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 the field, and the fences and other obstructions on the surface of Virginia did not prevent it from rendering good service.

Having reported myself to Mr. Seward, I was informed by him that, while Mr. Perry, the Secretary of Legation at Madrid, had, as chargé d'affaires, done the business of the office quite satisfactorily, and he could not too strongly recommend him to my confidence, the presence of a minister of full rank was now needed near the Spanish Court.

I hoped he would explain to me the urgencies of the situation in detail, but he simply referred me to my written instructions, which I found to be couched in rather general terms and somewhat oratorical language. In his conversations with me Mr. Seward was exceedingly amiable, but I thought I detected something like restraint in his utterances, and he alluded repeatedly to my relations with Mr. Lincoln, which, he said, seemed to be quite confidential. I did not, at that time, know anything about the divergencies of opinion existing in the Cabinet as to the policy to be followed by the government, and of the clash that had taken place between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, and which probably had greatly shaken Mr. Seward's assurance of mastery in the administration. Indeed, nobody could at that time have imagined the possibility of what had actually happened. As was revealed to the public only twenty-five years later by Ray and Nicolay in their life of Lincoln, Seward had, on the 1st of April, 1861, presented a memorandum to Mr. Lincoln, in which he virtually summoned the President to surrender the whole conduct of the policy of the government to him, the Secretary of State, and in which he sketched a program according to which the slavery question should be dropped out of sight and certain diplomatic demands be made upon Spain, France, and Russia, which are usually followed by war. And Mr. Lincoln had, in his gentle