An elaborate argument is prepared and sent by the Foreign
Secretary to show that because the ships were first seen twenty miles
off, and in half an hour more they were more clearly perceived,
therefore at some unknown and unspecified time after the half hour,
they must have been close in with the shore. I suppose on the
principle that a sailing vessel going without steam, moves at the rate
of twenty or thirty miles in the hour. However, such is this zealous
argument to prove the favourite point that the rebels are always right
and the Government always wrong. Alas! that so much good information
and subtlety of argument should be thrown away. This able and
argumentative paper crossed on its way out another from our own
Admiral on its way homeward, in which he said he had inquired from the
Governor of the Ionian Islands, and had ascertained that the ship
was at least eight miles from the shore--so there was an end of the
argument upon distance; and that of the insult to our flag was as
shortly disposed of by a letter from our own Admiralty, stating that
it was only a stratagem which our own Navy constantly employed, freely
using the flags of other nations for its own purposes.
I rejoice to say, and your Lordships must he rejoiced to hear it, that
I am approaching the end of this subject, but I cannot abstain from
observing, to show how completely we took part with the one side
against the other, that we treated the Sicilian prisoners as if they
had been our allies, our own subjects.
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