and the arrival of an answer from Washington,-time enough tor a revolution to sweep over half a continent.

Mr. Burlingame's management of treaties which opened trade in Chinese ports, and extended it abroad, securing advantages to other countries with our own, and his successful efforts for the protection of foreign residents in Shanghai, were emphatically indorsed at home and abroad.

Sept. 9, 1863, Mr. Seward wrote,

The policy which you have adopted in the conduct of your responsible mission is able and wise; it is also just towards the Chinese Government and people, and liberal towards all other nations. It is an occasion of special felicitation that it meets the concurrence of the enlightened representatives of Great Britain, Russia, and France.

Mr. Burlingame's defence of Gen. Burgoine, the successor of the Americo-Chinese hero, Ward; his efforts in regard to the sanitary condition of Shanghai, which caused the opening of a new gate to the city, and the drainage of stagnant waters before it; and his cautious, decided treatment of all questions of national policy, however nearly or remotely connected with rebellion in China and in America,-won for him, in official form, the most flattering acknowledgments of indebtedness from men representing the interests of different nations.

The honor and prosperity of the nation abroad were safe in the hands of our American minister in China during the changing fortunes of the civil war.

PART II.

MASSACHUSETTS IN THE FIELD.

CHAPTER I.

THE STATE PREPARES FOR WAR.

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The Signs of the coming Conflict. - Massachusetts takes the Alarm. The Prophetic Words of Adjutant-Gen. Schouler. The Action of the Governor and Legislature. —— The Volunteer Militia.

THE

HE threatening agitation at the South early in the winter of 1860, ridiculed by many at the North as a transient ebullition of feeling, was regarded in Massachusetts with serious apprehension. With the vigilance and the promptness of her youthful days, she began to gird herself for the conflict.

An incident illustrative of Massachusetts loyalty, unknown to the public at the time, which places her quite in advance of all other States in the offer of her sons to confront the armed foes of our nationality, occurred just before the evacuation of Fort Moultrie. The first mention of it in a popular assembly was made by the hero of Sumter on July 4, 1865. With the peerless naval commander, Vice-Admiral Farragut, he was welcomed to Boston in a grand reception at Faneuil Hall, during which he remarked,

I am indebted to Massachusetts for many things; and before I sit down I will simply remark, that the first letter I received in Fort Moultrie, before I went to Fort Sumter, when it was found that things were looking very threatening (and I felt the storm there long before you saw the flash here), -the first letter I received was from a gentleman, I am sorry I do not remember his nanie, a militia officer of this city, offering me troops from Massachusetts if the Government would then allow them to be sent to me.

On July 6, in Faneuil Hall, Brig.-Gen. Edward W. Hinks was introduced to Gen. Anderson by the Mayor as "the gentleman

who wrote to him when he was in Fort Moultrie, tendering him the Massachusetts troops." A cordial greeting followed; and Gen. Anderson said he would have accepted the proffered assistance if he had had the authority. He was loudly called for, and came forward to the platform with Gen. Hinks, and said to the audience,

My Friends and Fellow-citizens,—I wish to present to you Brig.-Gen. Hinks, the first volunteer of the war, and to thank him in your name as well as my own for a letter which he sent me when I took command of Fort Moultrie, in which he assured me, that, if the Government would allow, he would forward to me friends and soldiers from Massachusetts. I wish remember this first volunteer.

you to

Gen. Hinks, who was retiring, was brought back by the Mayor; and cries for a speech, mingled with cheers, saluted him. The general, with a few modest words of allusion to the distinguished visitors, who were the Alpha and Omega of the war, retired amid the popular applause.

We add an extract from Gen. Anderson's interesting letter, the first from the field of hostile demonstrations, dated "Fort Moultrie, Dec. 25, 1860." After thanking Col. Hinks for his patriotic and chivalrous offer, he thus concludes:

When I inform you that my garrison consists of only sixty effective men; that we are in a very indifferent work, the walls of which are only about fourteen feet high; and that we have, within a hundred and sixty yards of our walls, sand-hills which command our work, and which afford admirable sites for batteries, and the finest covers for sharpshooters; and that, besides this, there are numerous houses, some of them within pistol-shot, - you will at once see, that if attacked in force, headed by any one but a simpleton, there is scarce a possibility of our being able to hold out long enough to give our friends time to come to our succor. Trusting that God will not desert us in our hour of trial, I am very sincerely yours,

ROBERT ANDERSON,

Major 1st Artillery.

A few days before this letter was written, South Carolina had taken the initiatory in the work of dissolving the Union. The governor's message upon the crisis urged the legislature to prepare to defy the power of the United States; and the convention of the State found no opposition to the Ordinance of Secession.

Before the holidays had passed, the members of Congress