Bill almost prohibited the importation of foreign goods into America.

Our trade with the Southern States, it was felt, would have been comparatively unrestricted if those states had been able to legislate for themselves. In 1860 England had sent twenty millions of exports to America, and this amount of merchandise was now to be practically excluded, or to be taxed with duties which would be prohibitory. Birmingham expected to lose £3,800,000 of her cutlery trade; South Staffordshire was in dismay. Early in March, 1861, the Times said:

"The period between the election of the new president and the surrender of office by the old is a sort of interregnum, in which it may be said all legislative and executive activity is paralysed. But, though unable to do anything for the cause of the Union, the senate and the congress have employed the interregnum to strike a second blow at the commerce, the finance, and the general prosperity of the country infinitely more fatal than any abstraction of territory or diminution of population. They employed the last weeks of what is probably the last session of the last congress of the United States of America in undoing all the progress that has been made in the direction of free-trade, and in manacling their country once more in the fetters of a protection amounting to prohibition.

The conduct of congress on the Tariff Bill has much changed the tone of public feeling with reference to the Secessionists, and none here, even those whose sympathies are with the Northern States, attempt to justify the course which the Protectionists in congress have pursued. In Manchester the proposed increase of duties on cotton goods in the United States is causing great attention. In Newcastle it is considered that it will be impossible to do business with the United States on the terms set out in the tariff, while the business with the Southern States is described as satisfactory. In Sheffield considerable apprehension is felt as to the effect of the new tariff on the steel trade. In Wolverhampton the anticipation that the tariff has become law darkens the already gloomy prospects of the iron trade. When it is remembered that

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all this ill-will and disruption of international ties and sympathies, which were becoming closer every day, and which America never needed more than now, is to be effected for no better object than that of protracting the sickly existence of an artificial manufacturing system raised and nurtured at the expense of the shipping and trade of the country, and by levying an odious tribute from all classes not concerned in manufactures, we cannot but wonder at the madness of democracy and its utter inability to apprehend and retain the most obvious principles of economical science. Protection was quite as much a cause of the disruption of the Union as slavery. In that respect it has done its worst; but it is destined, if we mistake not, to be the fruitful mother of other disruptions. What interest have the great agricultural Western States, for instance, in being made tributaries to the ironmasters of Pennsylvania or the cottonspinners of Lowell? They will desire, as the South have desired, a direct trade with England; and the peculiar position of Canada, with its facilities of communication by lake, river, and railway, will show them the readiest means of obtaining a direct trade by a fresh separation, possibly by an amalgamation with our own colonies.

These topics are so obvious that we forbear to insist upon them, but we beg to point out, for the comfort of our own countrymen and the warning of the government of the United States, that in attempting to exclude at one blow twenty millions of exports from their territory they have undertaken a task quite beyond their power. They may, indeed, destroy their own customs revenue; they may ruin the shipping, and cripple the commerce of the towns on the Atlantic seaboard, but they cannot prevent English manufacturers from permeating the United States from one end to the other. A glance at the map is sufficient to show this. The Southern Confederacy will, of course, desire no better than to make Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans dépôts of English manufactures, to be smuggled across the long and imperceptible frontier which separates them from the United States. Nay, it is quite possible that the

great city of New York may prefer to declare itself a free port, and to become the dépôt of an enormous illicit traffic, rather than see its wharves rotting, its streets deserted, and its harbour empty, because a suicidal policy has driven commerce to the inferior harbours of the South. The indented coasts of the Northern States give ample opportunity for smuggling, and, what is still more important, the frontier between Canada and the Union is virtually traced by the stream of the St. Lawrence and the centre of the great Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron. It is a region which might have been created for the express purpose of punishing the presumptuous folly of seeking to erect the barrier of prohibition between nations which have long enjoyed the mutual benefits of commercial intercourse. The smuggler will redress the errors of the statesman, as he has so often done before."

These representations were not calculated to allay public excitement or to increase popular feeling in favour of the North, but there were numbers of thoughtful and influential men who never wavered in their conviction that the Northern cause was worthy of the sympathy of this country. This was the view held by Mr. Bright, Mr. Cobden, Mr. John Stuart Mill, Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Villiers, and Mr. W. E. Forster, who represented a considerable phalanx of opinion; and on the whole the government maintained a quiet but friendly disposition, while, as we have noted, the people of the manufacturing districts, where the loss of trade was most severely felt, were still stanch in their belief that the war was a righteous one on the part of the Federal States, who had not commenced hostilities till their opponents had struck the first blow for the dissolution of the Union. Most of the unfavourable opinions expressed here, and the indiscreet manifestations made by some of those opposed to the action of the Federals, were repeated with exaggerations in America, and produced corresponding exasperation, not unaccompanied by threats. The governments of both countries had in effect to disavow and repudiate the insufferable demonstrations of ignorant partisans assuming to represent the sentiments of the majority.

The Federal government, however, was as captious as the people were extravagantly testy, and the temper with which it persisted in regarding every expression of opinion in England was strikingly manifested by the complaints and remonstrances that were made when our government determined to recognize the South as a belligerent power, and to proclaim a strict neutrality. The Confederates had taken Fort Sumter. A vessel which, in view of the possibility of the revolt, the Federal government had sent with reinforcements, had been fired at from an island in the harbour, and then the Confederates bombarded the fort from batteries which they had erected on the mainland for the purpose. The garrison left it because they had no means of resistance, and the Confederates took possession of it. President Lincoln immediately called for 75,000 men as volunteers to join the Federal forces for the purpose of re-establishing the Union.

Jefferson Davis then declared his intention to issue letters of marque, and called for 150,000 volunteers. The Southern ports were immediately placed under blockade.

The president's call for troops was enthusiastically responded to by the legislatures of the free states, New York tendering 30,000 men, instead of the 13,000 demanded, and 3,000,000 dollars. The governors of the border slave states-Kentucky, North Carolina, and Missouri--refused to respond to the president's call, North Carolina going so far as to seize all the Federal forts within her borders. Virginia declared for the secession, and closed Norfolk harbour by sinking vessels at its mouth, so as to prevent the Federal ships of war coming out; and the captain of one of the ships had threatened to lay the town in ruins if the obstructions were not removed. The Federal commissioners at Harper Ferry, being pressed by 1000 Virginians, destroyed the armoury, arsenal, manufactory building, and 15,000 stands of arms. They then retired into Pennsylvania, with the loss of three men. Troops were arriving at Washington from all points; a Massachusetts regiment, when passing through Baltimore, had been attacked by the mob, and many persons were wounded and some killed. The Federal

quent neutrality was the only proper course, and the best course for the interests of the Federal government. But our declaration of this neutrality was by implication treated as an offence throughout the long correspondence that ensued.

It required some care to prevent the controversy being distorted into an actual quarrel, for the Federals appeared to regard England as a watchful enemy, waiting to do the Union an ill-turn, or to aid in preventing its restoration. As a matter of fact the Emperor of the French, who had in his mind the illfated scheme for intervention in Mexico, all but openly recognized and sided with the South, and would have had us join him in interfering to secure the demands for a separation from the Union. Neither Lord Palmerston nor Lord John Russell would listen to such a proposal for a moment. Many "advisers" were strongly in favour of our interposing to secure the independence of the Confederacy, but the government utterly refused to entertain such a notion. They knew very well what were the motives of the Federals, and they respected them, though the sudden and complete successes which followed the first prompt action of the Confederates caused them to think, as the majority of people thought, that the South would ultimately become a separate nation.

The second call for 23,000 men for the regular army, and 18,000 seamen, was made by President Lincoln immediately after the blockade; but the Confederates were equally determined, and seemed for a time to be masters of the situation. Their repeated successes had the effect of increasing the number of their admirers here, and of emphasizing the feeling of distrust and indifference towards the North, which had already been augmented by the invectives which were uttered against England by the populace in New York and many of the ill-regulated recruits of the Federal army.

Much was said on the part both of the North and the South to keep public opinion here in a ferment. Both claimed to act in accordance with right and justice. Mr. Jefferson Davis stigmatized as unconstitutional the

proclamation of Mr. Lincoln calling for 70,000 volunteers, and excused his own appeal for recruits to form a Confederate army by saying to his ministry:—

"Deprived of the aid of congress at the moment, I was under the necessity of confining my action to a call on the States for volunteers for the common defence. I deemed it proper further to issue a proclamation inviting application from persons disposed to aid our defence in private armed vessels on the high seas, to the end that preparations might be made for the immediate issue of letters of marque and reprisal, which you alone, under the constitution, have power to grant. I entertain no doubt you will concur with me in the opinion that, in the absence of a fleet of public vessels, it will be eminently expedient to supply their place by private armed vessels, so happily styled by the publi cists of the United States 'the militia of the sea,' and so often and justly relied on by them as an efficient and admirable instrument of

defensive warfare. I earnestly recommend the immediate passage of a law authorizing me to accept the numerous proposals already received."

He then went on to denounce the proclamation of a blockade, and concluded by saying:

"We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honour and independence; we seek no conquest, no aggrandisement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated: all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by This we will, this we must, resist to the direst extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned the sword will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amity and commerce that cannot but be mutually beneficial."

armis.

At about the same time Mr. C. M. Clay, the minister of the United States in St. Petersburg, addressed a long letter to the Times, in which he endeavoured to correct some of the erroneous impressions which he believed to be prevalent in this country.