rebel citizens, to go to the rescue of the loyal Unionists of all the states,-to carry safety, peace, and liberty to the union-loving people of the South, who would of themselves (the tyranny overthrown) send back their representatives to congress, and the Union would be "reconstructed" without a change of a letter in the constitution of the United States. Did England subjugate Ireland and Scotland? Were the united kingdoms less homogeneous than of old, before the wars against rebellion? So would the United States rise from the smoke of battle with renewed stability and power.

Then followed some questions to the British public, followed by appeals which, though doubtless meant in all sincerity, were not in the best form for impressing the national sentiment. They began well enough by saying, "We overthrow that political element in America which has all through our history been the studied denouncer and real hater of the British nation, while we have been always from the beginning the friends of England. Because, though under different forms of government, we had common sympathies and a common cause, and therefore a common interest. England was the conservator of liberty in Europe-the Old World; we are in the New. If the Confederate States' are right, then is England wrong. If slavery must be extended in America, then must England restore it in the West Indies, blot out the most glorious page of her history, and call back her freed men into chains! Let her say to the martyrs of freedom from the nations who have sought refuge and a magnanimous defence on her shores, Return to your scaffold and your prison-house; England is no more England!"

Arguing on the ground of England's material interests, Mr. Clay said: "We are her best consumer; no tariff will materially affect that fact. We are the best consumer of England, not because we are cotton-growers or cotton-spinners, agriculturists or manufacturers, but because we are producers and manufacturers, and have money to spend. It is not the South, as is urged, but the North, who are the best consumers of English com

merce. The free white labourer and capitalist does now, and always will, consume more than the white master and the slave.

"Can England," he continued, "afford to offend the great nation which will still be the United States of America,' even should we lose part of the South? Twenty millions of people to-day, with or without the slave states, in twenty years we will be forty millions! In another half-century we will be one hundred millions! We will rest upon the Potomac, and on the west banks of the Mississippi river, upon the Gulf of Mexico. Our railroads will run 4000 miles upon a single parallel, binding our empire, which must master the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Is England so secure in the future against home revolt or foreign ambition as to venture, now in our need, to plant the seeds of revenge in all our future? If Ireland, or Scotland, or Wales shall attempt to secede from that beneficent government of the United Kingdom which now lightens their taxation and gives them security and respect at home and abroad, shall we enter into a piratical war with our race and ally, and capture and sell in our ports the property and endanger the lives of peaceable citizens of the British Empire all over the world? I enter not into the discussion of details. England, then, is our natural ally. Will she ignore our aspirations? If she is just, she ought not. If she is honourable and magnanimous, she cannot. If she is wise, she will not."

This conclusion was by no means happy. It struck a wrong note in relation to the general impression then prevalent, partly because of the repeated defeats of the Federals which almost immediately followed the confident declaration that the South would be easily subdued.

An opinion prevailed in the North that privateers would be able to sell their prizes in British ports. Letters were issued from our foreign office interdicting the armed ships and privateers either of the United States or the "so-styled Confederated States of North America" from carrying prizes made by them into the ports, harbours, roadsteads, or waters of the United Kingdom or of any of our colo

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On the 17th or 18th of June (1861), both armies were in motion, and the Federals were repulsed by the Confederates, whose station they had attacked at Fort Bethel.

We need not follow the various episodes of that terrible fratricidal war, nor the dread details of slaughter, the accounts of which sickened the hearts of those who read them, and left more than half the families in America to mourn their dead. During the early part of the conflict the Federals suffered repeated defeats, which seemed at first to justify the opinion held here that the Northern levies were no match, as soldiers, for the Southern force. The Confederate ranks were largely filled by men accustomed to out-door sports and who had leisure for learning the use of arms, and, moreover, they composed the militia of the Southern States, to whom drill and military exercises were a frequent recreation. The Federals, on the other hand, were to a great extent men taken from store or office,-men engaged in trade and town life. They did not at first estimate what they had to do, and it was not till the misfortunes they had sustained called out the pertinacity and determination which they afterwards displayed, that they began to reverse the disasters of the first campaigns, and to follow up the subsequent successes until the Union was restored and slavery abolished. In July, 1961, the Federals attempted to advance upon Richmond in Virginia, which had become the Southern or Confederate capital, and at a place called Bull Run, or Manassas Junction, they suffered a severe defeat, almost at the very beginning of hostilities. On their side about 18,000 men were engaged, the greater part of them being raw recruits under the command of General M'Dowall. Two of the regiments whose term of service had expired a few hours before insisted on being discharged, and fell to the rear at the commencement of the action. The conduct of the Federal troops was not very admirable, and they were en

ing in flight. They returned to Washington with a loss of 19 officers and 462 men killed, and 64 officers and 947 men wounded, while the Confederate loss was comparatively trifling. The appearance of the fugitive regiments in the streets of the capital created intense excitement, and it was feared that the Confederates, following up the advantage, would march thither. This, however, they were not able to accomplish. It may be said that this defeat had the effect of intensifying the determination of the Federal government. From that time for three years President Lincoln and his colleagues repeatedly called out fresh levies, and announced their determination to devote all the resources of the country to the maintenance of the Union and the reclamation of the rebellious states. The victory of the Confederates was received in England, if not with general satisfaction, with something too much like noisy applause, in which was mingled admiration for the victors and a certain disdain for the vanquished. The brave little army of the South had beaten the larger forces that had been called together to force them to obedience. The side which it was supposed had been most ready to "bounce," and had used threatening language and offensive innuendo towards England had shown the white-feather. This was the view which was most loudly, and, as it appeared, most generally expressed, and such comments took a tone that had in it something of exultation. Happily the Federal government in America had in Mr. Lincoln a chief of penetrating sagacity and plain common sense, and our own ministers were equally able to distinguish between a temporary ebullition of popular opinion and the duties that belonged to the administration of the affairs of the country. Both Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell firmly resisted any suggestion that would have led to our interposition on behalf of Confederate independence.

At the same time there was great exasperation of feeling on each side, for in America the abuse of England was both loud and deep. In the early part of November (1861), an

event occurred which at first seemed likely to lead to more serious consequences than the mere interchange of invective during a time of ignorant excitement.

The Confederate leaders, encouraged, doubtless, by their recognition as the government of a belligerent power, had appointed two commissioners to represent them,-one at the English and the other at the French court.

Mr. Mason was accredited to England, and Mr. Slidell to France, and they were accompanied by their secretaries, Mr. M'Farland and Mr. Eustis. Mr. W. L. Yancey had already been in Europe as the advocate of the doctrine of state sovereignty, and Mr. Thurlow Weed was then, or soon afterwards, in London for the purpose of representing the case of the North before public opinion here, as Mr. Clay had already endeavoured to do.

Mr. Slidell, the proposed envoy to Paris, was a Southern lawyer, and Mr. Mason was said to be the author of the fugitive slave law, which had been so effectual in arousing the opposition of the Abolitionists in the border states. They were sent to Europe to endeavour to obtain the official recognition of the French and English courts, and had run the blockade from Charleston to Cardenas in Cuba in the Confederate steamer Nashville, escaping the Federal vessels which were on the look-out to prevent them from reaching a neutral port. The Federals knew well enough of the intention to send these gentlemen and their secretaries to Europe, and understood their purpose in coming hither, but, notwithstanding the vigilance of the watch kept on Charleston they contrived to reach the Havana and to take their passage on board the English mail-steamer Trent. It happened, however, that the United States sloop of war, the San Jacinto, was returning from the African coast, and her commander, Captain Wilkes, heard that the Confederate envoys were endeavouring to embark for Europe. Wilkes was one of those hot-headed indiscreet men who are not to be depended on when judgment is required, and he probably thought it would be a fine stroke of patriotism to "beard the British lion," as his admirers afterwards phrased it when ex

tolling his exploit. At all events he fell in with the Trent on the afternoon of the 8th of November, and without showing any colours hove to ahead. The Trent hoisted her ensign, but it was not responded to, and as she went nearer, the stranger fired a round shot across her bows and showed American colours. The engines of the Trent were slowed, and she was still approaching when the other vessel fired a shell close across her bows. She then stopped, and an officer with an armed guard of marines boarded her and demanded a list of the passengers, which demand being refused, the officer said he had orders to arrest Mr. Mason, Mr. Slidell, Mr. M'Farland, and Mr. Eustis, and that he had sure information of their being passengers in the Trent. The commander of the Trent declining to satisfy him whether such passengers were on board or not, Mr. Slidell stepped forward and announced that the four persons named were then standing before him under British protection, and that if they were taken on board the San Jacinto they must be taken vi et armis. The commander of the Trent and Commander Williams, who was on board, protested against the demands of the captain of the San Jacinto as an act of piracy which they had no means of resisting, as the American vessel was on their port beam, 200 yards off, her ship's company at quarters, ports open, and tampions out. Remonstrance was unavailing. The commissioners and their secretaries were forcibly carried off, such necessary luggage as they required being sent to them, and it was then demanded that the commander of the Trent should go on board the San Jacinto. This he positively refused to do unless he should be forcibly compelled, and the demand was not insisted on. The ships then parted company, and the Trent proceeded on her voyage to St. Thomas.

When the intelligence reached England it produced immense excitement. The act of Captain Wilkes was clearly illegal, and it was regarded as an outrage, a deliberate insult to the country. A cabinet council was held and despatches were prepared, the conciliatory form of which was to some extent determined by the advice of Prince Albert, whose draft

the Federal government was taking a course calculated to provoke hostilities on the part of England, and that the demonstrations against this country made by a strong and turbulent party in America might carry the ministry there to acts of aggression or defiance which must lead to farther complications. To thoughtful men on both sides war between Britain and the Federal States would be scarcely less horrible or less fratricidal than the conflict already going on between North and South; and, though with perhaps too suggestive promptitude, it was decided to despatch troops to the number of 8000 to Canada, and it was argued that this step was necessary to show that we were in earnest in our representations, a great load of anxiety was felt to have been removed when Mr. Seward's reply was received, in a long and rather circumlocutory despatch, containing the satisfactory declaration that Captain Wilkes had acted without authority, and that the four persons taken from the Trent should "be cheerfully liberated."

The conclusion was an equitable one, and it should not be forgotten that the concession had to be made at a most critical juncture, when the Federal reverses had made the position of the government extremely difficult, and the popular ferment against England for her supposed sympathy and support of the Confederates was almost uncontrollable.

Whatever may have been the mistaken estimate of English feeling on the part of American agitators, it could not be denied that the prompt declaration of neutrality by our government had secured the Northern States against a probable French intervention on behalf of the South, while other states of Europe had followed our example. The foreign envoys at Washington were now, in obedience to their governments, earnest in their representations to Mr. Seward that he could not consistently with international law refuse to comply with the demands made by Great Britain.

Even before the prompt declaration sent by the Emperor of the French to Washington, M. Mercier, the French minister, had spoken to Mr. Seward in the same sense. On the

23d of December Lord Lyons wrote to Earl Russell: "M. Mercier went, of his own accord, to Mr. Seward the day before yesterday, and expressed strongly his own conviction that the choice lay only between a compliance with the demands of England and war. He begged Mr. Seward to dismiss all idea of assistance from France, and not to be led away by the vulgar notion that the emperor would gladly see England embroiled with the United States in order to pursue his own plans in Europe without opposition."

This was a curiously worded communication when it is read side by side with an intimation by Lord Palmerston to the queen that he had been credibly informed that General Scott, while in Paris, had let it be understood that he was commissioned to propose to France to join the Northern States against England, in which event the French province of Canada would be restored to the empire. "General Scott," added the jaunty premier, "will probably find himself much mistaken as to the success of his overtures; for the French government is more disposed towards the South than the North, and is probably thinking more about cotton than about Canada." Whatever truth or falsehood there may have been in the rumour about General Scott, Lord Palmerston was right in his conclusion. General Scott may have been a political Captain Wilkes, assuming an authority for which he had no warrant, and this seems probable from the attitude preserved towards England by President Abraham Lincoln. He, as well as other sagacious leaders in the Northern States, must have seen that the British government was acting loyally in declaring the South to be a belligerent and announcing complete neutrality. We needed cotton as much as France did. A whole manufacturing industry in England was paralysed-a whole population in deep distress for the want of it, and, in addition to this, the Southern States would have maintained free-trade with England, and the North had imposed duties many of which were almost prohibitive in relation to English commerce. Mr. Lincoln recognized this, and with his clear good sense also saw that to persist in supporting the action of Captain