CHAPTER II

THE UNFRIENDLINESS OF GREAT BRITAIN

IN 1861, and indeed down to the close of the struggle that the nation was making for its life, anxious eyes were turned towards Europe. At the beginning of the war, the loyal North viewed with many misgivings the conduct of England and France, especially that of England. Of course, it was the manifest duty of those powers to maintain in perfect good faith a strict neutrality.

The Northern people with indignation saw, or conceived that they saw, from the outset a course of conduct on the part of the Government of Great Britain which could mean nothing else than sympathy and aid for the Southern Confederacy. This conduct was begun so early, and was so steadily maintained, that a feeling of resentment took possession of the United States, a feeling which finally reached a degree of bitterness that threatened to bring on war. Happily every trace of a hostile spirit on the part of our country towards England has long since disappeared. But the reader of the present generation has only to turn to the public journals of that memorable period in the loyal States to discover how cordial a dislike for England then displayed itself throughout the land, and partic

ularly in both branches of the Service. It is useless to imagine that no justification whatever existed for the origin and growth of this animosity. Of course, in a civil war, unhappily, the passions of men rise to an unwonted height; objects seen through the mist of such passions are unduly magnified. Making proper allowance for this distortion, it still remains that those in authority in Great Britain were in truth chargeable with displaying an unfriendly spirit towards the United States, a country with which Great Britain was at peace.

When the friends of the Union were of a sudden called upon to defend the flag, they took it for granted that their Anglo-Saxon kinsmen across the sea would hasten to evince some unmistakable token of sympathy. Fighting as they were in behalf of free institutions, they not only counted upon an expression of good-will from a country that years before had abolished slavery, but they longed for that expression. In order that the full force of this desire may be understood, the reader should be advised, if he do not know it already, that the people of the United States at that day were peculiarly sensitive to English criticism. Down to the outbreak of the rebellion it had been a common practice for American newspapers regularly to furnish their readers with a publication in full of such English editorials, or long extracts therefrom, as had the least bearing upon our political affairs, -and there was no lack of them. As yet, in the world of litera

ture and of politics we had not outgrown our colonial dependence. We were childishly eager to learn what such oracles as the Times, the Spectator, and the Saturday Review had to say of us.1 All unconscious of the limitations of these writers (sometimes even of their downright ignorance) we stood ready to accept their views, and attribute to them a profundity of wisdom which in reality no one of them ever possessed. Indeed, it was the war itself that at last delivered us from this species of intellectual thraldom to England.

We looked to England for a kind word, recalling that she was the "mother country," and we heard it not. There came a speedy and rude awakening from our dream. As frequently happens when people find themselves thus mistaken, we at once cast upon the other party all the blame for our mortification.

Instead of sympathy we encountered proofs of a prevailing sentiment of friendliness for the cause of secession. We beheld the governing classes holding out to the South, as it were, a helping hand. We beheld persons of rank, as well as those of moderate

1 After South Carolina had seceded, Punch observed that the "United States" had become the "Untied States." There were those who read into the text a grim irony that did not belong to it. In the exciting hours of actual warfare we were confronted not only with the momentous enquiry as to what England would do officially, but with a further question of what was to be the attitude of the Englishman in his private capacity. What might we expect as the sentiment of the club, the pulpit, the street?

means, hastening to subscribe to the Confederate loan. We noted speeches in Parliament delivered by members who openly declared their belief in the speedy success of the Confederate arms. Lord John Russell, and others of the Ministry, appeared to us in the light of statesmen who meant to favor the South, and were glad to do so. We saw "rebel emissaries," though not received officially, greeted in high places with every mark of personal consideration. Most of all, we knew that work was going forward briskly in English shipyards upon vessels that were to be built, armed, equipped, manned, and sent forth upon the ocean, to prey upon the commerce of the United States. In fine, it was not long before, to borrow the language of the American Case, we beheld in England, "the dockyard and arsenal of the insurgents."

It is easy to cite documentary proof that such was the condition of affairs in England during the period of the war for the Union. One or two instances, however, must suffice.

1 If to the youth of to-day "rebel" seems archaic, he should be reminded that in war-times the word was on the lips of every loyal Union man. In the American Case the term used is "insurgent"; while the British Case employs the expression "Confederate." Mr. Mason, in London, and Mr. Slidell, in Paris, were spoken of in the United States as "rebel emissaries." One of the convincing proofs of a genuine union of sentiment between North and South is disclosed in the almost universal custom to-day of adopting quietly the word "Confederate," throughout the North, when reference is made to those who once fought against the flag.

Mr. Gladstone, in a speech at Newcastle, 7 October, 1862, said: —

"We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis, and other leaders of the South, have made an Army. They are making, it appears, a Navy, and they have made what is more than either, they have made a Nation (loud cheers). . We may anticipate with certainty the success of the Southern States, so far as regards their separation from the North. (Hear! Hear!) I cannot but believe that that event is as certain as any event yet future and contingent can be. (Hear! Hear!)"'1

1 Papers relating to the Treaty of Washington, vol. i, Geneva Arbitration, p. 41. (Hereafter these volumes will be cited as “Gen. Arb.”) To say nothing of the amazing indiscretion exhibited by a Cabinet Minister, this unfortunate speech will be remembered for its revealing, as if by a flashlight, the true attitude of the British Ministry at that critical period towards the United States. Time and place, as well as the language employed, were all too significant to permit of any other meaning than that which people in both countries attached to this utterance. Naturally such an announcement created a profound sensation; indeed it might have almost presaged

war.

The occasion was of no ordinary moment. The Northern Liberals had planned that Mr. Gladstone should visit Newcastle and other places, for political effect. "The people of the Tyne," says his biographer, "gave him the reception of a king." (Morley, vol. ii, p. 77.) Bells rang, immense crowds thronged the streets, the ships were decked with flags, and there was a procession on the river. The banquet (7 October) was crowded. Everybody keenly listened to mark the all-important utterance of the great statesman.

Lord Palmerston had by letter (24 September, 1862) begged the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to let the country know that it was spending more money than it could afford. Turning to a topic, where there was a far greater need of caution, Palmerston seems to