the British government not countenanced and encouraged this trade, he would not have been subject to his present imprisonment.

Mr. Packenham asked us "how we were treated." [220] I pointed to our dirty blankets upon the open pavement as our bed, and requested him to be his own judge. He looked indignant, and replied that, "by the laws of war, as officers, we were entitled to our parole, and doubtless it would be extended to us;" but that "the same laws also required, as a matter of security, that the soldier prisoners should be kept securely." He left our prison with the same kindness of manner that he had entered it, and with our increased good-will and respect, the gaudy fops of officers who had charge of us standing aside for him to pass.

We have had frequent occasions to be mortified at the contempt in which citizens of the United States are held and treated abroad, and particularly in Mexico, when no Roman citizen in her palmiest days ever felt more pride and confidence in his citizenship than does at present the British subject. If anything is more calculated than another to lessen the respect and attachment for one's country, it is to be compelled to disown her and seek protection under another. Such, unfortunately, has too often been the case with citizens of the United States, who, speaking their mother English, and with an English parchment in their pockets, travel with impunity by denying that they ever were in the country which gave them life. The case of our friend Lieutenant C.,17 of the Mier Expedition, is a striking instance. He was a citizen of New-York, and after his friends had in vain exhausted all their influence [221] in trying to procure his liberation, his mother recollected that he was born at Halifax, "near the United States line," but came over when a few days old. This fact, made known to the English minister, procured his immediate release.

As I feel an abiding pride in that country which gave me birth, and in which are my earliest and dearest associations, I long to see her assume a more high-toned position in her intercourse with foreign nations. Heretofore, unfortunately, that government has too strictly estimated her honour by dollars and cents. If her flag has been insulted - if her citizens have been unjustly imprisoned and robbed - if her territory has been violated, the cost of redress is estimated with that cold, calculating, mathematical code so unworthy a great nation. Like some northern people when their wives or daughters have been violated, they send the case before a jury, who estimate their honour as a butcher would a pound of meat in market. If the meat be choice, the price is proportionately high, and vice versa if the article is poor. We feel no hesitation in believing that the honour of wives and daughters is in far better keeping in a thimble full of powder and one ounce of lead, and so, likewise, is the same conservative principle equally applicable to national honour.

To-day we were visited by several friends, who informed us they learned that on to-morrow we would be removed into the city; the officer of the guard