London, January 31, 1862
The disputed mock-heroes, who came so near creating a war between people vastly better than themselves, have arrived safe and sound in this city. But for the usual notice in the newspapers nobody would have known it. I doubt whether the presence of one person more or less will have any very serious effect upon the current of public events, which depends far more upon the results now taking place with you than upon any action here…. In the meanwhile the newspapers indulge their respective fancies as freely as ever. Their abuse is not very pleasant, but I am always consoled for it, when I reflect that Lord Lyons is likely to get about as much on his side. The balance of national invective being thus kept about even, I do not see why we cannot consider the one side as neutralising the other, and nothing left…. In any event I shall retain the conviction that the endeavor to excite enmity against us here has a purely political origin, and does not find its root deep in the heart of the community. It pleases an influential class to think that the demon of democracy may be laid at home, if it can be stripped of its American garb. Perhaps they are right, though I do not believe it. No more fatal mistake can be committed by them than that of taking up the cause of a slaveholding oligarchy to prove the fact. Every step in its progress would be a new argument against them. For it would more and more establish the fact of their want of sympathy with free institutions and the progress of the age. Hence the decline of their power over the public mind would be precipitated rather than retarded, and the end would come just as surely….
