, which pretend to reduce men to slavery and to consider them as property, have no virtue where the jurisdiction of those states does not extend; and he reasons therefore correctly, that all men being free by the laws of Great Britain, are necessarily free in all British dependencies, under whatever circumstances they may have been brought there, or however they may be considered by the local laws of foreign states.

But Mr. Lemoinne, when he enters upon the discussion of the correspondence between Lord Ashburton and Mr. Webster on the subject of impressment, is not equally just to Great Britain; and with some warmth represents this country as pretending to accomplish what he had before shown America had improperly attempted to do, viz., to impose upon the

world a local law or practice as part of the law of nations.

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"C'est à son tour l'Angleterre qui veut généraliser l'application d'une loi purement "nationale, et faire du droit Anglais le droit "des nations*."

Alluding to that part of the general argument of Mr. Webster, in his letter of August 8, 1842, on the subject of impressment, where he states that this practice cannot be defended upon the same ground as the common "right "of visiting neutral ships for the purpose of discovering and seizing enemy's property." Mr. Lemoinne re-asserts from the same letter:

"There may be quite as just a prerogative "to the property of subjects as to their personal "service, in an exigency of the State."

And then proceeding to represent the arguments of Mr. Webster (respecting the emigrants who annually leave this country for the United States), as having been triumphantly sustained against Lord Ashburton, he quotes the following passage from the same letter:

"It is stated that, in the quarter of the year "ending with June last, more than twenty-six

* In her turn England seeks to render general the application of a law which is only national, and to establish an English right as the right of nations.

"thousand emigrants left the single port of "Liverpool for the United States, being four

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or five times as many as left the same port "within the same period for the British colo"nies, and all other parts of the world. Of "these crowds of emigrants, many arrive in our "cities in circumstances of great destitution, " and the charities of the country, both public " and private, are severely taxed to relieve their "immediate wants. In time they mingle with "the new community in which they find them"selves, and seek means of living: some find "employment in the cities; others go to the "frontiers, to cultivate lands reclaimed from "the forest; and a greater or less number of "the residue, becoming in time naturalized "citizens, enter into the merchant service, under "the flag of their adopted country.

"Now, my Lord, if war should break out "between England and a European power, can "anything be more unjust-anything more "irreconcileable to the general sentiments of "mankind-than that England should seek out "those persons thus encouraged by her, and compelled by their own condition to leave "their native homes, tear them away from their new employments, their new political rela66 tions, and their domestic connexions, and "force them to undergo the dangers and hard