Lynchburg Daily Virginian

Ambassador Borland

Senator Borland was unable to tear himself away from his Arkansas constituency, without delivering himself of a farewell address. The N. Y. Times says, it is always gratifying to observe the example of Washington finding favor with living statesmen; albeit, personal, and not general and political topics, are the staple of the imitation. Senator Borland goes to Central America, he informs us, in the first place to recruit the health of himself and his family in the dry atmosphere of those climes; and secondly to serve his country. We presume the country at large will be satisfied if he effect the first of these objects, and says as little as possible about the second. Mr. Borland's public services at the Isthmus must be limited to the collection of information for the department at home. If he attempt to interfere at all with the delicate web of diplomacy, with those clumsy hands of his, there are a hundred chances to one of our having an armful of troubles upon us before he has been there six months. Borland was never cut out for a Talleyrand. In all the nice requisites of a negotiator, he is quite deficient. The Senate had sixty-one men in it better qualified to fulfil the duties of the post; and if personal reasons had not, in this instance, prevailed with the President over a careful regard for public service, another would have been dispatched. If Mr. Borland, therefore, be sincerely desirous to do good service in his embassy, he will play the Minister as little as possible, and devote the whole of his time to restoring the health of Mrs. Borland, and of all the little Borlands. It is perhaps, a pity that the envoy ever abandoned his medical diploma for the crooked paths of diplomacy.