Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 29

[Footnote 652: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXVII, p. 810.]

[Footnote 653: Mason Papers. Slidell to Mason, June 21, 1862.]

CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO

CHAPTER PAGE X. KING COTTON . . . . . . . . . . 1 XI. RUSSELL'S MEDIATION PLAN . . . . . . 33 XII. THE EMANc.i.p.aTION PROCLAMATION . . . . 75 XIII. THE LAIRD RAMS . . . . . . . . . 116 XIV. ROEBUCK'S MOTION . . . . . . . . 152 XV. THE SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE a.s.sOCIATION . 186 XVI. BRITISH CONFIDENCE IN THE SOUTH . . . 219 XVII. THE END OF THE WAR . . . . . . . . 247 XVIII. THE KEY-NOTE OF BRITISH ATt.i.tUDE . . . 274 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

LIST OF ILl.u.s.tRATIONS

PART TWO

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ _From a photograph by Elliott & Fry, Ltd_.

JOHN SLIDELL . . . . . . . . . . . _facing p. 24_ _From Nicolay and Hay's "Life of Abraham Lincoln," by permission of the Century Co., New York._

"ABE LINCOLN'S LAST CARD" . . . . . . . " 102 _Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of "Punch_"

WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER (1851) . . . . . . " 134 _From Reid's "Life of Forster" (Chapman & Hall, Ltd._)

"THE AMERICAN GLADIATORS--HABET!" . . . . " 248 _Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of "Punch_"

"BRITANNIA SYMPATHIZES WITH COLUMBIA" . . . " 262 _Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of "Punch_"

JOHN BRIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . " 294 _From Trevelyan's "Life of John Bright"

(Constable & Co., Ltd_.)

GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER X

KING COTTON

For two weeks there was no lightening of Southern depression in England.

But on June 28 McClellan had been turned back from his advance on Richmond by Lee, the new commander of the Army of Virginia, and the much heralded Peninsular campaign was recognized to have been a disastrous failure. Earlier Northern victories were forgotten and the campaigns in the West, still progressing favourably for the North, were ignored or their significance not understood. Again, to English eyes, the war in America approached a stalemate. The time had come with the near adjournment of Parliament when, if ever, a strong Southern effort must be made, and the time seemed propitious. Moreover by July, 1862, it was hoped that soon, in the cotton districts, the depression steadily increasing since the beginning of the war, would bring an ally to the Southern cause. Before continuing the story of Parliamentary and private efforts by the friends of the South it is here necessary to review the cotton situation--now rapidly becoming a matter of anxious concern to both friend and foe of the North and in less degree to the Ministry itself.

"King Cotton" had long been a boast with the South. "Perhaps no great revolution," says Bancroft, "was ever begun with such convenient and soothing theories as those that were expounded and believed at the time of the organization of the Confederacy.... In any case, hostilities could not last long, for France and Great Britain must have what the Confederacy alone could supply, and therefore they could be forced to aid the South, as a condition precedent to relief from the terrible distress that was sure to follow a blockade[654]." This confidence was no new development. For ten years past whenever Southern threats of secession had been indulged in, the writers and politicians of that section had expanded upon cotton as the one great wealth-producing industry of America and as the one product which would compel European acquiescence in American policy, whether of the Union, before 1860, or of the South if she should secede. In the financial depression that swept the Northern States in 1857 _De Bow's Review_, the leading financial journal of the South, declared: "The wealth of the South is permanent and real, that of the North fugitive and fict.i.tious. Events now transpiring expose the fiction, as humbug after humbug explodes[655]." On March 4, 1858, Senator Hammond of South Carolina, asked in a speech, "What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what everyone can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton _is_ King[656]." Two years later, writing before the elections of 1860 in which the main question was that of the territorial expansion of slavery, this same Southern statesman expressed himself as believing that "the slave-holding South is now the controlling power of the world.... Cotton, rice, tobacco and naval stores command the world; and we have sense enough to know it, and are sufficiently Teutonic to carry it out successfully[657]."

These quotations indicative of Southern faith in cotton might be amplified and repeated from a hundred sources.

Moreover this faith in the possession of ultimate power went hand in hand with the conviction that the South, more than any other quarter of the world, produced to the benefit of mankind. "In the three million bags of cotton," said a writer in _De Bow's Review_, "the slave-labour annually throws upon the world for the poor and naked, we are doing more to advance civilization ... than all the canting philanthropists of New England and Old England will do in centuries. Slavery is the backbone of the Northern commercial as it is of the British manufacturing system[658]...." Nor was this idea unfamiliar to Englishmen. Before the Civil War was under way Charles Greville wrote to Clarendon:

"Any war will be almost sure to interfere with the cotton crops, and this is really what affects us and what we care about. With all our virulent abuse of slavery and slave-owners, and our continual self-laudation on that subject, we are just as anxious for, and as much interested in, the prosperity of the slavery interest in the Southern States as the Carolinan and Georgian planters themselves, and all Lancas.h.i.+re would deplore a successful insurrection of the slaves, if such a thing were possible[659]."

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina led the march in secession.

Fifteen days earlier the British consul at Charleston, Bunch, reported a conversation with Rhett, long a leader of the Southern cause and now a consistent advocate of secession, in which Rhett developed a plan of close commercial alliance with England as the most favoured nation, postulating the dependence of Great Britain on the South for cotton--"upon which supposed axiom, I would remark," wrote Bunch, "all their calculations are based[660]." Such was, indeed, Southern calculation. In January, 1861, _De Bow's Review_ contained an article declaring that "the first demonstration of blockade of the Southern ports would be swept away by the English fleets of observation hovering on the Southern coasts, to protect English commerce, and especially the free flow of cotton to English and French factories.... A stoppage of the raw material ... would produce the most disastrous political results--if not a revolution in England. This is the language of English statesmen, manufacturers, and merchants, in Parliament and at cotton a.s.sociations' debates, and it discloses the truth[661]."

The historical student will find but few such British utterances at the moment, and these few not by men of great weight either in politics or in commerce. The South was labouring under an obsession and prophesied results accordingly. So strong was this obsession that governmental foreign policy neglected all other considerations and the first Commission to Europe had no initial instructions save to demand recognition[662]. The failure of that Commission, the prompt British acquiescence in the blockade, were harsh blows to Southern confidence but did not for a long time destroy the faith in the power of cotton. In June, 1861, Bunch wrote that there was still a firm belief that "Great Britain will make any sacrifice, even of principle or of honour, to prevent the stoppage of the supply of cotton," and he enclosed a copy of an article in the _Charleston Mercury_ of June 4, proclaiming: "The cards are in our hands, and we intend to play them out to _the bankruptcy of every cotton factory in Great Britain and France, or the acknowledgment of our independence_[663]." As late as March, 1862, Bunch was still writing of this Southern faith in cotton and described the newly-made appointment of Benjamin as Secretary of State as partly due to the fact that he was the leader of the "King Cotton" theory of diplomacy[664]. It was not until the war was well nigh over that British persistence in neutrality, in spite of undoubted hards.h.i.+ps caused by the lack of cotton, opened Southern eyes. Pollard, editor of a leading Richmond newspaper, and soon unfriendly to the administration of Jefferson Davis, summed up in _The Lost Cause_ his earlier criticisms of Confederate foreign policy:

"'Cotton,' said the Charleston _Mercury_, 'would bring England to her knees.' The idea was ludicrous enough that England and France would instinctively or readily fling themselves into a convulsion, which their great politicians saw was the most tremendous one of modern times. But the puerile argument, which even President Davis did not hesitate to adopt, about the power of 'King Cotton,' amounted to this absurdity: that the great and ill.u.s.trious power of England would submit to the ineffable humiliation of acknowledging its dependency on the infant Confederacy of the South, and the subserviency of its empire, its political interests and its pride, to a single article of trade that was grown in America[665]!"

But irrespective of the extremes to which Southern confidence in cotton extended the actual hards.h.i.+ps of England were in all truth serious enough to cause grave anxiety and to supply an argument to Southern sympathizers. The facts of the "Lancas.h.i.+re Cotton Famine" have frequently been treated by historians at much length[666] and need here but a general review. More needed is an examination of some of the erroneous deductions drawn from the facts and especially an examination of the extent to which the question of cotton supply affected or determined British governmental policy toward America.

English cotton manufacturing in 1861 held a position of importance equalled by no other one industry. Estimates based on varying statistics diverge as to exact proportions, but all agree in emphasizing the pre-eminent place of Lancas.h.i.+re in determining the general prosperity of the nation. Surveying the English, not the whole British, situation it is estimated that there were 2,650 factories of which 2,195 were in Lancas.h.i.+re and two adjacent counties. These employed 500,000 operatives and consumed a thousand million pounds of cotton each year[667]. An editorial in the _Times_, September 19, 1861, stated that one-fifth of the entire English population was held to be dependent, either directly or indirectly, on the prosperity of the cotton districts[668], and therefore also dependent on the source of supply, the Confederate South, since statistics, though varying, showed that the raw cotton supplied from America const.i.tuted anywhere from 78 to 84 per cent. of the total English importation[669].

The American crop of 1860 was the largest on record, nearly 4,000,000 bales, and the foreign s.h.i.+pments, without question hurried because of the storm-cloud rising at home, had been practically completed by April, 1861. Of the 3,500,000 bales sent abroad, Liverpool, as usual, received the larger portion[670]. There was, then, no immediate shortage of supply when war came in America, rather an unusual acc.u.mulation of raw stocks, even permitting some res.h.i.+pment to the Northern manufacturing centres of America where the scarcity then brought high prices. In addition, from December, 1860, to at least April, 1861, there had been somewhat of a slump in demand for raw cotton by British manufacturers due to an over-production of goods in the two previous years. There had been a temporary depression in 1856-57 caused by a general financial crisis, but early in 1858 restored confidence and a tremendous demand from the Far East--India especially--set the mills running again on full time, while many new mills were brought into operation. But by May, 1860, the mills had caught up with the heavy demands and the rest of the year saw uncertainty of operations and brought expressions of fear that the "plunge" to produce had been overdone. Manufactured stocks began to acc.u.mulate, and money was not easy since 1860 brought also a combination of events--deficient grain harvest at home, withdrawal of gold from England to France for investment in French public works, demand of America for gold in place of goods, due to political uncertainties there--which rapidly raised the discount rate from two and one half per cent. in January, 1860, to six in December. By the end of April, 1861, the Board of Trade Returns indicated that the cotton trade was in a dangerous situation, with large imports of raw cotton and decreased exports of goods[671]. The news of war actually begun in America came as a temporary relief to the English cotton trade and in the prospect of decreased supply prices rose, saving many manufacturers from impending difficulties. A few mills had already begun to work on part-time because of trade depression. The _immediate_ effect of Lincoln's blockade proclamation was to check this movement, but by October it had again begun and this time because of the rapid increase in the price of raw cotton as compared with the slower advance of the price of goods[672].

In substance the princ.i.p.al effect of the War on the English cotton trade for the first seven or eight months was felt, not in the manufacturing districts but in the Liverpool speculative and importing markets of raw cotton. Prices rose steadily to over a s.h.i.+lling a pound in October, 1861. On November 23 there was a near panic caused by rumours of British intervention. These were denounced as false and in five days the price was back above its previous figure. Then on November 27 came the news of the _Trent_ and the market was thrown into confusion, not because of hopes that cotton would come more freely but in fear that war with America would cause it to do so. The Liverpool speculators breathed freely again only when peace was a.s.sured. This speculative British interest was no cause for serious governmental concern and could not affect policy. But the manufacturing trade was, presumably, a more serious anxiety and if cotton became hard, or even impossible to obtain, a serious situation would demand consideration.

In the generally accepted view of a "short war," there was at first no great antic.i.p.ation of real danger. But beginning with December, 1861, there was almost complete stoppage of supply from America. In the six months to the end of May, 1862, but 11,500 bales were received, less than one per cent. of the amount for the same six months of the previous year[673]. The blockade was making itself felt and not merely in s.h.i.+pments from the South but in prospects of Southern production, for the news came that the negroes were being withdrawn by their masters from the rich sea islands along the coast in fear of their capture by the Northern blockading squadrons[674]. Such a situation seemed bound in the end to result in pressure by the manufacturers for governmental action to secure cotton. That it did not immediately do so is explained by Arnold, whose dictum has been quite generally accepted, as follows:

"The immediate result of the American war was, at this time, to relieve the English cotton trade, including the dealers in the raw material and the producers and dealers in manufactures, from a serious and impending difficulty. They had in hand a stock of goods sufficient for the consumption of two-thirds of a year, therefore a rise in the price of the raw material and the partial closing of their establishments, with a curtailment of their working expenses, was obviously to their advantage. But to make their success complete, this rise in the price of cotton was upon the largest stock ever collected in the country at this season. To the cotton trade there came in these days an unlooked for accession of wealth, such as even it had never known before. In place of the hard times which had been antic.i.p.ated, and perhaps deserved, there came a shower of riches[675]."

This was written of the situation in December, 1861. A similar a.n.a.lysis, no doubt on the explanations offered by his English friends, of "the question of cotton supply, which we had supposed would speedily have disturbed the level of their neutral policy" was made by Mason in March, 1862. "Thus," he concluded, "it is that even in Lancas.h.i.+re and other manufacturing districts no open demonstration has been made against the blockade[676]." Manufactures other than cotton were greatly prospering, in particular those of woollen, flax, and iron. And the theory that the cotton lords were not, in reality, hit by the blockade--perhaps profited by it--was bruited even during the war. _Blackwood's Magazine_, October, 1864, held this view, while the _Morning Post_ of May 16, 1864, went to the extent of describing the "glut" of goods in 1861, relieved just in the nick of time by the War, preventing a financial crash, "which must sooner or later have caused great suffering in Lancas.h.i.+re."

Arnold's generalization has been taken to prove that the _immediate_ effect of the Civil War was to save the cotton industry from great disaster and that there _immediately_ resulted large profits to the manufacturers from the increased price of stocks on hand. In fact his description of the situation in December, 1861, as his own later pages show, was not applicable, so far as manufacturers' profits are concerned, until the later months of 1862 and the first of 1863. For though prices might be put up, as they were, goods were not sold in any large quant.i.ties before the fall of 1862. There were almost no transactions for s.h.i.+pments to America, China, or the Indies[677].

Foreign purchasers as always, and especially when their needs had just been abundantly supplied by the great output of 1858-60, were not keen to place new orders in a rising and uncertain market. The English producers raised their prices, but they held their goods, lacking an effective market. The importance of this in British foreign policy is that at no time, until the acc.u.mulated goods were disposed of, was there likely to be any trade eagerness for a British intervention in America.

Their only fear, says Arnold, was the sudden opening of Southern ports and a rush of raw cotton[678], a sneer called out by the alleged great losses incurred and patriotically borne in silence. Certainly in Parliament the members from Lancas.h.i.+re gave no sign of discontent with the Government policy of neutrality for in the various debates on blockade, mediation, and cotton supply but one Member from Lancas.h.i.+re, Hopwood, ever spoke in favour of a departure from neutrality, or referred to the distress in the manufacturing districts as due to any other cause than the shortage in cotton caused by the war[679].

But it was far otherwise with the operatives of Lancas.h.i.+re. Whatever the causes of short-time operation in the mills or of total cessation of work the situation was such that from October, 1861, more and more operatives were thrown out of employment. As their little savings disappeared they were put upon public poor relief or upon private charity for subsistence. The governmental statistics do not cover, accurately, the relief offered by private charity, but those of public aid well indicate the loss of wage-earning opportunity. In the so-called "Distressed Districts" of Lancas.h.i.+re and the adjoining counties it appears that poor relief was given to 48,000 persons in normal times, out of a total population of 2,300,000. In the first week of November, 1861, it was 61,207, and for the first week of December, 71,593; thereafter mounting steadily until March, 1862, when a temporary peak of 113,000 was reached. From March until the first week in June there was a slight decrease; but from the second week of June poor relief resumed an upward trend, increasing rapidly until December, 1862, when it reached its highest point of 284,418. In this same first week of December private relief, now thoroughly organized in a great national effort, was extended to 236,000 people, making a grand total at high tide of distress of over 550,000 persons, if private relief was not extended to those receiving public funds. But of this differentiation there is no surety--indeed there are evidences of much duplication of effort in certain districts. In general, however, these statistics do exhibit the great lack of employment in a one-industry district heretofore enjoying unusual prosperity[680].

The manufacturing operative population of the district was estimated at between 500,000 and 600,000. At the time of greatest distress some 412,000 of these were receiving either public or private aid, though many were working part-time in the mills or were engaged on public enterprises set on foot to ease the crisis. But there was no starvation and it is absurd to compare the crisis to the Irish famine of the 'forties. This was a _cotton_ famine in the shortage of that commodity, but it was not a _human_ famine. The country, wrote John Bright, was pa.s.sing through a terrible crisis, but "our people will be kept alive by the contributions of the country[681]." Nevertheless a rapid change from a condition of adequate wage-earning to one of dependence on charity--a change ultimately felt by the great bulk of those either directly or indirectly dependent upon the cotton industry--might have been expected to arouse popular demonstrations to force governmental action directed to securing cotton that trade might revive. That no such popular effect was made demands careful a.n.a.lysis--to be offered in a later chapter--but here the _fact_ is alone important, and the fact was that the operatives sympathized with the North and put no pressure on the Cabinet. Thus at no time during the war was there any attempt from Lancas.h.i.+re, whether of manufacturers or operatives, to force a change of governmental policy[682].

As the lack of employment developed in Lancas.h.i.+re public discussion and consideration were inevitably aroused. But there was little talk of governmental interference and such as did appear was promptly met with opposition by the leading trade journals. July 13, 1861, the _Economist_ viewed the cotton shortage as "a _temporary_ and an _immediate_ one....

We have--on our hypothesis--to provide against the stoppage of our supply for _one_ year, and that the very _next_ year." Would it _pay_, asked Bright, to break the blockade? "I don't think myself it would be cheap ... at the cost of a war with the United States[683]." This was also the notion of the London _s.h.i.+pping Gazette_ which, while acknowledging that the mill-owners of England and France were about to be greatly embarra.s.sed, continued: "_But we are not going to add to the difficulty by involving ourselves in a naval war with the Northern States_[684]...." The _Times_ commented in substance in several issues in September, 1861, on the "wise policy of working short-time as a precaution against the contingencies of the cotton supply, and of the glutted state of distant markets for manufactured goods[685]." October 12, the _Economist_ acknowledged that the impatience of some mill-owners was quite understandable as was talk of a European compulsion on America to stop an "objectless and hopeless" quarrel, but then entered upon an elaborate discussion of the principles involved and demonstrated why England ought not to intervene. In November Bright could write: "The notion of getting cotton by interfering with the blockade is abandoned apparently by the simpletons who once entertained it, and it is accepted now as a fixed policy that we are to take no part in your difficulties[686]." Throughout the fall of 1861 the _Economist_ was doing its best to quiet apprehensions, urging that due to the "glut" of manufactured goods short-time must have ensued anyway, pointing out that now an advanced price was possible, and arguing that here was a situation likely to result in the development of other sources of supply with an escape from the former dependence on America. In view of the actual conditions of the trade, already recounted, these were appealing arguments to the larger manufacturers, but the small mills, running on short order supplies and with few stocks of goods on hand were less easily convinced. They were, however, without parliamentary influence and hence negligible as affecting public policy. At the opening of the new year, 1862, Bright declared that "with the spinners and manufacturers and merchants, I think generally there is no wish for any _immediate_ change[687]."

Bright's letter of November, 1861, was written before news of the _Trent_ reached England: that of January, 1862, just after that controversy had been amicably settled. The _Trent_ had both diverted attention from cotton and in its immediate result created a general determination to preserve neutrality. It is evident that even without this threat of war there was no real cotton pressure upon the Government. With Northern successes in the spring of 1862 hopes were aroused that the war would soon end or that at least some cotton districts would be captured to the relief of England. Seward held out big promises based on the capture of New Orleans, and these for a time calmed governmental apprehensions, though by midsummer it was clear that the inability to secure the country back of the city, together with the Southern determination to burn their cotton rather than see it fall into the hands of the enemy, would prevent any great supply from the Mississippi valley[688]. This was still not a matter of _immediate_ concern, for the Government and the manufacturers both held the opinion that it was not lack of cotton alone that was responsible for the distress and the manufacturers were just beginning to unload their stocks[689]. But in considering and judging the att.i.tude of the British public on this question of cotton it should always be remembered that the great ma.s.s of the people sincerely believed that America was responsible for the distress in Lancas.h.i.+re. The error in understanding was more important than the truth.

In judging governmental policy, however, the truth as regards the causes of distress in England is the more important element. The "Cotton Lords"

did not choose to reveal it. One must believe that they intentionally dwelt upon the war as the sole responsible cause. In the first important parliamentary debate on cotton, May 9, 1862, not a word was said of any other element in the situation, and, it is to be noted, not a word advocating a change in British neutral policy[690]. It is to be noted also that this debate occurred when for two months past, the numbers on poor relief in Lancas.h.i.+re were temporarily decreasing[691], and the general tone of the speakers was that while the distress was serious it was not beyond the power of the local communities to meet it. There was not, then, in May, any reason for grave concern and Russell expressed governmental conviction when he wrote to Gladstone, May 18, "We must, I believe, get thro' the cotton crisis as we can, and promote inland works and railroads in India[692]." Moreover the Southern orders to destroy cotton rather than permit its capture and export by the North disagreeably affected British officials[693]. Up to the end of August, 1862, Russell, while writing much to Lyons on England's necessity for cotton, did not do so in a vein indicative of criticism of Northern policy nor in the sense that British distress demanded special official consideration. Such demands on America as were made up to this time came wholly from France[694].

It was not then cotton, primarily, which brought a revival in July of the Southern attack on the Government through Parliament[695]. June had seen the collapse of Lindsay's initial move, and Palmerston's answer to Hopwood, June 13, that there was no intention, at present, to offer mediation, appeared final. It was not cotton, but McClellan's defeat, that produced a quick renewal of Lindsay's activities. June 30, Hopwood had withdrawn his motion favouring recognition but in doing so asked whether, "considering the great and increasing distress in the country, the patient manner in which it has. .h.i.therto been borne, and the hopelessness of the termination of hostilities, the Government intend to take any steps whatever, either as parties to intervention or otherwise, to endeavour to put an end to the Civil War in America?" This was differently worded, yet contained little variation from his former question of June 13, and this time Palmerston replied briefly that the Government certainly would like to mediate if it saw any hope of success but that at present "both parties would probably reject it. If a different situation should arise the Government would be glad to act[696]." This admission was now seized upon by Lindsay who, on July 11, introduced a motion demanding consideration of "the propriety of offering mediation with the view of terminating hostilities," and insisted upon a debate.

Thus while the first week of June seemed to have quieted rumours of British mediation, the end of the month saw them revived. Adams was keenly aware of the changing temper of opinion and on June 20 presented to Russell a strong representation by Seward who wrote "under the President's instructions" that such recurrent rumours were highly injurious to the North since upon hopes of foreign aid the South has been encouraged and sustained from the first day of secession. Having developed this complaint at some length Seward went on to a brief threat, containing the real meat of the despatch, that if foreign nations did venture to intervene or mediate in favour of the South, the North would be forced to have recourse to a weapon hitherto not used, namely to aid in a rising of the slaves against their masters. This was clearly a threat of a "servile war" if Great Britain aided the South--a war which would place Britain in a very uncomfortable position in view of her anti-slavery sentiments in the past. It is evidence of Adams'

discretion that this despatch, written May 28, was held back from presentation to Russell until revived rumours of mediation made the American Minister anxious[697]. No answer was given by Russell for over a month, a fact in itself indicative of some hesitancy on policy. Soon the indirect diplomacy of Napoleon III was renewed in the hope of British concurrence. July 11, Slidell informed Mason that Persigny in conversation had a.s.sured him "that this Government is now more anxious than ever to take prompt and decided action in our favour." Slidell asked if it was impossible to stir Parliament but acknowledged that everything depended on Palmerston: "that august body seems to be as afraid of him as the urchins of a village school of the birch of their pedagogue[698]."

Unquestionably Persigny here gave Slidell a hint of private instructions now being sent by Napoleon to Thouvenel who was on a visit to London.

The Emperor telegraphed "Demandez au gouvernement anglais s'il ne croit pas le moment venu de reconnaitre le Sud[699]." Palmerston had already answered this question in Parliament and Thouvenel was personally very much opposed to the Emperor's suggestion. There were press rumours that he was in London to bring the matter to a head, but his report to Mercier was that interference in America was a very dangerous matter and that he would have been "badly received" by Palmerston and Russell if he had suggested any change in neutral policy[700].

In spite of this decided opposition by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs it is evident that one ground for renewed Southern hopes was the knowledge of the Emperor's private desires. Lindsay chose his time well for on July 16 the first thorough report on Lancas.h.i.+re was laid before Parliament[701], revealing an extremity of distress not previously officially authenticated, and during this week the papers were full of an impending disaster to McClellan's army. Lyons, now in London, on his vacation trip, was concerned for the future mainly because of cotton, but did not believe there was much danger of an immediate clash with America[702]. But the great Southern argument of the moment was the Northern military failure, the ability of the South to resist indefinitely and the hopelessness of the war. On the morning of July 18 all London was in excitement over press statements that the latest news from America was not of McClellan's retreat but of the capture of his entire army.