The world has been saved from this calamity, and England from this
disgrace. The accusation would indeed have been a calumny. But to be
able to defy calumny, a nation, like an individual, must stand very
clear of just reproach in its previous conduct. Unfortunately, we
ourselves have given too much plausibility to the charge. Not by
anything said or done by us as a Government or as a nation, but by the
tone of our press, and in some degree, it must be owned, the general
opinion of English society. It is too true, that the feelings which
have been manifested since the beginning of the American contest--the
judgments which have been put forth, and the wishes which have been
expressed concerning the incidents and probable eventualities of the
struggle--the bitter and irritating criticism which has been kept up,
not even against both parties equally, but almost solely against the
party in the right, and the ungenerous refusal of all those just
allowances which no country needs more than our own, whenever its
circumstances are as near to those of America as a cut finger is to an
almost mortal wound,--these facts, with minds not favorably disposed
to us, would have gone far to make the most odious interpretation of
the war in which we have been so nearly engaged with the United
States, appear by many degrees the most probable.
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