The Southern or Democratic party of the United States had, as all
men know, been in power for many years. Either Southern Presidents
had been elected, or Northern Presidents with Southern politics.
The South for many years had had the disposition of military
matters, and the power of distributing military appliances of all
descriptions. It is now alleged by the North that a conspiracy had
long been hatching in the South with the view of giving to the
Southern States the power of secession whenever they might think
fit to secede; and it is further alleged that President after
President, for years back, has unduly sent the military treasure of
the nation away from the North down to the South, in order that the
South might be prepared when the day should come. That a President
with Southern instincts should unduly favor the South, that he
should strengthen the South, and feel that arms and ammunition were
stored there with better effect than they could be stored in the
North, is very probable. We all understand what is the bias of a
man's mind, and how strong that bias may become when the man is not
especially scrupulous. But I do not believe that any President
previous to Buchanan sent military materials to the South with the
self-acknowledged purpose of using them against the Union. That
Buchanan did so, or knowingly allowed this to be done, I do
believe, and I think that Buchanan was a traitor to the country
whose servant he was and whose pay he received.

And now, having said so much in the way of introduction, I will
begin my journey.



CHAPTER II.

NEWPORT--RHODE ISLAND.


We--the we consisting of my wife and myself--left Liverpool for
Boston on the 24th August, 1861, in the Arabia, one of Cunard's
North American mail packets. We had determined that my wife should
return alone at the beginning of winter, when I intended to go to a
part of the country in which, under the existing circumstances of
the war, a lady might not feel herself altogether comfortable. I
proposed staying in America over the winter, and returning in the
spring; and this programme I have carried out with sufficient
exactness.

The Arabia touched at Halifax; and as the touch extended from 11 A.M.
to 6 P.M. we had an opportunity of seeing a good deal of that
colony; not quite sufficient to justify me at this critical age in
writing a chapter of travels in Nova Scotia, but enough perhaps to
warrant a paragraph. It chanced that a cousin of mine was then in
command of the troops there, so that we saw the fort with all the
honors. A dinner on shore was, I think, a greater treat to us even
than this. We also inspected sundry specimens of the gold which is
now being found for the first time in Nova Scotia, as to the glory
and probable profits of which the Nova Scotians seemed to be fully
alive. But still, I think the dinner on shore took rank with us as
the most memorable and meritorious of all that we did and saw at
Halifax. At seven o'clock on the morning but one after that we
were landed at Boston.

At Boston I found friends ready to receive us with open arms,
though they were friends we had never known before. I own that I
felt myself burdened with much nervous anxiety at my first
introduction to men and women in Boston. I knew what the feeling
there was with reference to England, and I knew also how impossible
it is for an Englishman to hold his tongue and submit to dispraise
of England. As for going among a people whose whole minds were
filled with affairs of the war, and saying nothing about the war, I
knew that no resolution to such an effect could be carried out. If
one could not trust one's self to speak, one should have stayed at
home in England. I will here state that I always did speak out
openly what I thought and felt, and that though I encountered very
strong--sometimes almost fierce--opposition, I never was subjected
to anything that was personally disagreeable to me.

In September we did not stay above a week in Boston, having been
fairly driven out of it by the musquitoes. I had been told that I
should find nobody in Boston whom I cared to see, as everybody was
habitually out of town during the heat of the latter summer and
early autumn; but this was not so. The war and attendant turmoils
of war had made the season of vacation shorter than usual, and most
of those for whom I asked were back at their posts. I know no
place at which an Englishman may drop down suddenly among a
pleasanter circle of acquaintance, or find himself with a more
clever set of men, than he can do at Boston. I confess that in
this respect I think that but few towns are at present more
fortunately circumstanced than the capital of the Bay State, as
Massachusetts is called, and that very few towns make a better use
of their advantages. Boston has a right to be proud of what it has
done for the world of letters. It is proud; but I have not found
that its pride was carried too far.

Boston is not in itself a fine city, but it is a very pleasant
city. They say that the harbor is very grand and very beautiful.
It certainly is not so fine as that of Portland, in a nautical
point of view, and as certainly it is not as beautiful. It is the
entrance from the sea into Boston of which people say so much; but
I did not think it quite worthy of all I had heard. In such
matters, however, much depends on the peculiar light in which
scenery is seen. An evening light is generally the best for all
landscapes; and I did not see the entrance to Boston harbor by an


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