Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 42

[Footnote 958: Published Oxford and London, 1863.]

[Footnote 959: Rhodes, IV, p. 355.]

[Footnote 960: Lutz, _Notes_. Schleiden's despatch, No. 1, 1863. German opinion on the Civil War was divided; Liberal Germany sympathized strongly with the North; while the aristocratic and the landowning cla.s.s stood for the South. The historian Karl Friedrich Neumann wrote a three-volume history of the United States wholly lacking in historical impartiality and strongly condemnatory of the South. (Geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten, Berlin, 1863-66.) This work had much influence on German public opinion. (Lutz, _Notes_.)]

[Footnote 961: _Liberator_, Feb. 20, 1863. Letter of J.P. Jewett to W.L.

Garrison, Jan. 30, 1863. "The few oligarchs in England who may still sympathize with slavery and the Southern rebels, will be rendered absolutely powerless by these grand and powerful uprisings of THE PEOPLE."]

[Footnote 962: Duffus, _English Opinion_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 963: Argyll, _Autobiography_, II, pp. 196-7.]

[Footnote 964: Trevelyan, _John Bright_. Facsimile, opp. p. 303. Copy sent by Sunmer to Bright, April, 1863.]

[Footnote 965: Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, March 10, 1863. Lyons was slow to favour the emanc.i.p.ation proclamation. The first favourable mention I have found was on July 26, 1864. (Russell Papers. To Russell.) In this view his diplomatic colleagues coincided. Stoeckl, in December, 1863, wrote that slavery was dead in the Central and Border States, and that even in the South its form must be altered if it survived. (Russian Archives, Stoeckl to F.O., Nov. 22-Dec. 4, 1863, No. 3358.) But immediately after the second proclamation of January, 1863, Stoeckl could see no possible good in such measures. If they had been made of universal application it would have been a "great triumph for the principle of individual liberty," but as issued they could only mean "the hope of stirring a servile war in the South." _(Ibid._, Dec. 24, 1863-Jan. 5, 1864, No. 70.)]

CHAPTER XIII

THE LAIRD RAMS

The building in British ports of Confederate war vessels like the _Alabama_ and the subsequent controversy and arbitration in relation thereto have been exhaustively studied and discussed from every aspect of legal responsibility, diplomatic relations, and principles of international law. There is no need and no purpose here to review in detail these matters. The purpose is, rather, to consider the development and effect at the time of their occurrence of the princ.i.p.al incidents related to Southern s.h.i.+p-building in British yards. The _intention_ of the British Government is of greater importance in this study than the correctness of its action.

Yet it must first be understood that the whole question of a belligerent's right to procure s.h.i.+ps of war or to build them in the ports of neutral nations was, in 1860, still lacking definite application in international law. There were general principles already established that the neutral must not do, nor permit its subjects to do, anything directly in aid of belligerents. The British Foreign Enlistment Act, notification of which had been given in May, 1861, forbade subjects to "be concerned in the equipping, furnis.h.i.+ng, fitting out, or arming, of any s.h.i.+p or vessel, with intent or in order that such s.h.i.+p or vessel shall be employed in the service ..." of a belligerent, and provided for punishment of individuals and forfeiture of vessels if this prohibition were disobeyed. But the Act also declared that such punishment, or seizure, would follow on due proof of the offence. Here was the weak point of the Act, for in effect if secrecy were maintained by offenders the proof was available only after the offence had been committed and one of the belligerents injured by the violation of the law. Over twenty years earlier the American Government, seeking to prevent its subjects from committing unneutral acts in connection with the Canadian rebellion of 1837, had realized the weakness of its neutrality laws as they then stood, and by a new law of March 10, 1838, hastily pa.s.sed and therefore limited to two years' duration, in the expectation of a more perfect law, but intended as a clearer exposition of neutral duty, had given federal officials power to act and seize _on suspicion_, leaving the proof of guilt or innocence to be determined later. But the British interpretation of her own neutrality laws was that proof was required in advance of seizure--an interpretation wholly in line with the basic principle that a man was innocent until proved guilty, but fatal to that preservation of strict neutrality which Great Britain had so promptly a.s.serted at the beginning of the Civil War[966].

The South wholly lacking a navy or the means to create one, early conceived the idea of using neutral ports for the construction of war vessels. Advice secured from able British lawyers was to the effect that if care were taken to observe the strict letter of the Foreign Enlistment Act, by avoiding warlike equipment, a s.h.i.+p, even though her construction were such as to indicate that she was destined to become a s.h.i.+p of war, might be built by private parties in British yards. The three main points requiring careful observance by the South were concealment of government owners.h.i.+p and destination, no war equipment and no enlistment of crew in British waters.

The princ.i.p.al agent selected by the South to operate on these lines was Captain J.D. Bullock, who a.s.serts in his book descriptive of his work that he never violated British neutrality law and that prevailing legal opinion in England supported him in this view[967]. In March, 1862, the steamer _Oreto_ cleared from Liverpool with a declared destination of "Palermo, the Mediterranean, and Jamaica." She was not heard of until three months later when she was reported to be at Na.s.sau completing her equipment as a Southern war vessel. In June, Adams notified Russell "that a new and still more powerful war-steamer was nearly ready for departure from the port of Liverpool on the same errand[968]." He protested that such s.h.i.+ps violated the neutrality of Great Britain and demanded their stoppage and seizure. From June 23 to July 28, when this second s.h.i.+p, "No. 290" (later christened the _Alabama_) left Liverpool, Adams and the United States consul at Liverpool, Dudley, were busy in securing evidence and in renewing protests to the Government. To each protest Russell replied in but a few lines that the matter had been referred to the proper departments, and it was not until July 26, when there was received from Adams an opinion by an eminent Queen's Counsel, Collier, that the affidavits submitted were conclusive against the "290," that Russell appears to have been seriously concerned. On July 28, the law officers of the Crown were asked for an immediate opinion, and on the thirty-first telegrams were sent to Liverpool and to other ports to stop and further examine the vessel. But the "290" was well away and outside of British waters[969].

The _Alabama_, having received guns and munitions by a s.h.i.+p, the _Bahama_, sent out from England to that end, and having enlisted in the Confederate Navy most of the British crews of the two vessels, now entered upon a career of destruction of Northern commerce. She was not a privateer, as she was commonly called at the time, but a Government vessel of war specially intended to capture and destroy merchant s.h.i.+ps.

In short her true character, in terms of modern naval usage, was that of a "commerce destroyer." Under an able commander, Captain Semmes, she traversed all oceans, captured merchant s.h.i.+ps and after taking coal and stores from them, sank or burnt the captures; for two years she evaded battle with Northern war vessels and spread so wide a fear that an almost wholesale transfer of the flag from American to British or other foreign register took place, in the mercantile marine. The career of the _Alabama_ was followed with increasing anger and chagrin by the North; this, said the public, was a British s.h.i.+p, manned by a British crew, using British guns and ammunition, whose escape from Liverpool had been winked at by the British Government. What further evidence was necessary of bad faith in a professed strict neutrality?

Nor were American officials far behind the public in suspicion and anger. At the last moment it had appeared as if the Government were inclined to stop the "290." Was the hurried departure of the vessel due to a warning received from official sources? On November 21, Adams reported that Russell complained in an interview of remarks made privately by Bright, to the effect that warning had come from Russell himself, and "seemed to me a little as if he suspected that Mr. Bright had heard this from me[970]." Adams disavowed, and sincerely, any such imputation, but at the same time expressed to Russell his conviction that there must have been from some source a "leak" of the Government's intention[971]. The question of advance warning to Bullock, or to the Lairds who built the _Alabama_, was not one which was likely to be officially put forward in any case; the real issue was whether an offence to British neutrality law had been committed, whether it would be acknowledged as such, and still more important, whether repet.i.tions of the offence would be permitted. The _Alabama_, even though she might, as the American a.s.sistant-secretary of the Navy wrote, be "giving us a sick turn[972]," could not by herself greatly affect the issue of the war; but many _Alabamas_ would be a serious matter. The belated governmental order to stop the vessel was no a.s.surance for the future since in reply to Adams' protests after her escape, and to a prospective claim for damages, Russell replied that in fact the orders to stop had been given merely for the purpose of further investigation, and that in strict law there had been no neglect of governmental duty[973]. If this were so similar precautions and secrecy would prohibit official interference in the issue from British ports of a whole fleet of Southern war-vessels. Russell might himself feel that a real offence to the North had taken place. He might write, "I confess the proceedings of that vessel [the _Alabama_] are enough to _rile_ a more temperate nation, and I owe a grudge to the Liverpool people on that account[974]," but this was of no value to the North if the governmental decision was against interference without complete and absolute proof.

It was therefore the concern of the North to find some means of bringing home to the British Ministry the enormity of the offence in American eyes and the serious danger to good relations if such offences were to be continued. An immediate downright threat of war would have been impolitic and would have stirred British pride to the point of resentment. Yet American pride was aroused also and it was required of Seward that he gain the Northern object and yet make no such threat as would involve the two nations in war--a result that would have marked the success of Southern secession. That Seward was able to find the way in which to do this is evidence of that fertility of imagination and gift in expedient which marked his whole career in the diplomacy of the Civil War[975].

In that same month when Adams was beginning his protests on the "290,"

June, 1862, there had already been drawn the plans, and the contracts made with the Laird Brothers at Liverpool, for the building of two vessels far more dangerous than the _Alabama_ to the Northern cause.

These were the so-called Laird Rams. They were to be two hundred and thirty feet long, have a beam of forty feet, be armoured with four and one-half inch iron plate and be provided with a "piercer" at the prow, about seven feet long and of great strength. This "piercer" caused the s.h.i.+ps to be spoken of as rams, and when the vessels were fully equipped it was expected the "piercer" would be three feet under the surface of the water. This was the distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of the two s.h.i.+ps; it was unusual construction, nearly impossible of use in an ordinary battle at sea, but highly dangerous to wooden s.h.i.+ps maintaining a close blockade at some Southern port. While there was much newspaper comment in England that the vessels were "new _Alabamas_," and in America that they were "floating fortresses," suitable for attack upon defenceless Northern cities, their primary purpose was to break up the blockading squadrons[976].

Shortly before the escape of the _Alabama_ and at a time when there was but little hope the British Government would seize her and shortly after the news was received in Was.h.i.+ngton that still other vessels were planned for building in the Lairds' yards, a Bill was introduced in Congress authorizing the President to issue letters of marque and privateering. This was in July, 1862, and on the twelfth, Seward wrote to Adams of the proposed measure specifying that the purpose was to permit privateers to seek for and capture or destroy the _Alabama_ or other vessels of a like type. He characterized this as a plan "to organize the militia of the seas by issuing letters of marque and reprisal[977]." Neither here nor at any time did Seward or Adams allege in diplomatic correspondence any other purpose than the pursuit of _Alabamas_, nor is it presumable that in July, 1862, the construction plans of the Rams were sufficiently well known to the North to warrant a conclusion that the later purpose of the proposed privateering fleet was _at first_ quite other than the alleged purpose. Probably the Bill introduced in July, 1862, was but a hasty reaction to the sailing of the _Oreto_ (or _Florida_) and to the failure of early protests in the case of the _Alabama_. Moreover there had been an earlier newspaper agitation for an increase of naval power by the creation of a "militia of the seas," though with no clear conception of definite objects to be attained. This agitation was now renewed and reinforced and many public speeches made by a General Hiram Wallbridge, who had long advocated an organization of the mercantile marine as an a.s.set in times of war[978].

But though introduced in the summer of 1862, the "privateering bill" was not seriously taken up until February, 1863.

In the Senate discussion of the Bill at the time of introduction, Senator Grimes, its sponsor, declared that the object was to encourage privateers to pursue British s.h.i.+ps when, as was expected, they should "turn Confederate." Sumner objected that the true business of privateers was to destroy enemy commerce and that the South had no such _bona fide_ commerce. Grimes agreed that this was his opinion also, but explained that the administration wanted the measure pa.s.sed so that it might have in its hands a power to be used if the need arose. The general opinion of the Senate was opposed and the matter was permitted to lapse, but without definite action, so that it could at any time be called up again[979]. Six months later the progress of construction and the purpose of the rams at Liverpool were common knowledge. On January 7, 1863, the privateering bill again came before the Senate, was referred to the committee on naval affairs, reported out, and on February 17 was pa.s.sed and sent to the House of Representatives, where on March 2 it was given a third reading and pa.s.sed without debate[980]. In the Senate, Grimes now clearly stated that the Bill was needed because the Confederates "are now building in England a fleet of vessels designed to break our blockade of their coast," and that the privateers were to "a.s.sist in maintaining blockades." There was no thorough debate but a few perfunctory objections were raised to placing so great a power in the hands of the President, while Sumner alone appears as a consistent opponent arguing that the issue of privateers would be dangerous to the North since it might lead to an unwarranted interference with neutral commerce. No speaker outlined the exact method by which privateers were to be used in "maintaining blockades"; the bill was pa.s.sed as an "administration measure."

Coincidently, but as yet unknown in Was.h.i.+ngton, the chagrin of Russell at the escape of the _Alabama_ had somewhat lost its edge. At first he had been impressed with the necessity of amending the Foreign Enlistment Act so as to prevent similar offences and had gained the approval of the law officers of the Crown. Russell had even offered to take up with America an agreement by which both countries were to amend their neutrality laws at the same moment. This was in December, 1862, but now on February 14, 1863, he wrote to Lyons that the project of amendment had been abandoned as the Cabinet saw no way of improving the law[981].

While this letter to Lyons was on its way to America, a letter from Seward was _en route_, explaining to Adams the meaning of the privateering bill.

"The Senate has prepared a Bill which confers upon the President of the United States the power to grant letters of marque and reprisal in any war in which the country may at any time be engaged, and it is expected that the Bill will become a law. Lord Lyons suggests that the transaction may possibly be misapprehended abroad, if it come upon foreign powers suddenly and without any explanations. You will be at liberty to say that, as the Bill stands, the executive Government will be set at liberty to put the law in force in its discretion, and that thus far the proper policy in regard to the exercise of that discretion has not engaged the President's attention. I have had little hesitation in saying to Lord Lyons that if no extreme circ.u.mstances occur, there will be entire frankness on the part of the Government in communicating to him upon the subject, so far as to avoid any surprise on the part of friendly nations, whose commerce or navigation it might be feared would be incidentally and indirectly affected, if it shall be found expedient to put the Act in force against the insurgents of the United States[982]."

Certainly this was vague explanation, yet though the main object might be a.s.serted "to put the act in force against the insurgents," the hint was given that the commerce of friendly neutrals might be "incidentally and indirectly affected." And so both Lyons and Seward understood the matter, for on February 24, Lyons reported a long conversation with Seward in which after pointing out the probable "bad effect" on Europe, Lyons received the reply that some remedy must be found for the fact that "the law did not appear to enable the British Government to prevent" the issue of Confederate "privateers[983]." On March 8, Seward followed this up by sending to Lyons an autograph letter:

"I am receiving daily such representations from our sea-ports concerning the depredations on our commerce committed by the vessels built and practically fitted out in England, that I do most sincerely apprehend a new element is entering into the unhappy condition of affairs, which, with all the best dispositions of your Government and my own, cannot long be controlled to the preservation of peace.

"If you think well of it, I should like that you should confidentially inform Earl Russell that the departure of more armed vessels under insurgent-rebel command from English ports is a thing to be deprecated above all things."

On March 9th, Lyons had a long talk with Seward about this, and it appears that Lincoln had seen the letter and approved it. Seward stated that the New York Chamber of Commerce had protested about the _Alabama_, declaring:

"That no American merchant vessels would get freights--that even war with England was preferable to this--that in that case the maritime enterprise of the country would at least find a profitable employment in cruising against British trade."

Seward went on to show the necessity of letters of marque, and Lyons protested vigorously and implied that war must result.

"Mr. Seward said that he was well aware of the inconvenience not to say the danger of issuing Letters of Marque: that he should be glad to delay doing so, or to escape the necessity altogether; but that really unless some intelligence came from England to allay the public exasperation, the measure would be unavoidable[984]."

Lyons was much alarmed, writing that the feeling in the North must not be underestimated and pointing out that the newspapers were dwelling on the notion that under British interpretation of her duty as a neutral Mexico, if she had money, could build s.h.i.+ps in British ports to cruise in destruction of French commerce, adding that "one might almost suppose" some rich American would give the funds to Mexico for the purpose and so seek to involve England in trouble with France[985].

Lyons had also been told by Seward in their conversation of March 9, that on that day an instruction had been sent to Adams to present to Russell the delicacy of the situation and to ask for some a.s.surance that no further Southern vessels of war should escape from British ports.

This instruction presented the situation in more diplomatic language but in no uncertain tone, yet still confined explanation of the privateering bill as required to prevent the "destruction of our national navigating interest, unless that calamity can be prevented by ... the enforcement of the neutrality law of Great Britain[986]...."

Lyons' reports reached Russell before Seward's instruction was read to him. Russell had already commented to Adams that American privateers would find no Confederate merchant s.h.i.+ps and that if they interfered with neutral commerce the United States Government would be put in an awkward position. To this Adams replied that the privateers would seek and capture, if possible, vessels like the _Alabama_, but Russell asked Lyons to find out "whether in any case they [privateers] will be authorized to interfere with neutral commerce, and if in any case in what case, and to what extent[987]." Three days later, on March 26, Adams presented his instructions and these Russell regarded as "not unfriendly in tone," but in the long conversation that ensued the old result was reached that Adams declared Great Britain negligent in performance of neutral duty, while Russell professed eagerness to stop Southern s.h.i.+pbuilding if full evidence was "forthcoming." Adams concluded that "he had worked to the best of his power for peace, but it had become a most difficult task." Upon this Russell commented to Lyons, "Mr. Adams fully deserves the character of having always laboured for peace between our two Nations. Nor I trust will his efforts, and those of the two Governments fail of success[988]."

In these last days of March matters were in fact rapidly drawing to a head both in America and England. At Was.h.i.+ngton, from March seventh to the thirty-first, the question of issuing letters of marque and reprisal had been prominently before the Cabinet and even Welles who had opposed them was affected by unfavourable reports received from Adams as to the intentions of Great Britain. The final decision was to wait later news from England[989]. This was Seward's idea as he had not as yet received reports of the British reaction to his communications through Lyons and Adams. March 27 was the critical day of decision in London, as it was also the day upon which public and parliamentary opinion was most vigorously debated in regard to Great Britain's neutral duty. Preceding this other factors of influence were coming to the front. In the first days of March, Slidell, at Paris, had received semi-official a.s.surances that if the South wished to build s.h.i.+ps in French yards "we should be permitted to arm and equip them and proceed to sea[990]." This suggestion was permitted to percolate in England with the intention, no doubt, of strengthening Bullock's position there. In the winter of 1862-3, orders had been sent to the Russian Baltic fleet to cruise in western waters and there was first a suspicion in America, later a conviction, that the purpose of this cruise was distinctly friendly to the North--that the orders might even extend to actual naval aid in case war should arise with England and France. In March, 1863, this was but vague rumour, by midsummer it was a confident hope, by September-October, when Russian fleets had entered the harbours of New York and San Francisco, the rumour had become a conviction and the silence of Russian naval officers when banqueted and toasted was regarded as discreet confirmation. There was no truth in the rumour, but already in March curious surmises were being made even in England, as to Russian intentions, though there is no evidence that the Government was at all concerned. The truth was that the Russian fleet had been ordered to sea as a precaution against easy destruction in Baltic waters, in case the difficulties developing in relation to Poland should lead to war with France and England[991].

In England, among the people rather than in governmental England, a feeling was beginning to manifest itself that the Ministry had been lax in regard to the _Alabama_, and as news of her successes was received this feeling was given voice. Liverpool, at first almost wholly on the side of the Lairds and of Southern s.h.i.+p-building, became doubtful by the very ease with which the _Alabama_ destroyed Northern s.h.i.+ps.

Liverpool merchants looked ahead and saw that their interests might, after all, be directly opposed to those of the s.h.i.+p-builders. Meetings were held and the matter discussed. In February, 1863, such a meeting at Plaistow, attended by the gentry of the neighbourhood, but chiefly by working men, especially by dock labourers and by men from the s.h.i.+p-building yards at Blackwall, resolved that "the Chairman be requested to write to the Prime Minister of our Queen, earnestly entreating him to put in force, with utmost vigilance, the law of England against such s.h.i.+ps as the _Alabama_[992]." Such expressions were not as yet widespread, nor did the leading papers, up to April, indulge in much discussion, but British _doubt_ was developing[993].

Unquestionably, Russell himself was experiencing a renewed doubt as to Britain's neutral duty. On March 23, he made a speech in Parliament which Adams reported as "the most satisfactory of all the speeches he has made since I have been at this post[994]." On March 26, came the presentation by Adams of Seward's instruction of which Russell wrote to Lyons as made in no unfriendly tone and as a result of which Adams wrote: "The conclusion which I draw ... is, that the Government is really better disposed to exertion, and feels itself better sustained for action by the popular sentiment than ever before[995]." Russell told Adams that he had received a note from Palmerston "expressing his approbation of every word" of his speech three days before. In a portion of the despatch to Seward, not printed in the Diplomatic Correspondence, Adams advised against the issue of privateers, writing, "In the present favourable state of popular mind, it scarcely seems advisable to run the risk of changing the current in Great Britain by the presentation of a new issue which might rally all national pride against us as was done in the _Trent_ case[996]." That Russell was indeed thinking of definite action is foreshadowed by the advice he gave to Palmerston on March 27, as to the latter's language in the debate scheduled for that day on the Foreign Enlistment Act. Russell wrote, referring to the interview with Adams:

"The only thing which Adams could think of when I asked him what he had to propose in reference to the _Alabama_ was that the Government should declare their disapproval of the fitting out of such s.h.i.+ps of war to prey on American commerce.

"Now, as the fitting out and escape of the _Alabama_ and _Oreto_ was clearly an evasion of our law, I think you can have no difficulty in declaring this evening that the Government disapprove of all such attempts to elude our law with a view to a.s.sist one of the belligerents[997]."

But the tone of parliamentary debate did not bear out the hopeful view of the American Minister. It was, as Bright wrote to Sumner, "badly managed and told against us[998]," and Bright himself partic.i.p.ated in this "bad management." For over a year he had been advocating the cause of the North in public speeches and everywhere pointing out to unenfranchised England that the victory of the North was essential to democracy in all Europe. Always an orator of power he used freely vigorous language and nowhere more so than in a great public meeting of the Trades Unions of London in St. James' Hall, on March 26, the evening before the parliamentary debate. The purpose of this meeting was to bring public pressure on the Government in favour of the North, and the pith of Bright's speech was to contrast the democratic instincts of working men with the aristocratic inclinations of the Government[999].

Reviewing "aristocratic" att.i.tude toward the Civil War, Bright said:

"Privilege thinks it has a great interest in this contest, and every morning, with blatant voice, it comes into your streets and curses the American Republic. Privilege has beheld an afflicting spectacle for many years past. It has beheld thirty millions of men, happy and prosperous, without emperor, without king, without the surroundings of a court, without n.o.bles, except such as are made by eminence in intellect and virtue, without State bishops and State priests.

"'Sole venders of the lore which works salvation,' without great armies and great navies, without great debt and without great taxes.

"You wish the freedom of your country. You wish it for yourselves.... Do not then give the hand of fellows.h.i.+p to the worst foes of freedom that the world has ever seen.... You will not do this. I have faith in you. Impartial history will tell that, when your statesmen were hostile or coldly neutral, when many of your rich men were corrupt, when your press--which ought to have instructed and defended--was mainly written to betray, the fate of a Continent and of its vast population being in peril, you clung to freedom with an unfailing trust that G.o.d in his infinite mercy will yet make it the heritage of all His children[1000]."

The public meeting of March 26 was the most notable one in support of the North held throughout the whole course of the war, and it was also the most notable one as indicating the rising tide of popular demand for more democratic inst.i.tutions. That it irritated the Government and gave a handle to Southern sympathizers in the parliamentary debate of March 27 is unquestioned. In addition, if that debate was intended to secure from the Government an intimation of future policy against Southern s.h.i.+pbuilding it was conducted on wrong lines for _immediate_ effect--though friends of the North may have thought the method used was wise for _future_ effect. This method was vigorous attack. Forster, leading in the debate[1001], called on Ministers to explain the "flagrant" violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act, and to offer some pledge for the future; he a.s.serted that the Government should have been active on its own initiative in seeking evidence instead of waiting to be urged to enforce the law, and he even hinted at a certain degree of complicity in the escape of the _Alabama_. The Solicitor-General answered in a legal defence of the Government, complained of the offence of America in arousing its citizens against Great Britain upon unjustifiable grounds, but did not make so vigorous a reply as might, perhaps, have been expected. Still he stood firmly on the ground that the Government could not act without evidence to convict--in itself a statement that might well preclude interference with the Rams. Bright accused the Government of a "cold and unfriendly neutrality," and referred at length to the public meeting of the previous evening:

"If you had last night looked in the faces of three thousand of the most intelligent of the artisan cla.s.ses in London, as I did, and heard their cheers, and seen their sympathy for that country for which you appear to care so little, you would imagine that the more forbearing, the more generous, and the more just the conduct of the Government to the United States, the more it would recommend itself to the magnanimous feelings of the people of this country."

This a.s.sumption of direct opposition between Parliament and the people was not likely to win or to convince men, whether pro-Southern or not, who were opponents of the speaker's long-avowed advocacy of more democratic inst.i.tutions in England. It is no wonder then that Laird, who had been castigated in the speeches of the evening, rising in defence of the conduct of his firm, should seek applause by declaring, "I would rather be handed down to posterity as the builder of a dozen _Alabamas_ than as a man who applies himself deliberately to set cla.s.s against cla.s.s, and to cry up the inst.i.tutions of another country which, when they come to be tested, are of no value whatever, and which reduce the very name of liberty to an utter absurdity." This utterance was greeted with great cheering--shouted not so much in approval of the _Alabama_ as in approval of the speaker's defiance of Bright.