and you, wi’ some o’ your auld-warld stories, that the mind o’ man canna resist, whirl’d them to the back o’ beyont to look at the auld Roman camp

Russell's clandestine attempt to initiate diplomatic contact with the Confederacy left an image of backhandedness that substantiated Seward's direst premonitions about British self-interest.

The general usages of the American Navy are founded upon the usages that prevailed in the Navy of monarchical England more than a century ago; nor have they been materially altered since. … [T]here still lingers in American men-of-war all the stilted etiquette and childish parade of the old-fashioned Spanish court of Madrid.

the direfulness of Hell