The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1904-07-17
he Southern
In Europe
JOHN wITHERsPOON DuBOsE.

Was 1t ever before, that a nation at
its birth was ready with a million
young horsemen to ride across its bor-
ders as Forrest, and Morgan and Mosby
rode, gathering arms, and blankets and
horses for wider range of unparalleled
enterprise in the enemy's territory?
Was ever invaded nation Arm In its
foundations to drive back the million
young horsemen from the farms of the
South!
When Robert Barnwell Rhett in
mastery statecraft. at the outset,
would prepare compensatory treaty
rights for the commercial powers OF
Western Europe in Confederate ports.
thus to hold them safe from hostile
blockade; and when this measure OF
statecraft was refused by the Confed-
ate government, the act OF refusal be-
came tantamount to the use Of policy
of military defense of thousands OF
miles of Southern coast, impossible
of success, yet a policy wherein the
Confederate soldier was shorn of his
peculiar prowess in war and whereby
an exhaustive draft was made upon the
army for garrison forces.
The government of the Confederacy
lost no time in entering a field OF
diplomacy of its own deyisfng, SEN
timental appeal to an unwilling world.
The, Confederate States made prompt
advances for admission of the most re-
fined free government that had ever
lived into the family circle of heredi-
tary monarchies, but 1t brought in It's
pure hands no temptation to the
ayarice of the old monarchies 1t ap-
peared with long scroll of argument
in its pure hands going to prove to an
cient Kingdoms that the only hope of
free institutions in America lay In the
length and safety of it's own precious
life. That was all of Confederate dip
lomacy-all, from first to last brief as
the time.
The young slave Republic, the off,
spring of dismembered government at
peace with all Europe and which, If let
alone, would go. full sail, into the
sphere of monarchical conditions-the
young republic mounted the pedestal
of natural right and with the curl of
virtuous scorn upon its lip challenged
the monarchfcal world to turn from the
spectacle IL 1t could!
Lord Paimerston the Whig premier
of England, an octogenarian who had
been a personal disciple of Wilberforce
in his youth and who had brought
down to his present life and Office the
enthusiasm then inspired by the great
emancipation, heard with a smile of in
credulity the solemn plea of the Con-
federacy at the Court of st. James.
John Bright and Richard Golden the
venerable premier's lieutenants, had
hardly composed themselves from the
exciting sympathy with which they had
watched the campaign of Abraham Lin
coin for the Presidency. The German
Prince Consort, too, Albert, was near
to carry into the predicate of Con-
federate recognition the national Ger
man 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 husbands
death, the Queen lived in a melancholy
and he would be a rash minister who
should approach Her Majesty with sug-
gestion of variance with her dead hus-
bands known policy.
1t was not new or recently excited
prejudice that the Confederacy met at
the Court of st. James. The amiable
Victoria in her happiest 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
tour of the United States. from North
to South, accompanied alone by her
English maid. She came in the time
of the Kansas agitation and being in
formed in public affairs, wrote Volum-
lnously in private letters to friends in
England of party politics as she OBJ
served them in Congress and elsewhere.
She wrote critically of American socie-
ty, it's customs and the sectional lines
that separated what was good. North
from what was good South. Gradually
approaching the slaveStates, the tourist
accepted proffered hospitality of the
planters and visited plantations. The
tone of her original Wilberforcean pre-
dudices began to moderate as informa-
ton reached her mind of practical con-
ditions concerning the Southern planta-
ton and it's African bondsmen. The
truly valuable letters of Miss Murray
were published. The delightful litera-
ture proved an offense in the royal
court. The revelation of the truth on
the Southern plantations published
from the household of the Queen of
England. whose government, directed
by her husband, was even then engaged
In vigorous. efforts to put down the
surviving slave trade in English bot
toms with Spanish American islands
and Brazil. was bad politics. Not only
so, but the Queens government had
rule, to enter upon no new treaty of
amity and commerce which failed to
commit the signatures alike to suppress
sion of the African shalve trade. Miss
Murray's published reports of Southern
plantations were an unwelcome infor-
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