In the State Department proper he devoted all his energy for three years to securing foreign recognition — and failed again, where perhaps no one could have succeeded. A side issue in this departmental work has thrown more serious discredit on his reputation than any other charge that can be plausibly brought against him. Acting generally under Davis, he authorized and in- structed the agents in Canada who were to attack the Northern States from the rear, that is, who not only fos- tered discontent and insurrection, but carried out the raid on St. Albans and attempted to burn New York with its thousands of innocent women and children. There is no evidence that Benjamin planned these undertakings. But we know that he received and read his agent's, Thompson's, account of them, and we do not know that he ever expressed any disapproval. Looked at now, in cold blood, they seem without excuse. We can only re- mind ourselves that passion has strange pleas, and that the whole South believed the North to be capable of worse deeds than any Thompson contemplated, nay, to have done them.
In this matter of the Canadian attempts Mr. Rhodes is very careful to distinguish Davis from his secretary and to express disbelief that the president could have been capable of such infamy, while implying that his subordinate might perfectly well have been so. I hardly think Benjamin's character deserves this sharp distinc- tion. In any case, I have been most interested to find
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