If the Federal Government had avowed at once, that it was their
sovereign pleasure to keep an Englishman in durance for a _certain_
period, without attempting to excuse the arbitrary stretch of authority,
one would have chafed, I suppose, under the injustice, but still
submitted, as it is the duty of manhood to submit to any inevitable
necessity. It was the doubt and indefiniteness of the whole affair that
made it so inexpressibly exasperating. It was bad enough to have no
palpable adversary to grapple with: it was worse to have no specific
charge. As I had contravened a general order by crossing the Federal
lines without a pass, the Legation did not apply for my unconditional
release: it merely pressed for the inquiry and trial that, in most
civilized countries, a criminal can claim as a right. I was never
confronted with any judicial authority from the moment that I entered
the prison doors till they opened to let me go free: I never received
any official intimation of the reasons for my prolonged detention; and
Lord Lyons' repeated applications were at last only met by a vague
assertion that they "had reason to believe that an aide-de-camp's
commission, signed by General Lee, had reached me at Baltimore." There
was not, of course, the faintest scintilla of evidence to establish
anything of the sort.
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