Confederate Diplomacy. 103
lived into the family circle of hereditary monarchies, but it brought in its pure hands no temptation to the avarice of the old monarchies. It appeared with long scroll of argument in its pure hands, going to prove to ancient kingdoms that the only hope for free institutions in America lay in the length and safety of its own precious life. That was all of Confederate diplomacy all, from first to last, brief as the time.
The young slave republic, the offspring of a dismembered gov- ernment at peace with all Europe, and which, if let alone, would go, full sail, into the sphere of monarchial conditions the young republic mounted the pedestal of natural right, and with the curl of virtuous scorn upon its lip challenged the monarchial world to turn from the spectacle if it could !
FOUR EMEMIES OF THE SOUTH.
Lord Palmerston, the Whig premier of England, an octogena- rian, who had been a personal disciple of Wilberforce in his youth and who had brought down to his present life and office the enthus- iasm then inspired by the great emancipator, heard with a smile of incredulity the solemn plea of the Confederacy at the Court of St. James. John Bright and Richard Cobden, the venerable premier's lieutenants, had hardly composed themselves from the exciting sym- pathy with which they had watched the campaign Abraham Lin- coln for the Presidency. The German Prince-Consort, too, Albert, was near to carry into the predicate of Confederate recognition the national German morbidity of hate against slavery.
Albert died soon, yet not before he had developed his stand for the side of the United States in the American conflict. For years after her husband's death, the Queen lived in a melancholy, and he would be a rash minister who should approach her Majesty with suggestion of variance with her dead husband's known policy.
THE QUEEN FOLLOWS ALBERT'S PREJUDICES.
It was not new or recently excited prejudice that the Confederacy met at the Court of St. James. The amiable Victoria in her hap- piest years had been offended to hear the truth of the Southern States. She had retired from her household the chosen companion of her childhood, the constant associate of her domestic life and the favorite among her four maids of honor, Miss Amelia Murray. The tale so simple, now so ominous, had been long told to the
