Mr. Seward to Mr. Fogg.
Sir: Your despatch of July 29 (No. 19) is before me.
I have received the Count de Gasparin’s new volume, and I have made an especial acknowledgment to the distinguished author, of our national obligations for the timely and noble service he has rendered to our cause.
Ambition is, I believe, a universal passion. Few, however, have the wisdom to direct it. When this storm of passion which has lashed the customarily peaceful elements here into such wild commotion, perplexing and confounding the statesmen and philanthropists of other nations, shall have passed away, and the United States shall reappear among the nations more free, more united, more prosperous and happy than ever before, who is there in Europe that will not wish that, like the Count de Gasparin, he had had the generous sagacity to be their friend and advocate? If, indeed, a different result were possible, and if this great nation could suddenly desist and fall off from its beneficent career, what prouder distinction could human genius desire than the acknowledgment which the Count de Gasparin must, in that case, receive, that he, bound to the country by no ties but those of a common humanity, had labored to prevent the great calamity which the world would surely then so soon perceive, and so universally deplore.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
George G. Fogg, Esq., &c., &c., Berne.