history, and because his cause has been amply sustained by others in many
ways better qualified than myself to do it justice. The task is painful,
for if a wrong was done him it must be laid at the doors of those whom
the nation has delighted to honor, and whose services no error of
judgment or feeling or conduct can ever induce us to forget. If he
confessed him, self-liable, like the rest of us, to mistakes and
shortcomings, we must remember that the great officers of the government
who decreed his downfall were not less the subjects of human infirmity.

The outline to be filled up is this: A new administration had just been
elected. The "Alabama Treaty," negotiated by Motley's predecessor, Mr.
Reverdy Johnson, had been rejected by the Senate. The minister was
recalled, and Motley, nominated without opposition and unanimously
confirmed by the Senate, was sent to England in his place. He was
welcomed most cordially on his arrival at Liverpool, and replied in a
similar strain of good feeling, expressing the same kindly sentiments
which may be found in his instructions. Soon after arriving in London
he had a conversation with Lord Clarendon, the British Foreign Secretary,
of which he sent a full report to his own government. While the reported
conversation was generally approved of in the government's dispatch
acknowledging it, it was hinted that some of its expressions were
stronger than were required by the instructions, and that one of its
points was not conveyed in precise conformity with the President's view.
The criticism was very gently worded, and the dispatch closed with a
somewhat guarded paragraph repeating the government's approbation.

This was the first offence alleged against Mr. Motley. The second ground
of complaint was that he had shown written minutes of this conversation
to Lord Clarendon to obtain his confirmation of its exactness, and that
he had--as he said, inadvertently,--omitted to make mention to the