office. General Jackson still swore "by the Eternal," and his
illustrious military successor of a more recent period seems, by his own
showing, to have been able to sudden impulses of excitement. It might be
said of Motley, as it was said of Shakespeare by Ben Jonson, "aliquando
sufflaminandus erat." Yet not too much must be made of this concession.
Only a determination to make out a case could, as it seems to me, have
framed such an indictment as that which the secretary constructed by
stringing together a slender list of pretended peccadillos. One instance
will show the extreme slightness which characterizes many of the grounds
of inculpation:--

The instructions say, "The government, in rejecting the recent
convention, abandons neither its own claims nor those of its citizens,"
etc.

Mr. Motley said, in the course of his conversation, "At present, the
United States government, while withdrawing neither its national claims
nor the claims of its individual citizens against the British
government," etc.

Mr. Fish says, "The determination of this government not to abandon its
claims nor those of its citizens was stated parenthetically, and in such
a subordinate way as not necessarily to attract the attention of Lord
Clarendon."

What reported conversation can stand a captious criticism like this?
Are there not two versions of the ten commandments which were given out
in the thunder and smoke of Sinai, and would the secretary hold that this
would have been a sufficient reason to recall Moses from his "Divine
Legation" at the court of the Almighty?