Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/178

158 been chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the United States Senate, and was the descendant of a long line of famous statesmen in Virginia since before the Revolution. Mr. Slidell had also recently been a senator, and was known to be a gentleman of great polish and address, forensic skill and diplomatic acumen. These two masters of the arts of the politician, if not of the statesmen, were versed to the minute in the affairs of the world and the accepted methods of procedure, and would make a very telling team sent out from some country on a deep diplomatic errand. So Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States believed, and William H. Seward agreed with him.

When the news reached New York and Boston that these two depraved and dangerous "traitors" representing a wicked rebellion had actually left Charleston on the Nashville as "ambassadors" bent upon making alliance for their government with Great Britain and France, and to get warships and cannon and