The
United States will, doubtless, respect and protect her neutrality
laws and observe the comity of nations, whatever they may mean in
practice, but I protest against the monstrous fiction--the
transparent fraud--that would seek in ninety years after the
evacuation of New York by the British to bring the people of New York
within the vision and venue of a British jury--that in ninety years
after the last British bayonet had glistened in an American sunlight,
after the last keel of the last of the English fleet ploughed its
last furrow in the Hudson or the Delaware--after ninety years of
republican independence--would seek to restore that city of New York
and its institutions to the dominion of the crown and government of
Great Britain. This is the meaning of it, and disguise it as you may,
so will it be interpreted beyond the Atlantic. Not that the people of
America care one jot whether S.J. Meany were hanged, drawn, and
quartered to-morrow, but that there is a great principle involved.
Personally, I am of no consequence; politically, I represent in this
court the adopted citizen of America--for, as the _New York Herald_,
referring to this case, observed, if the acts done in my regard are
justifiable, there is nothing to prevent the extension of the same
justice to any other adopted citizen of the States visiting Great
Britain.
Pages:
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351