The war has swept American commerce from
the sea, and placed it, in great measure, in our hands; we
have supplied the loss of the cotton which was suddenly
withdrawn from us; the returns of our revenue and our trade
are thoroughly satisfactory, and we have received an
equivalent for the markets closed to us in America in the
vast impulse that has been given towards the development of
the prosperity of India. We see a great nation, which has not
been in times past sparing of its menaces and predictions of
our ruin, apparently resolved to execute, without pause and
without remorse, the most dreadful judgments of Heaven upon
itself. We see the frantic patient tearing the bandages from
his wounds and thrusting aside the hand that would assuage
his miseries, and every day that the war goes on we see less
and less probability that the great fabric of the Union will
ever be reconstructed in its original form, and more and more
likelihood that the process of disintegration will extend far
beyond the present division between North and South.... Were
we really animated by the spirit of hostility which is always
assumed to prevail among us towards America, we should view
the terrible spectacle with exultation and delight, we should
rejoice that the American people, untaught by past
misfortunes, have resolved to continue the war to the end,
and hail the probable continuance of the power of Mr.
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