Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/284

 226 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS France, and the United States, making it piracy for neutrals to serve on board of privateers cruis ing against the commerce of either of the three nations when such nation was a belligerent, the very impressive reasons that Mr. Buchanan opposed to it caused it to be abandoned. An American minis ter at the English court, at periods of exciting and critical questions between the two nations, is very likely to experience a considerable variation in the social barometer. But the strength of Mr. Bu chanan s character, and the agreeable personal qualities which were in him united with the gravity of years and an experience of a very uncommon kind, overcame at all times any tendency to social unpleasantness that might have been caused by national feelings excited by temporary causes. Throughout his residence in England Mr. Bu chanan was treated with marked attention, not only by society in general, but the queen and the prince consort. Miss Lane joined him in the spring of 1854, and remained with him until the autumn of 1855. Mr. Buchanan arrived in New York in April, 1856, and there met with a public reception from the authorities and people of the city that evinced the interest that now began to be everywhere mani fested in him as the probable future president. Prior to the meeting of the national democratic convention at Cincinnati in June, 1856, there was