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of Admiral Sir Charles Sullivan, Bart., who for nearly forty years had been a constant annual subscriber of £5 to the Lifeboat Institution. During that long period he had assisted the institution, by its lifeboats and its system of rewards, in contributing directly and indirectly to the saving of nearly 13,000 shipwrecked persons on our

coasts.

It was reported that a contribution of £5 had been received from the late officers and crew of H.M.S. Alecto, through Captain H. J. Raby, R.N.

Payments amounting to upwards of £1,200 having been made on various lifeboat establishments, the meeting broke up.

Valuable to a degree, said the Chairman, not to be expressed as are the services of this Institution, they could not do everything. Wrecks continue and lives are yet lost, while the uncertain fickle elements have to deal with the frail barks, whose loss to their owners is covered by our system (he would call it, to use no stronger term, which it deserved) continues to be the law of the land.

But we have graver matters than this before us, continued the Chairman. We have just found out (although it had all along been most justly expected) that the Alabama's deeds are all illegal! The vessel was illegally fitted out in our neutral (?) port of Liverpool, and there will be enough to adjust presently. An appeal to our Government respecting her, it appears, was made, but its decision came too late, she was gone. No wonder then that we read in the Liverpool Journal of Commerce that

"Her Majesty's government have issued orders to their various agents at the ports of the Western Islands, that if the Confederate steamer Alabama, or '290,' should enter any of these ports, she is at once to be ordered off, and not allowed to take in coal or provisions. The order further states that if the Alabama should call at Fayal, or other ports, they are to inform Captain Semmes that if, after this notice, he should destroy any merchandise which may be consigned to British merchants in neutral vessels, her Majesty's government will at once take steps to capture and destroy the steamer under his command."

Here then, continued the Chairman, are some of the after fruits of our sympathy. There will be a day of reckoning; already it appears notice has been given on the part of the American government that the claim for the restitution of the value of all the captures of the Alabama will be made. Let Liverpool adventurers see to it. We ourselves have in former days set the Americans the example of a similar demand, for about the close of the last century they were compelled to accede to the validity of such claims that were made on them by our government. And without doubt in justice we shall have now to meet them.

And whose are they, continued the Chairman, those of a people so closely allied to us that they do indeed sympathise with that distress which has been occasioned by the war which is raging in their own country,

and this sympathy is fast assuming the form of a shipload of food and clothing, which are preparing to be sent to Liverpool. Out of their own abundant harvest with which Providence has blessed them, they are not forgetful of their "friends in England."

Good words cannot be too often repeated, continued the Chairman, and for this reason he must claim the indulgence of the Club, that he was sure would. be acceded to him, when he submitted that they should preserve among their papers an account of an incident which had recently come off on the wide waters of the Atlantic on the occasion of the last birthday of our Prince of Wales, when he attained his majority. It has been truly said in one of our daily papers, the Daily News,

Amidst the many signs, not only of alienated feeling, but of growing bitterness and hostility between the English and American peoples, any incidents that tend to show the irritation is after all only superficial, and that beneath the surface the old bonds of kindredship still unite the two great divisions of the Anglo-Saxon race, are peculiarly welcome.

On this occasion the American passengers requested to be allowed to open the proceedings by a toast in honour of Queen Victoria, and they were admirably represented by their spokesman, Mr. Samuel Bowles, of Springfield, Massachusetts. This is not the first occasion on which American citizens have shown their earnest desire to do honour to the Sovereign and Royal Family of these realms. It may be said, indeed, without exaggeration, that they have for years past spontaneously availed themselves of every suitable opportunity for expressing the feelings of respect and admiration they entertain towards the Royal Lady who has for a quarter of a century represented in so exemplary a manner the characteristic institution of this country. All who have carefully noted the public expression of American opinion on this subject, or who have mixed much in American society, can bear witness to the depth and reality of these feelings. With scarcely an exception, all the references to the Royal Family of England in American journals, as well as by American writers and speakers generally, are couched in terms of unaffected admiration and respect. Whenever occasion has offered, our American kinsmen have expressed the same sentiments by their conduct. It is sufficient to refer in illustration to the frank, cordia!, and even enthusiastic welcome the Prince of Wales received on his visit to the States two short years ago. The intelligent and voluntary homage thus paid to the office, the person, and character of her Majesty by freemen and republicans is far more significant, is of infinitely higher moral value, than the blind and merely traditional feeling of loyalty that prevails so largely not only in continental states but in our own country. The sentiment which animates the Americans is not the blind adoration of mere rank, wealth, and social splendour, apart from all considerations of public dignity and private character. It is the respect paid by an enlightened and law-abiding community to exalted official station and distin

guished individual worth; to the First Magistrate of a free and independent people-the First Lady, the most exemplary wife and mother, in a land distinguished for its social and domestic virtues.

Mr. Samuel Bowles, the representative and spokesman of the American passengers on board the Europa, admirably expressed the deeper and more permanent sentiments cherished by his fellow citizens towards the English people and their Royal Head. His simple, dignified, and profoundly truthful reference to the enduring bonds that unite the two countries, and the large hopes and interests depending on their continued cooperation, are so seasonable at the present juncture, and reflect so completely the feelings and aspirations of all right-minded men in both countries, that it is a public service to reproduce them.The event is thus related in a Baltimore paper :

"The occurrence of the 21st birthday of the Prince of Wales, during the late passage of the steamer Europa from Liverpool to Boston, was made the occasion of an interesting celebration by the passengers. Many of the latter were English army and navy officers, on their way to Canada, or the West Indies, who would naturally be unwilling to let such an occasion pass unnoticed. Captain Moodie, of the Europa, presided, and the close of the dinner on the 9th was chosen for the celebration, which was opened, by request, with a sentiment in honour of Queen Victoria from the American passengers. Mr. Samuel Bowles, of Springfield, Massachusetts, as their organ, said:

"The American ladies and gentlemen of this boat's company claim the privilege, as they cherish the desire most cordially to participate in the festivities of this interesting occasion-the majority birthday of the future sovereign of Great Britain. We do not forget-it is too sad a fact ever to be forgotten-that the natural and general good understanding of the two peoples is now sadly and seriously interrupted. But we remember, also—and none of us who remember anything can fail to remember this-that the kinship of England and America is deeper than the interests of cotton, broader than the conflicts of parties, and longer, thank God, than the life of slavery. One in origin, one in language, one in religious thought and action, one in the traditions of the past and the hopes of the future, one in pioneership in all that is highest and noblest in modern civilisation, in all that enlarges the comfort and liberty of man as man, in all that elevates the social status and protects the individuality of woman, and in all that illustrates and advances the principle and practice of self-government-these two nations and peoples cannot long or widely be separated in sympathy or in action.

But I recognise also personal reasons for American respect and honour for the Royal Family of England. We should be false to our boast as the most gallant people of the world did we fail always to see and to say, that while Queen Victoria has occupied the most conspicuous position before the world of any person of her sex, she has also and always illustrated and honoured every virtue of woman-kind—

being at the same time the most august of sovereigns and the most womanly of women! Nor does our cause for honour here rest alone on a sentiment. When the history of the politics of the two countries for the last two years shall be written, it will embrace a fact commanding the gratitude of every American and the pride of every Englishman. I refer to the circumstance that the dispatch, in which the British ministry, in obedience to the popular feeling, and as they thought to the national honour, proposed to demand redress from the American government in the now famous and once alarming affair of the Trent, was softened in its somewhat curt and harsh tone by order of the Queen, acting under the advice of her always wise and now lamented husband, the late Prince Albert. Thus, it was made easier for the American pride to yield, as it did yield, to the demand, and rescue the world from a war between its two most conspicuous and most intimately associated nations, which, as it would have represented no great principle, would have produced only disaster and ruin to civilization. England has many things for which ever to thank that modest and accomplished personage, the late Prince Consort, but among them all there is nothing so great, and noble, and useful as this. And here at least America will ever vie with her in doing honour to his name and family. Thus justifying the sentiment as no cold formality, we propose, with cordial good will to herself, her family, her people, and especially to you her loyal and right royal subjects here present, The Health of Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.'

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The speech and sentiment were received with much enthusiasm, and the Queen's health drank with all the honours. After this,

Rev. Dr. Leitch, President of the University of Queen's College at Kingston, Canada, rose and proposed the health of President Lincoln. In the course of his speech he said,—It was not for him to anticipate the issue of the present struggle between the two sections of that country. But this he would say, that he had faith enough in the race to which the Americans belonged, in the progress of humanity, and in the Christian faith, to believe, that though they might have to pass through a baptism of blood, they would yet assert their place among the nations of the world, and fulfil the high mission assigned to them by Providence in advancing the best interests of humanity. The American people were in process of solving great social problems, and the nations of the old world were deeply interested in the solution. It would be a great blow to civilisation were this people, who have inherited England's progressiveness and love of liberty, to be prostrated by disaster in their attempts to work out their national destiny. It is the sincere wish of every true Englishman that the Anglo-Saxon race may, in the new world, achieve results of which the parent stock may be proud. America had already done much for civilisation and the advancement of human knowledge. In no country was so much done for the advancement of religion. It is but reasonable to expect that the descendants of the God-fearing and earnest men who landed from the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock should inherit the qualities of

their pilgrim fathers. The American missions put to shame the richer churches of the old country. Although he disapproved of some parts of the American system of education, yet he would declare, after per-. sonal examination of the most famed systems of education in Europe, that in no country has there been manifested so earnest a desire to make all sacrifices to elevate the people by means of education. They had reason to thank Captain Moodie and the Cunard Company for affording such pleasant opportunities to Americans and Englishmen for cultivating one another's acquaintance. They too often formed ideas of one another from the exaggerated pictures of newspapers. The Americans were taught to regard John Bull as a disagreeable, surly, jealous, old gentleman, and the English to look on Jonathan as a forward, pretentious, upstart. But meeting daily around that board, and pacing the decks together, they discovered that their American cousins were wonderfully like themselves, and that national peculiarities formed but slight differences compared to the substantial sameness of character. He would always remember with pleasure the delightful intercourse with American citizens in sailing with these ships. If Old John more frequently sailed with Young Jonathan under the genial influence of Captain Moodie, most of the present misunderstanding and irritation would be removed.

Mr. Lincoln's health was then drank with loud cheering.

The toast of the occasion next followed from Captain Kennedy, of the British navy, who, with a fervent prayer for the long continuance of the life and reign of the mother and for an equally honourable and successful career for the son sovereign, proposed "The health of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales."

At this the loyal English enthusiam and the American kindly sympathy rose to their highest pitch, and his royal highness was pledged in the most devoted manner.

Mr. Eben. F. Wright, of Boston, proposed the good health of Captain Moodie, the gallant sailor and the accomplished gentleman, to which, after the response of his admiring passengers, he responded in an effective singing of "Auld Lang Syne."

Mr. John C. Day, of Hartford, Connecticut, next, in feeling and apt language, toasted "The Ladies," and they acknowledged the compliment through Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, Jun., of Boston.

The singing of "God Save the Queen" by the whole company concluded the exercises, which were throughout of the most pleasant and gratifying character. So far as it was an exchange of good feeling between English and Americans, it was a drop of oil upon a troubled sea, but even such small contributions to international peace and good will, may not be wholly without usefulness."

It would be difficult to imagine a more truly royal and Queenlike act-a nobler manifestation of imperial wisdom and goodness, than the one here referred to. The Sovereign interposed to soothe as far as possible exasperated international feeling, and to prevent the useless NO. 1.-VOL. XXXII.

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