keeping. The staircases are of marble, and the outside passages and
lobbies are noble in size and in every way convenient. One knows
well the trouble of getting into the House of Lords and House of
Commons, and the want of comfort which attends one there; and an
Englishman cannot fail to make comparisons injurious to his own
country. It would not, perhaps, be possible to welcome all the
world in London as is done in Washington, but there can be no good
reason why the space given to the public with us should not equal
that given in Washington. But, so far are we from sheltering the
public, that we have made our House of Commons so small that it will
not even hold all its own members.

I had an opportunity of being present at one of their field days in
the senate, Slidell and Mason had just then been sent from Fort
Warren across to England in the Rinaldo. And here I may as well say
what further there is for me to say about those two heroes. I was
in Boston when they were taken, and all Boston was then full of
them. I was at Washington when they were surrendered, and at
Washington for a time their names were the only household words in
vogue. To me it had from the first been a matter of certainty that
England would demand the restitution of the men. I had never
attempted to argue the matter on the legal points, but I felt, as
though by instinct, that it would be so. First of all there reached
us, by telegram from Cape Race, rumors of what the press in England
was saying; rumors of a meeting in Liverpool, and rumors of the
feeling in London. And then the papers followed, and we got our
private letters. It was some days before we knew what was actually
the demand made by Lord Palmerston's cabinet; and during this time,
through the five or six days which were thus passed, it was clear to
be seen that the American feeling was undergoing a great change--or