The most costly tutors in
the world were provided for him at public expense -- Lord
Palmerston, Lord Russell, Lord Westbury, Lord Selborne, Mr.
Gladstone, Lord Granville, and their associates, paid by the
British Government; William H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams,
William Maxwell Evarts, Thurlow Weed, and other considerable
professors employed by the American Government; but there was
only one student to profit by this immense staff of teachers. The
private secretary alone sought education.
To the end of his life he labored over the lessons then taught.
Never was demonstration more tangled. Hegel's metaphysical
doctrine of the identity of opposites was simpler and easier to
understand. Yet the stages of demonstration were clear. They
began in June, 1862, after the escape of one rebel cruiser, by
the remonstrances of the Minister against the escape of "No.
290," which was imminent. Lord Russell declined to act on the
evidence. New evidence was sent in every few days, and with it,
on July 24, was included Collier's legal opinion: "It appears
difficult to make out a stronger case of infringement of the
Foreign Enlistment Act, which, if not enforced on this occasion,
is little better than a dead letter." Such language implied
almost a charge of collusion with the rebel agents -- an intent
to aid the Confederacy.
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