Part 8 (1/2)

”It is with facts that ourbut facts as its eneral laws these laws are themselves facts which it deterence may allow itself to be crushed; it may lower, narrow, materialize itself; it may come to believe that there are no facts except those which strike us at the first glance, which coreat and gross error; there are remote facts, immense, obscure, sublime, very difficult to reach, to observe, to describe, and which are not any less facts for these reasons, and which ed to study and to know; and if he fails to recognize theiously abashed, and all his ideas carry the staion of facts which belongs to the historian, whose task it is to interpret as well as to transcribe, Mr Motley showed, of course, the political and religious school in which he had been brought up Every ht to his ”personal equation” of prejudice, and Mr Motley, whose ardent tes, betrayed his sympathies in the disputes of which he told the story, in a way to insure sharp criticis Thus it is that in the work of M Groen van Prinsterer, fro been betrayed into error, while his critic recognizes ”his ” And M Fruin, another of his Dutch critics, says, ”His sincerity, his perspicacity, the accuracy of his laborious researches, are incontestable”

Some of the criticises which deal with his last work, ”The Life of John of Barneveld”

XX

1868-1869 AEt 54-55

VISIT TO AMERICA--RESIDENCE AT NO 2 PARK STREET, BOSTON--ADDRESS ON THE COMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION--ADDRESS ON HISTORIC PROGRESS AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY--APPOINTED MINISTER TO ENGLAND

In June, 1868, Mr Motley returned with his family to Boston, and established hi his residence here he entered a good deal into society, and entertained reeable way

On the 20th of October, 1868, he delivered an address before the Parker Fraternity, in the Music Hall, by special invitation Its title was ”Four Questions for the People, at the Presidential Election” This was of course what is co speech, but a speech full of noble sentiraphs:--

”Certainly there have been bitterly contested elections in this country before Party spirit is always rife, and in such vivid, excitable, disputatious communities as ours are, and I trust alill be, it is the very soul of freedooverneneralities to deprecate party spirit Why, governh party overnment can accomplish the purpose of its existence The old republics of the past may be said to have fallen, not because of party spirit, but because there was no adequate machinery by which party spirit could develop itself with facility and regularity

”And if our Republic be true to herself, the future of the hu arhts of h set towith the full diapason of a million human throats, can exert so persuasive an influence as does the spectacle of a great republic, occupying a quarter of the civilized globe, and governed quietly and sagely by the people itself”

A large portion of this address is devoted to the proposition that it is just and reasonable to pay our debts rather than to repudiate them, and that the nation is as much bound to be honest as is the individual ”It is an awful thing,” he says, ”that this should be a question at all,” but it was one of the points on which the election turned, for all that

In his advocacy of the candidate hoovernment of which he became the head, his relations becaonisht be expected to speak on such an occasion No one doubts that his admiration of General Grant's career was perfectly sincere, and no one at the present day can deny that the great captain stood before the historian with such a record as one faht well consider as entitling hi to be wasted on the dead The speaker only gave voice to the widely prevailing feelings which had led to his receiving the invitation to speak The time was one which called for outspoken utterance, and there was not a listener whose heart did not war words in which the speaker recorded the noble achievements of the soldier who must in so many ways have reminded him of his favorite character, William the Silent

On the 16th of December of this same year, 1868, Mr Motley delivered an address before the New York Historical Society, on the occasion of the sixty-fourth anniversary of its foundation The president of the society, Mr Has to no single country, and to no single age As a statess to America; as a scholar, to the world of letters; as a historian, all ages will clairess and American Democracy” The discourse is, to use his oords, ”a rapid sweep through the eons and the centuries,” illustrating the great truth of the developin to the ti distance froave the earth its alternation of seasons, and rendered the history, if not the existence of man and of civilization a possibility, to the surrender of General Lee under the apple-tree at Appomattox Court-House No one but a scholar familiar with the course of history could have marshalled such a procession of events into a connected and intelligible sequence It is indeed a flight rather than apoe ee marks the succession of cities and wilds and deserts as he keeps pace with the sun in his journey

Its eloquence, its patriotism, its crowded illustrations, drawn frorammatic axioms, its occasional pleasantries, are all characteristic of the writer

Mr Gulian C Verplanck, the venerable senior member of the society, proposed the vote of thanks to Mr Motley ords of warm commendation

Mr Williareat pleasure in seconding the resolution which has just been read The eminent historian of the Dutch Republic, who hasas that of Athens and Sparta, and who has infused into the narrative the generous glow of his own genius, has the highest of titles to be heard with respectful attention by the citizens of a coin, was an offshoot of that renowned republic And cheerfully has that title been recognized, as the vast audience asseht, in spite of the storm, fully testifies; and well has our illustrious friend spoken of the growth of civilization and of the improvement in the condition of mankind, both in the Old World--the institutions of which he has so lately observed--and in the country which is proud to claim him as one of her children”

Soon after the election of General Grant, Mr Motley received the appointland That the position was one which was in reeable to his of satisfaction, not without ers about to encompass him, that he accepted the place He writes tobut exultation at present,--rather the opposite sensation I feel that I aher than I deserve, and at the sareater responsibilities than ever were assuent to s,--and who can expect to avoid the I shall do h,--and keep 'a heart for any fate'”

XXI

1869-1870 AEt 55-56

RECALL FROM THE ENGLISH MISSION--ITS ALLEGED AND ITS PROBABLE REASONS

The h in one who had already knohat it is to fall on evil days and evil tongues, were but too well justified by after events I could have wished to leave untold the story of the English s, and long to be regretted as a passage of Aence corave as a call for his defence, however little needed, at least as a part of my tribute to his h to all intelligent readers of our diplomatic history, and because his cause has been amply sustained by others in many ways better qualified thanwas done him it hted to honor, and whose services no error of judget If he confessed him, self-liable, like the rest of us, to reat 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 adotiated by Motley's predecessor, Mr

Reverdy Johnson, had been rejected by the Senate The minister was recalled, and Motley, nominated without opposition and unaniland in his place He elcomed most cordially on his arrival at Liverpool, and replied in a si the same kindly sentiments whichin London he had a conversation with Lord Clarendon, the British Foreign Secretary, of which he sent a full report to his own governenerally approved of in the govern it, it was hinted that soer than were required by the instructions, and that one of its points was not conveyed in precise conforently worded, and the dispatch closed with a sooverned against Mr Motley The second ground of complaint was that he had shoritten minutes of this conversation to Lord Clarendon to obtain his confirmation of its exactness, and that he had--as he said, inadvertently,--oovernment of this circumstance until some weeks after the time of the interview