were
detained _awaiting_ Mr. Seward's advices) still more elaborate and
masterly instructions are given out to these gentlemen. The paper to Mr.
Adams will in future years be quoted and referred to as a model history
of the rise and progress of the secession enormity. It may be asked, Why
are such dispatches and instructions needed? Why such elaborate briefs
and compendiums required for gentlemen each of whom may have said,
respecting his connection with subject-matter of the Secretary (none
more emphatically so than Messrs. Adams and Burlingame), _quorum pars
magna fui?_ Yet, it must be remembered that diplomacy, like
jurisprudence (with its red tape common to both), taketh few things for
granted, and constantly maketh records for itself, under the maxim _de
non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio_; and ever beareth in
mind that when _certioraris_ to international tribunals are served, the
initiatory expositions and the matured results must not be subjected to
a pretence of diminution, but be full and complete.
The early dispatch for Mr. Burlingame contains the caustic sentence,
'Our representatives at Vienna seem generally to have come, after a
short residence there, to the conclusion that there was nothing for them
to do, and little for them to learn.
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