At the Court of St. James
1861. May 1.–The America brought me a note from Mr. Adams. He quits Boston to-day. I may, therefore, look for him at farthest on the 15th inst.
The President’s Proclamation against the seceding States as insurrectionary follows quickly upon the fall of Fort Sumter, and firmly accepts the challenge of war involved in that belligerent attack. It calls out seventy-five thousand militia, and will no doubt be enthusiastically responded to in men and money. Thus, then, has sectional hatred achieved its usual consummation,–civil war! Virginia hesitates, but she will join the Confederacy, as will also, finally, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Maryland. My poor country can henceforward know no security or peace until the passions of the two factions have covered her hills and valleys with blood and exhausted the strength of an entire generation of her sons. All Europe is watching with amazement this terrible tragedy.
THE END.