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 302 family—and plates were laid for three thousand persons. There was no convenient place for speech-making, except in the saloon where President Juarez and Cabinet and Mr. Seward were seated. There, in the late hours before day-break, considerable talking was done. During this speaking an incident, which may have some significance, took place.

Señor Valasquez of Monterey, the President of Congress for that month, had made a most enthusiastic speech in honor of Mr. Seward, and in response, the latter called his attention to two facts in the history of Europe and America within the last ten years, viz: that the Emperor of France had a well-marked and distinctive foreign policy, and a domestic policy, both of which were imperial and European. The first showed itself in the form of an intervention in the affairs of America, and an attempt to establish as a preliminary an Empire in Mexico; and the second in the furtherance of the project for the completion of the Suez Canal through the Egyptian peninsula which separates the Mediterranean from the Red Sea. On the other hand, the United States have a policy in regard to Mexico, and a foreign policy as distinctly marked, and altogether American, which shows itself in maintaining the independence of the sister Republic, and the construction of a ship canal across the isthmus of Darien which separates the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Mr. Seward said "the Colombian Congress hesitates and stumbles. Secure for us Mr. President, a resolution of the Congress of Mexico, recommending the Colombian Congress to ratify the treaty for the construction of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, which has already been negotiated between the two Governments, and I am sure that the