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North America — Volume 1 by Anthony Trollope
page 114 of 440 (25%)
indifferent to foreign counsels and deaf to foreign remonstrance.
"Do you go your way, and let us go ours. We will trouble you with
no question, nor do you trouble us." Such has been their national
policy, and it has obtained for them great respect. They have
resisted the temptation of putting their fingers into the caldron
of foreign policy; and foreign politicians, acknowledging their
reserve in this respect, have not been offended at the bristles
with which their Noli me tangere has been proclaimed. Their
intelligence has been appreciated, and their conduct has been
respected. But if this has been their line of policy, they must be
entirely out of court in raising any question as to the position of
British troops on British soil.

"It shows us that you doubt us," an American says, with an air of
injured honor--or did say, before that Trent affair. "And it is
done to express sympathy with the South. The Southerners
understand it, and we understand it also. We know where your
hearts are--nay, your very souls. They are among the slave-
begotten cotton bales of the rebel South." Then comes the whole of
the long argument in which it seems so easy to an Englishman to
prove that England, in the whole of this sad matter, has been true
and loyal to her friend. She could not interfere when the husband
and wife would quarrel. She could only grieve, and wish that
things might come right and smooth for both parties. But the
argument, though so easy, is never effectual.

It seems to me foolish in an American to quarrel with England for
sending soldiers to Canada; but I cannot say that I thought it was
well done to send them at the beginning of the war. The English
government did not, I presume, take this step with reference to any
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