Mr. Sumner says, in his "Explanation in Reply to an Assault:"--

"The secretary in a letter to me at Boston, dated at Washington,
October 9, 1869, informs the that the discussion of the question was
withdrawn from London 'because (the italics are the secretary's) we
think that when renewed it can be carried on here with a better
prospect of settlement, than where the late attempt at a convention
which resulted so disastrously and was conducted so strangely was
had;' and what the secretary thus wrote he repeated in conversation
when we met, carefully making the transfer to Washington depend upon
our advantage here, from the presence of the Senate,--thus showing
that the pretext put forth to wound Mr. Motley was an afterthought."

Again we may fairly ask how the government came to send a dispatch like
that of September 25, 1869, in which the views and expressions for which
Mr. Motley's conversation had been criticised were so nearly reproduced,
and with such emphasis that Mr. Motley says, in a letter to me, dated
April 8, 1871, "It not only covers all the ground which I ever took, but
goes far beyond it. No one has ever used stronger language to the
British government than is contained in that dispatch. . . . It is
very able and well worth your reading. Lord Clarendon called it to me
'Sumner's speech over again.' It was thought by the English cabinet to
have 'out-Sumnered Sumner,' and now our government, thinking that every
one in the United States had forgotten the dispatch, makes believe that
I was removed because my sayings and doings in England were too much
influenced by Sumner!" Mr. Motley goes on to speak of the report that an
offer of his place in England was made to Sumner "to get him out of the
way of San Domingo." The facts concerning this offer are now
sufficiently known to the public.