Great Britain and the American Civil War

In 1862, less than a year after he had assumed his post in London, the American Minister, Charles Francis Adams, at a time of depression and bitterness wrote to Secretary of State Seward: "That Great Britain did, in the most terrible moment of our domestic trial in struggling with a monstrous social evil she had earnestly professed to abhor, coldly and at once assume our inability to master it, and then become the only foreign nation steadily contributing in every indirect way possible to verify its judgment, will probably be the verdict made against her by posterity, on calm comparison of the

evidence[1]." Very different were the views of Englishmen. The historian, George Grote, could write: "The perfect neutrality [of Great Britain] in this destructive war appears to me almost a phenomenon in political history. No such forbearance has been shown during the political history of the last two centuries. It is the single case in which the English Government and public--generally so meddlesome--have displayed most prudent and commendable forbearance in spite of great temptations to the contrary[2]." And Sir William Harcourt, in September, 1863, declared: "Among all Lord Russell's many titles to fame and to public gratitude, the manner in which he has steered the vessel of State through the Scylla and Charybdis of the American War will, I think, always stand conspicuous[3]."

Minister Adams, in the later years of the Civil War, saw reason somewhat to modify his earlier judgment, but his indictment of Great Britain was long prevalent in America, as, indeed, it was also among the historians and writers of Continental Europe--notably those of France and Russia. To what extent was this dictum justified? Did Great Britain in spite of her long years of championship of personal freedom and of leadership in the cause of anti-slavery seize upon the opportunity offered in the disruption of the American Union, and forgetting humanitarian idealisms, react only to selfish motives of commercial advantage and national power? In brief, how is the American Civil War to be depicted by historians of Great Britain, recording her attitude and action in both foreign and domestic policy, and revealing the principles of her statesmen, or the inspirations of her people?

It was to answer this question that the present work was originally undertaken; but as investigation proceeded it became progressively more clear that the great crisis in America was almost equally a crisis in the domestic history of Great Britain itself and that unless this were fully appreciated no just estimate was possible of British policy toward America. Still more it became evident that the American Civil War, as seen through British spectacles, could not be understood if regarded as an isolated and unique situation, but that the conditions preceding that situation--some of them lying far back in the relations of the two nations--had a vital bearing on British policy and opinion when the crisis arose. No expanded examination of these preceding conditions is here possible, but it is to a summary analysis of them that this first chapter is devoted.

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On the American War for separation from the Mother Country it is unnecessary to dilate, though it should always be remembered that both during the war and afterwards there existed a minority in Great Britain strongly sympathetic with the political ideals proclaimed in America--regarding those ideals, indeed, as something to be striven for in Britain itself and the conflict with America as, in a measure, a conflict in home politics. But independence once acknowledged by the Treaty of Peace of 1783, the relations between the Mother Country and the newly-created United States of America rapidly tended to adjust themselves to lines of contact customary between Great Britain and any other Sovereign State. Such contacts, fixing national attitude and policy, ordinarily occur on three main lines: governmental, determined by officials in authority in either State whose duty it is to secure the greatest advantage in power and prosperity for the State; commercial, resulting, primarily, from the interchange of goods and the business opportunities of either nation in the other's territory, or from their rivalry in foreign trade; idealistic, the result of comparative development especially in those ideals of political structure which determine the nature of the State and the form of its government. The more obvious of these contacts is the governmental, since the attitude of a people is judged by the formal action of its Government, and, indeed, in all three lines of contact the government of a State is directly concerned and frequently active. But it may be of service to a clearer appreciation of British attitude and policy before 1860, if the intermingling of elements required by a strict chronological account of relations is here replaced by a separate review of each of the three main lines of contact.

Once independence had been yielded to the American Colonies, the interest of the British Government rapidly waned in affairs American. True, there still remained the valued establishments in the West Indies, and the less considered British possessions on the continent to the north of the United States. Meanwhile, there were occasional frictions with America arising from uncertain claims drawn from the former colonial privileges of the new state, or from boundary contentions not settled in the treaty of peace. Thus the use of the Newfoundland fisheries furnished ground for an acrimonious controversy lasting even into the twentieth century, and occasionally rising to the danger point. Boundary disputes dragged along through official argument, survey commissions, arbitration, to final settlement, as in the case of the northern limits of the State of Maine fixed at last by the Treaty of Washington of 1842, and then on lines fair to both sides at any time in the forty years of legal bickering. Very early, in 1817, an agreement creditable to the wisdom and pacific intentions of both countries, was reached establishing small and equal naval armaments on the Great Lakes. The British fear of an American attack on Canada proved groundless as time went on and was definitely set at rest by the strict curb placed by the American Government upon the restless activities of such of its citizens as sympathized with the followers of McKenzie and Papineau in the Canadian rebellion of 1837[4].

None of these governmental contacts affected greatly the British policy toward America. But the "War of 1812," as it is termed in the United States, "Mr. Madison's War," as it was derisively named by Tory contemporaries in Great Britain, arose from serious policies in which the respective governments were in definite opposition. Briefly, this was a clash between belligerent and neutral interests. Britain, fighting at first for the preservation of Europe against the spread of French revolutionary influence, later against the Napoleonic plan of Empire, held the seas in her grasp and exercised with vigour all the accustomed rights of a naval belligerent. Of necessity, from her point of view, and as always in the case of the dominant naval belligerent, she stretched principles of international law to their utmost interpretation to secure her victory in war. America, soon the only maritime neutral of importance, and profiting greatly by her neutrality, contested point by point the issue of exceeded belligerent right as established in international law. America did more; she advanced new rules and theories of belligerent and neutral right respectively, and demanded that the belligerents accede to them. Dispute arose over blockades, contraband, the British "rule of 1756" which would have forbidden American trade with French colonies in war time, since such trade was prohibited by France herself in time of peace. But first and foremost as touching the personal sensibilities and patriotism of both countries was the British exercise of a right of search and seizure to recover British sailors.

Moreover this asserted right brought into clear view definitely opposed theories as to citizenship. Great Britain claimed that a man once born a British subject could never cease to be a subject--could never "alienate his duty." It was her practice to fill up her navy, in part at least, by the "impressment" of her sailor folk, taking them whenever needed, and wherever found--in her own coast towns, or from the decks of her own mercantile marine. But many British sailors sought security from such impressment by desertion in American ports or were tempted to desert to American merchant ships by the high pay obtainable in the rapidly-expanding United States merchant marine. Many became by naturalization citizens of the United States, and it was the duty of America to defend them as such in their lives and business. America ultimately came to hold, in short, that expatriation was accomplished from Great Britain when American citizenship was conferred. On shore they were safe, for Britain did not attempt to reclaim her subjects from the soil of another nation. But she denied that the American flag on merchant vessels at sea gave like security and she asserted a naval right to search such vessels in time of peace, professing her complete acquiescence in a like right to the American navy over British merchant vessels--a concession refused by America, and of no practical value since no American citizen sought service in the British merchant marine.

This "right of search" controversy involved then, two basic points of opposition between the two governments. First America contested the British theory of "once a citizen always a citizen[5]"; second, America denied any right whatever to a foreign naval vessel in time of peace to stop and search a vessel lawfully flying the American flag. The right of search in time of war, that is, a belligerent right of search, America never denied, but there was both then and later much public confusion in both countries as to the question at issue since, once at war, Great Britain frequently exercised a legal belligerent right of search and followed it up by the seizure of sailors alleged to be British subjects. Nor were British naval captains especially careful to make sure that no American-born sailors were included in their impressment seizures, and as the accounts spread of victim after victim, the American irritation steadily increased. True, France was also an offender, but as the weaker naval power her offence was lost sight of in view of the, literally, thousands of bona fide Americans seized by Great Britain. Here, then, was a third cause of irritation connected with impressment, though not a point of governmental dispute as to right, for Great Britain professed her earnest desire to restore promptly any American-born sailors whom her naval officers had seized through error. In fact many such sailors were soon liberated, but a large number either continued to serve on British ships or to languish in British prisons until the end of the Napoleonic Wars[6].

There were other, possibly greater, causes of the War of 1812, most of them arising out of the conflicting interests of the chief maritime neutral and the chief naval belligerent. The pacific presidential administration of Jefferson sought by trade restrictions, using embargo and non-intercourse acts, to bring pressure on both England and France, hoping to force a better treatment of neutrals. The United States, divided in sympathy between the belligerents, came near to disorder and disruption at home, over the question of foreign policy. But through all American factions there ran the feeling of growing animosity to Great Britain because of impressment. At last, war was declared by America in 1812 and though at the moment bitterly opposed by one section, New England, that war later came to be regarded as of great national value as one of the factors which welded the discordant states into a national unity. Naturally also, the war once ended, its commercial causes were quickly forgotten, whereas the individual, personal offence involved in impressment and right of search, with its insult to national pride, became a patriotic theme for politicians and for the press. To deny, in fact, a British "right of search" became a national point of honour, upon which no American statesman would have dared to yield to British overtures.

In American eyes the War of 1812 appears as a "second war of Independence" and also as of international importance in contesting an unjust use by Britain of her control of the seas. Also, it is to be remembered that no other war of importance was fought by America until the Mexican War of 1846, and militant patriotism was thus centred on the two wars fought against Great Britain. The contemporary British view was that of a nation involved in a life and death struggle with a great European enemy, irritated by what seemed captious claims, developed to war, by a minor power[7]. To be sure there were a few obstinate Tories in Britain who saw in the war the opportunity of smashing at one blow Napoleon's dream of empire, and the American "democratic system." The London Times urged the government to "finish with Mr. Bonaparte and then deal with Mr. Madison and democracy," arguing that it should be England's object to subvert "the whole system of the Jeffersonian school." But this was not the purpose of the British Government, nor would such a purpose have been tolerated by the small but vigorous Whig minority in Parliament.

The peace of 1814, signed at Ghent, merely declared an end of the war, quietly ignoring all the alleged causes of the conflict. Impressment was not mentioned, but it was never again resorted to by Great Britain upon American ships. But the principle of right of search in time of peace, though for another object than impressment, was soon again asserted by Great Britain and for forty years was a cause of constant irritation and a source of danger in the relations of the two countries. Stirred by philanthropic emotion Great Britain entered upon a world crusade for the suppression of the African Slave Trade. All nations in principle repudiated that trade and Britain made treaties with various maritime powers giving mutual right of search to the naval vessels of each upon the others' merchant vessels. The African Slave Trade was in fact outlawed for the flags of all nations. But America, smarting under the memory of impressment injuries, and maintaining in any case the doctrine that in time of peace the national flag protected a vessel from interference or search by the naval vessels of any other power, refused to sign mutual right of search treaties and denied, absolutely, such a right for any cause whatever to Great Britain or to any other nation. Being refused a treaty, Britain merely renewed her assertion of the right and continued to exercise it.

Thus the right of search in time of peace controversy was not ended with the war of 1812 but remained a constant sore in national relations, for Britain alone used her navy with energy to suppress the slave trade, and the slave traders of all nations sought refuge, when approached by a British naval vessel, under the protection of the American flag. If Britain respected the flag, and sheered off from search, how could she stop the trade? If she ignored the flag and on boarding found an innocent American vessel engaged in legal trade, there resulted claims for damages by detention of voyage, and demands by the American Government for apology and reparation. The real slave trader, seized under the American flag, never protested to the United States, nor claimed American citizenship, for his punishment in American law for engaging in the slave trade was death, while under the law of any other nation it did not exceed imprisonment, fine and loss of his vessel.

Summed up in terms of governmental attitude the British contention was that here was a great international humanitarian object frustrated by an absurd American sensitiveness on a point of honour about the flag. After fifteen years of dispute Great Britain offered to abandon any claim to a right of search, contenting herself with a right of visit, merely to verify a vessel's right to fly the American flag. America asserted this to be mere pretence, involving no renunciation of a practice whose legality she denied. In 1842, in the treaty settling the Maine boundary controversy, the eighth article sought a method of escape. Joint cruising squadrons were provided for the coast of Africa, the British to search all suspected vessels except those flying the American flag, and these to be searched by the American squadron. At once President Tyler notified Congress that Great Britain had renounced the right of search. Immediately in Parliament a clamour was raised against the Government for the "sacrifice" of a British right at sea, and Lord Aberdeen promptly made official disclaimer of such surrender.

Thus, heritage of the War of 1812 right of search in time of peace was a steady irritant. America doubted somewhat the honesty of Great Britain, appreciating in part the humanitarian purpose, but suspicious of an ulterior "will to rule the seas." After 1830 no American political leader would have dared to yield the right of search. Great Britain for her part, viewing the expansion of domestic slavery in the United States, came gradually to attribute the American contention, not to patriotic pride, but to the selfish business interests of the slave-holding states. In the end, in 1858, with a waning British enthusiasm for the cause of slave trade suppression, and with recognition that America had become a great world power, Britain yielded her claim to right of search or visit, save when established by Treaty. Four years later, in 1862, it may well have seemed to British statesmen that American slavery had indeed been the basic cause of America's attitude, for in that year a treaty was signed by the two nations giving mutual right of search for the suppression of the African Slave Trade. In fact, however, this was but an effort by Seward, Secretary of State for the North, to influence British and European opinion against the seceding slave states of the South.

The right of search controversy was, in truth, ended when American power reached a point where the British Government must take it seriously into account as a factor in general world policy. That power had been steadily and rapidly advancing since 1814. From almost the first moment of established independence American statesmen visualized the separation of the interests of the western continent from those of Europe, and planned for American leadership in this new world. Washington, the first President, emphasized in his farewell address the danger of entangling alliances with Europe. For long the nations of Europe, immersed in Continental wars, put aside their rivalries in this new world. Britain, for a time, neglected colonial expansion westward, but in 1823, in an emergency of European origin when France, commissioned by the great powers of continental Europe, intervened in Spain to restore the deposed Bourbon monarchy and seemed about to intervene in Spanish America to restore to Spain her revolted colonies, there developed in Great Britain a policy, seemingly about to draw America and England into closer co-operation. Canning, for Britain, proposed to America a joint declaration against French intervention in the Americas. His argument was against the principle of intervention; his immediate motive was a fear of French colonial expansion; but his ultimate object was inheritance by Britain of Spain's dying influence and position in the new world.

Canning's overture was earnestly considered in America. The ex-Presidents, Jefferson and Madison, recommended its acceptance, but the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, opposed this, favouring rather a separate declaration by the United States, and of this opinion was also President Monroe. Thus arose the Monroe Doctrine announcing American opposition to the principle of "intervention," and declaring that the American continents were no longer to be regarded as open to further colonization by European nations. The British emergency situation with France, though already quieted, caused Monroe's Message to be greeted in England with high approval. But Canning did not so approve it for he saw clearly that the Monroe Doctrine was a challenge not merely to continental Europe, but to England as well and he set himself to thwart this threatening American policy. Had Canning's policy been followed by later British statesmen there would have resulted a serious clash with the United States[8].

In fact the Monroe Doctrine, imposing on Europe a self-denying policy of non-colonial expansion toward the west, provided for the United States the medium, if she wished to use it, for her own expansion in territory and in influence. But for a time there was no need of additional territory for that already hers stretched from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, two-thirds of the way from ocean to ocean. Her population was growing fast. But four millions at the time of the Revolution, there were thirteen millions in 1830, and of these nearly a third were already across the Appalachian range and were constantly pressing on towards new lands in the South and West. The Monroe Doctrine was the first definite notice given to Europe of America's preconceived "destiny," but the earlier realization of that destiny took place on lines of expansion within her own boundaries. To this there could be no governmental objection, whether by Great Britain or any other nation.

But when in the decade 1840 to 1850, the United States, to the view of British statesmen, suddenly startled the world by entering upon a policy of further territorial expansion, forsaking her peaceful progress and turning toward war, there was a quick determination on a line of British policy as regards the American advance. The first intimation of the new American policy came in relation to the State of Texas which had revolted from Mexico in 1836, and whose independence had been generally recognized by 1842. To this new state Britain sent diplomatic and consular agents and these reported two factions among the people--one seeking admission to the American Union, one desiring the maintenance of independence.

In 1841 Aberdeen had sent Lord Ashburton to America with instructions to secure, if possible, a settlement of all matters in dispute. Here was a genuine British effort to escape from national irritations. But before the Treaty of 1842 was signed, even while it was in the earlier stages of negotiation, the British Government saw, with alarm, quite new questions arising, preventing, to its view, that harmonious relation with the United States the desire for which had led to the Ashburton mission. This new development was the appearance of an American fever for territorial expansion, turning first toward Texas, but soon voiced as a "manifest destiny" which should carry American power and institutions to the Pacific and even into Central America. Among these institutions was that of slavery, detested by the public of Great Britain, yet a delicate matter for governmental consideration since the great cotton manufacturing interests drew the bulk of their supplies of raw cotton from the slave-holding states of America. If Texas, herself a cotton state, should join the United States, dependence upon slave-grown cotton would be intensified. Also, Texas, once acquired, what was there to prevent further American exploitation, followed by slave expansion, into Mexico, where for long British influence had been dominant?

On the fate of Texas, therefore, centred for a time the whole British policy toward America. Pakenham, the British minister to Mexico, urged a British pressure on Mexico to forgo her plans of reconquering Texas, and strong British efforts to encourage Texas in maintaining her independence. His theory foreshadowed a powerful buffer Anglo-Saxon state, prohibiting American advance to the south-west, releasing Britain from dependence on American cotton, and ultimately, he hoped, leading Texas to abolish slavery, not yet so rooted as to be ineradicable. This policy was approved by the British Government, Pakenham was sent to Washington to watch events, a chargé, Elliot, was despatched to Texas, and from London lines were cast to draw France into the plan and to force the acquiescence of Mexico.

In this brief account of main lines of governmental contacts, it is unnecessary to recite the details of the diplomatic conflict, for such it became, with sharp antagonisms manifested on both sides. The basic fact was that America was bent upon territorial expansion, and that Great Britain set herself to thwart this ambition. But not to the point of war. Aberdeen was so incautious at one moment as to propose to France and Mexico a triple guarantee of the independence of Texas, if that state would acquiesce, but when Pakenham notified him that in this case, Britain must clearly understand that war with America was not merely possible, but probable, Aberdeen hastened to withdraw the plan of guarantee, fortunately not yet approved by Mexico[9].

The solution of this diplomatic contest thus rested with Texas. Did she wish annexation to the United States, or did she prefer independence? Elliot, in Texas, hoped to the last moment that Texas would choose independence and British favour. But the people of the new state were largely emigrants from the United States, and a majority of them wished to re-enter the Union, a step finally accomplished in 1846, after ten years of separate existence as a Republic. The part played by the British Government in this whole episode was not a fortunate one. It is the duty of Governments to watch over the interests of their subjects, and to guard the prestige and power of the state. Great Britain had a perfect right to take whatever steps she chose to take in regard to Texas, but the steps taken appeared to Americans to be based upon a policy antagonistic to the American expansion policy of the moment. The Government of Great Britain appeared, indeed, to have adopted a policy of preventing the development of the power of the United States. Then, fronted with war, she had meekly withdrawn. The basic British public feeling, fixing the limits of governmental policy, of never again being drawn into war with America, not because of fear, but because of important trade relations and also because of essential liking and admiration, in spite of surface antagonisms, was not appreciated in America. Lord Aberdeen indeed, and others in governmental circles, pleaded that the support of Texan independence was in reality perfectly in harmony with the best interests of the United States, since it would have tended toward the limitation of American slavery. And in the matter of national power, they consoled themselves with prophecies that the American Union, now so swollen in size, must inevitably split into two, perhaps three, rival empires, a slave-holding one in the South, free nations in North and West.

The fate of Texas sealed, Britain soon definitely abandoned all opposition to American expansion unless it were to be attempted northwards, though prophesying evil for the American madness. Mexico, relying on past favours, and because of a sharp controversy between the United States and Great Britain over the Oregon territory, expected British aid in her war of 1846 against America. But she was sharply warned that such aid would not be given, and the Oregon dispute was settled in the Anglo-Saxon fashion of vigorous legal argument, followed by a fair compromise. The Mexican war resulted in the acquisition of California by the United States. British agents in this province of Mexico, and British admirals on the Pacific were cautioned to take no active steps in opposition.

Thus British policy, after Texan annexation, offered no barrier to American expansion, and much to British relief the fear of the extension of the American plans to Mexico and Central America was not realized. The United States was soon plunged, as British statesmen had prophesied, into internal conflict over the question whether the newly-acquired territories should be slave or free.

The acquisition of California brought up a new problem of quick transit between Atlantic and Pacific, and a canal was planned across Central America. Here Britain and America acted together, at first in amity, though the convention signed in 1850 later developed discord as to the British claim of a protectorate over the Atlantic end of the proposed canal at San Juan del Nicaragua. But Britain was again at war in Europe in the middle 'fifties, and America was deep in quarrel over slavery at home. On both sides in spite of much diplomatic intrigue and of manifestations of national pride there was governmental desire to avoid difficulties. At the end of the ten-year period Britain ceded to Nicaragua her protectorate in the canal zone, and all causes of friction, so reported President Buchanan to Congress in 1860, were happily removed. Britain definitely altered her policy of opposition to the growth of American power.

In 1860, then, the causes of governmental antagonisms were seemingly all at an end. Impressment was not used after 1814. The differing theories of the two Governments on British expatriation still remained, but Britain attempted no practical application of her view. The right of search in time of peace controversy, first eased by the plan of joint cruising, had been definitely settled by the British renunciation of 1858. Opposition to American territorial advance but briefly manifested by Britain, had ended with the annexation of Texas, and the fever of expansion had waned in America. Minor disputes in Central America, related to the proposed canal, were amicably adjusted.

But differences between nations, varying view-points of peoples, frequently have deeper currents than the more obvious frictions in governmental act or policy, nor can governments themselves fail to react to such less evident causes. It is necessary to review the commercial relations of the two nations--later to examine their political ideals.

In 1783 America won her independence in government from a colonial status. But commercially she remained a British colony--yet with a difference. She had formed a part of the British colonial system. All her normal trade was with the mother country or with other British colonies. Now her privileges in such trade were at an end, and she must seek as a favour that which had formerly been hers as a member of the British Empire. The direct trade between England and America was easily and quickly resumed, for the commercial classes of both nations desired it and profited by it. But the British colonial system prohibited trade between a foreign state and British colonies and there was one channel of trade, to and from the British West Indies, long very profitable to both sides, during colonial times, but now legally hampered by American independence. The New England States had lumber, fish, and farm products desired by the West Indian planters, and these in turn offered needed sugar, molasses, and rum. Both parties desired to restore the trade, and in spite of the legal restrictions of the colonial system, the trade was in fact resumed in part and either permitted or winked at by the British Government, but never to the advantageous exchange of former times.

The acute stage of controversy over West Indian trade was not reached until some thirty years after American Independence, but the uncertainty of such trade during a long period in which a portion of it consisted in unauthorized and unregulated exchange was a constant irritant to all parties concerned. Meanwhile there came the War of 1812 with its preliminary check upon direct trade to and from Great Britain, and its final total prohibition of intercourse during the war itself. In 1800 the bulk of American importation of manufactures still came from Great Britain. In the contest over neutral rights and theories, Jefferson attempted to bring pressure on the belligerents, and especially on England, by restriction of imports. First came a non-importation Act, 1806, followed by an embargo on exports, 1807, but these were so unpopular in the commercial states of New England that they were withdrawn in 1810, yet for a short time only, for Napoleon tricked the United States into believing that France had yielded to American contentions on neutral rights, and in 1811 non-intercourse was proclaimed again with England alone. On June 18, 1812, America finally declared war and trade stopped save in a few New England ports where rebellious citizens continued to sell provisions to a blockading British naval squadron.

For eight years after 1806, then, trade with Great Britain had steadily decreased, finally almost to extinction during the war. But America required certain articles customarily imported and necessity now forced her to develop her own manufactures. New England had been the centre of American foreign commerce, but now there began a trend toward manufacturing enterprise. Even in 1814, however, at the end of the war, it was still thought in the United States that under normal conditions manufactured goods would again be imported and the general cry of "protection for home industries" was as yet unvoiced. Nevertheless, a group of infant industries had in fact been started and clamoured for defence now that peace was restored. This situation was not unnoticed in Great Britain where merchants, piling up goods in anticipation of peace on the continent of Europe and a restored market, suddenly discovered that the poverty of Europe denied them that market. Looking with apprehension toward the new industries of America, British merchants, following the advice of Lord Brougham in a parliamentary speech, dumped great quantities of their surplus goods on the American market, selling them far below cost, or even on extravagant credit terms. One object was to smash the budding American manufactures.

This action of British merchants naturally stirred some angry patriotic emotions in the circles where American business suffered and a demand began to be heard for protection. But the Government of the United States was still representative of agriculture, in the main, and while a Tariff Bill was enacted in 1816 that Bill was regarded as a temporary measure required by the necessity of paying the costs of the recent war. Just at this juncture, however, British policy, now looking again toward a great colonial empire, sought advantages for the hitherto neglected maritime provinces of British North America, and thought that it had found them by encouragement of their trade with the British West Indies. The legal status of American trade with the West Indies was now enforced and for a time intercourse was practically suspended.

This British policy brought to the front the issue of protection in America. It not only worked against a return by New England from manufacturing to commerce, but it soon brought into the ranks of protectionists a northern and western agricultural element that had been accustomed to sell surplus products to West Indian planters seeking cheap food-stuffs for their slaves. This new protectionist element was as yet not crystallized into a clamour for "home markets" for agriculture, but the pressure of opinion was beginning to be felt, and by 1820 the question of West Indian trade became one of constant agitation and demanded political action. That action was taken on lines of retaliation. Congress in 1818 passed a law excluding from American ports any British vessel coming from a port access to which was denied to an American vessel, and placing under bond in American ports British vessels with prohibition of their proceeding to a British port to which American vessels could not go. This act affected not merely direct trade with the West Indies, but stopped the general custom of British ships of taking part cargoes to Jamaica while en route to and from the United States. The result was, first, compromise, later, under Huskisson's administration at the British Board of Trade, complete abandonment by Britain of the exclusive trade basis of her whole colonial system.

The "retaliatory system" which J.Q. Adams regarded as "a new declaration of independence," was, in fact, quickly taken up by other non-colonial nations, and these, with America, compelled Great Britain to take stock of her interests. Huskisson, rightly foreseeing British prosperity as dependent upon her manufactures and upon the carrying trade, stated in Parliament that American "retaliation" had forced the issue. Freedom of trade in British ports was offered in 1826 to all non-colonial nations that would open their ports within one year on terms of equality to British ships. J.Q. Adams, now President of the United States, delayed acceptance of this offer, preferring a treaty negotiation, and was rebuffed by Canning, so that actual resumption of West Indian trade did not take place until 1830, after the close of Adams' administration. That trade never recovered its former prosperity.

Meanwhile the long period of controversy, from 1806 to 1830, had resulted in a complete change in the American situation. It is not a sufficient explanation of the American belief in, and practice of, the theory of protection to attribute this alone to British checks placed upon free commercial rivalry. Nevertheless the progress of America toward an established system, reaching its highest mark for years in the Tariff Bill of 1828, is distinctly related to the events just narrated. After American independence, the partially illegal status of West Indian trade hampered commercial progress and slightly encouraged American manufactures by the mere seeking of capital for investment; the neutral troubles of 1806 and the American prohibitions on intercourse increased the transfer of interest; the war of 1812 gave a complete protection to infant industries; the dumping of British goods in 1815 stirred patriotic American feeling; British renewal of colonial system restrictions, and the twelve-year quarrel over "retaliation" gave time for the definite establishment of protectionist ideas in the United States. But Britain was soon proclaiming for herself and for the world the common advantage and the justice of a great theory of free trade. America was apparently now committed to an opposing economic theory, the first great nation definitely to establish it, and thus there resulted a clear-cut opposition of principle and a clash of interests. From 1846, when free trade ideas triumphed in England, the devoted British free trader regarded America as the chief obstacle to a world-wide acceptance of his theory.

The one bright spot in America, as regarded by the British free trader, was in the Southern States, where cotton interests, desiring no advantage from protection, since their market was in Europe, attacked American protection and sought to escape from it. Also slave supplies, without protection, could have been purchased more cheaply from England than from the manufacturing North. In 1833 indeed the South had forced a reaction against protection, but it proceeded slowly. In 1854 it was Southern opinion that carried through Congress the reciprocity treaty with the British American Provinces, partly brought about, no doubt, by a Southern fear that Canada, bitter over the loss of special advantages in British markets by the British free trade of 1846, might join the United States and thus swell the Northern and free states of the Union. Cotton interests and trade became the dominant British commercial tie with the United States, and the one great hope, to the British minds, of a break in the false American system of protection. Thus both in economic theory and in trade, spite of British dislike of slavery, the export trading interests of Great Britain became more and more directed toward the Southern States of America. Adding powerfully to this was the dependence of British cotton manufactures upon the American supply. The British trade attitude, arising largely outside of direct governmental contacts, was bound to have, nevertheless, a constant and important influence on governmental action.

Governmental policy, seeking national power, conflicting trade and industrial interests, are the favourite themes of those historians who regard nations as determined in their relations solely by economic causes--by what is called "enlightened self-interest." But governments, no matter how arbitrary, and still more if in a measure resting on representation, react both consciously and unconsciously to a public opinion not obviously based upon either national or commercial rivalry. Sometimes, indeed, governmental attitude runs absolutely counter to popular attitude in international affairs. In such a case, the historical estimate, if based solely on evidences of governmental action, is a false one and may do great injustice to the essential friendliness of a people.

How then, did the British people, of all classes, regard America before 1860, and in what manner did that regard affect the British Government? Here, it is necessary to seek British opinion on, and its reaction to, American institutions, ideals, and practices. Such public opinion can be found in quantity sufficient to base an estimate only in travellers' books, in reviews, and in newspapers of the period. When all these are brought together it is found that while there was an almost universal British criticism of American social customs and habits of life, due to that insularity of mental attitude characteristic of every nation, making it prefer its own customs and criticize those of its neighbours, summed up in the phrase "dislike of foreigners"--it is found that British opinion was centred upon two main threads; first America as a place for emigration and, second, American political ideals and institutions[10].

British emigration to America, a governmentally favoured colonization process before the American revolution, lost that favour after 1783, though not at first definitely opposed. But emigration still continued and at no time, save during the war of 1812, was it absolutely stopped. Its exact amount is unascertainable, for neither Government kept adequate statistics before 1820. With the end of the Napoleonic wars there came great distress in England from which the man of energy sought escape. He turned naturally to America, being familiar, by hearsay at least, with stories of the ease of gaining a livelihood there, and influenced by the knowledge that in the United States he would find people of his own blood and speech. The bulk of this earlier emigration to America resulted from economic causes. When, in 1825, one energetic Member of Parliament, Wilmot Horton, induced the Government to appoint a committee to investigate the whole subject, the result was a mass of testimony, secured from returned emigrants or from their letters home, in which there constantly appeared one main argument influencing the labourer type of emigrant; he got good wages, and he was supplied, as a farm hand, with good food. Repeatedly he testifies that he had "three meat meals a day," whereas in England he had ordinarily received but one such meal a week.

Mere good living was the chief inducement for the labourer type of emigrant, and the knowledge of such living created for this type remaining in England a sort of halo of industrial prosperity surrounding America. But there was a second testimony brought out by Horton's Committee, less general, yet to be picked up here and there as evidence of another argument for emigration to America. The labourer did not dilate upon political equality, nor boast of a share in government, indeed generally had no such share, but he did boast to his fellows at home of the social equality, though not thus expressing it, which was all about him. He was a common farm hand, yet he "sat down to meals" with his employer and family, and worked in the fields side by side with his "master." This, too, was an astounding difference to the mind of the British labourer. Probably for him it created a clearer, if not altogether universal and true picture of the meaning of American democracy than would have volumes of writing upon political institutions. Gradually there was established in the lower orders of British society a visualization of America as a haven of physical well-being and personal social happiness.

This British labouring class had for long, however, no medium of expression in print. Here existed, then, an unexpressed public opinion of America, of much latent influence, but for the moment largely negligible as affecting other classes or the Government. A more important emigrating class in its influence on opinion at home, though not a large class, was composed about equally of small farmers and small merchants facing ruin in the agricultural and trading crises that followed the end of the European war. The British travellers' books from 1810 to 1820 are generally written by men of this class, or by agents sent out from co-operative groups planning emigration. Generally they were discontented with political conditions at home, commonly opposed to a petrified social order, and attracted to the United States by its lure of prosperity and content. The books are, in brief, a superior type of emigrant guide for a superior type of emigrant, examining and emphasizing industrial opportunity.

Almost universally, however, they sound the note of superior political institutions and conditions. One wrote "A republican finds here A Republic, and the only Republic on the face of the earth that ever deserved the name: where all are under the protection of equal laws; of laws made by Themselves[11]." Another, who established an English colony in the Western States of Illinois, wrote of England that he objected to "being ruled and taxed by people who had no more right to rule and tax us than consisted in the power to do it." And of his adopted country he concludes: "I love the Government; and thus a novel sensation is excited; it is like the development of a new faculty. I am become a patriot in my old age[12]." Still another detailed the points of his content, "I am here, lord and master of myself and of 100 acres of land--an improvable farm, little trouble to me, good society and a good market, and, I think, a fine climate, only a little too hot and dry in summer; the parson gets nothing from me; my state and road taxes and poor rates amount to §25.00 per annum. I can carry a gun if I choose; I leave my door unlocked at night; and I can get snuff for one cent an ounce or a little more[13]."

From the first days of the American colonial movement toward independence there had been, indeed, a British interest in American political principles. Many Whigs sympathized with these principles for reasons of home political controversy. Their sympathy continued after American independence and by its insistent expression brought out equally insistent opposition from Tory circles. The British home movement toward a more representative Government had been temporarily checked by the extremes into which French Liberalism plunged in 1791, causing reaction in England. By 1820 pressure was again being exerted by British Liberals of intelligence, and they found arguments in such reports as those just quoted. From that date onward, and especially just before the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, yet always a factor, the example of a prosperous American democracy was an element in British home politics, lauded or derided as the man in England desired or not an expansion of the British franchise. In the earlier period, however, it is to be remembered that applause of American institutions did not mean acceptance of democracy to the extent of manhood franchise, for no such franchise at first existed in America itself. The debate in England was simply whether the step forward in American democracy, was an argument for a similar step in Great Britain.

Books, reviews and newspapers in Great Britain as the political quarrel there grew in force, depicted America favourably or otherwise according to political sympathies at home. Both before and after the Reform Bill of 1832 this type of effort to mould opinion, by citation of America, was widespread. Hence there is in such writing, not so much the expression of public opinion, as of propaganda to affect that opinion. Book upon book, review upon review, might be quoted to illustrate this, but a few notable examples will suffice.

The most widely read and reviewed book on the United States before 1840, except the humorous and flippant characterization of America by Mrs. Trollope, was Captain Basil Hall's three-volume work, published in 1829[14]. Claiming an open mind, he expected for his adverse findings a readier credence. For adverse to American political institutions these findings are in all their larger applications. In every line Hall betrays himself as an old Tory of the 'twenties, fixed in his belief, and convinced of the perfection and unalterableness of the British Constitution. Captain Hamilton, who wrote in 1833, was more frank in avowal of a purpose[15]. He states in his preface:

"... When I found the institutions and experiences of the United States deliberately quoted in the reformed parliament, as affording safe precedent for British legislation, and learned that the drivellers who uttered such nonsense, instead of encountering merited derision, were listened to with patience and approbation by men as ignorant as themselves, I certainly did feel that another work on America was yet wanted, and at once determined to undertake a task which inferior considerations would probably have induced me to decline."

Harriet Martineau, ardent advocate of political reform at home, found in the United States proofs for her faith in democracy[16]. Captain Marryat belittled Miss Martineau, but in his six volumes proved himself less a critic of America than an enemy of democracy. Answering a review of his earlier volumes, published separately, he wrote in his concluding volume: "I candidly acknowledge that the reviewer is right in his supposition; my great object has been to do serious injury to the cause of democracy[17]."

The fact was that British governing and intellectual classes were suffering a recoil from the enthusiasms leading up to the step toward democracy in the Reform of 1832. The electoral franchise was still limited to a small minority of the population. Britain was still ruled by her "wise men" of wealth and position. Meanwhile, however, just at the moment when dominant Whig influence in England carried through that step forward toward democratic institutions which Whigs had long lauded in America, the latter country had progressed to manhood suffrage, or as nearly all leading Englishmen, whether Whig or Tory, regarded it, had plunged into the rule of the mob. The result was a rapid lessening in Whig ruling-class expression of admiration for America, even before long to the complete cessation of such admiration, and to assertions in Great Britain that the Reform of 1832 was "final," the last step toward democracy which Britain could safely take. It is not strange that the books and reviews of the period from 1830 to 1840, heavily stress the dangers and crudity of American democracy. They were written for what was now a nearly unanimous British reading public, fearful lest Radical pressure for still further electoral reform should preach the example of the United States.

Thus after 1832 the previous sympathy for America of one section of the British governing class disappears. More--it is replaced by a critical, if not openly hostile attitude. Soon, with the rapid development of the power and wealth of the United States, governing-class England, of all factions save the Radical, came to view America just as it would have viewed any other rising nation, that is, as a problem to be studied for its influence on British prosperity and power. Again, expressions in print reflect the changes of British view--nowhere more clearly than in travellers' books. After 1840, for nearly a decade, these are devoted, not to American political institutions, but to studies, many of them very careful ones, of American industry and governmental policy.

Buckingham, one-time member of Parliament, wrote nine volumes of such description. His work is a storehouse of fact, useful to this day to the American historical student[18]. George Combe, philosopher and phrenologist, studied especially social institutions[19]. Joseph Sturge, philanthropist and abolitionist, made a tour, under the guidance of the poet Whittier, through the Northern and Eastern States[20]. Featherstonaugh, a scientist and civil engineer, described the Southern slave states, in terms completely at variance with those of Sturge[21]. Kennedy, traveller in Texas, and later British consul at Galveston, and Warburton, a traveller who came to the United States by way of Canada, an unusual approach, were both frankly startled, the latter professedly alarmed, at the evidences of power in America[22]. Amazed at the energy, growth and prosperity of the country and alarmed at the anti-British feeling he found in New York City, Warburton wrote that "they [Americans] only wait for matured power to apply the incendiary torch of Republicanism to the nations of Europe[23]." Soon after this was written there began, in 1848, that great tide of Irish emigration to America which heavily reinforced the anti-British attitude of the City of New York, and largely changed its character.

Did books dilating upon the expanding power of America reflect British public opinion, or did they create it? It is difficult to estimate such matters. Certainly it is not uninteresting that these books coincided in point of time with a British governmental attitude of opposition, though on peaceful lines, to the development of American power, and to the adoption to the point of faith, by British commercial classes, of free trade as opposed to the American protective system. But governing classes were not the British public, and to the great unenfranchised mass, finding voice through the writings of a few leaders, the prosperity of America made a powerful appeal. Radical democracy was again beginning to make its plea in Britain. In 1849 there was published a study of the United States, more careful and exact than any previous to Bryce's great work, and lauding American political institutions. This was Mackay's "Western World," and that there was a public eager for such estimate is evidenced by the fact that the book went through four British editions in 1850[24]. At the end of the decade, then, there appeared once more a vigorous champion of the cause of British democracy, comparing the results of "government by the wise" with alleged mob rule. Mackay wrote:

"Society in America started from the point to which society in Europe is only yet finding. The equality of men is, to this moment, its corner-stone ... that which develops itself as the sympathy of class, becomes in America the general sentiment of society.... We present an imposing front to the world; but let us tear the picture and look at the canvas. One out of every seven of us is a pauper. Every six Englishmen have, in addition to their other enormous burdens, to support a seventh between them, whose life is spent in consuming, but in adding nothing to the source of their common subsistence."

British governing classes then, forgoing after 1850 opposition to the advance of American power, found themselves involved again, as before 1832, in the problem of the possible influence of a prosperous American democracy upon an unenfranchised public opinion at home. Also, for all Englishmen, of whatever class, in spite of rivalry in power, of opposing theories of trade, of divergent political institutions, there existed a vague, though influential, pride in the advance of a people of similar race, sprung from British loins[25]. And there remained for all Englishmen also one puzzling and discreditable American institution, slavery--held up to scorn by the critics of the United States, difficult of excuse among her friends.

Agitation conducted by the great philanthropist, Wilberforce, had early committed British Government and people to a crusade against the African slave trade. This British policy was clearly announced to the world in the negotiations at Vienna in 1814-15. But Britain herself still supported the institution of slavery in her West Indian colonies and it was not until British humanitarian sentiment had forced emancipation upon the unwilling sugar planters, in 1833, that the nation was morally free to criticize American domestic slavery. Meanwhile great emancipation societies, with many branches, all virile and active, had grown up in England and in Scotland. These now turned to an attack on slavery the world over, and especially on American slavery. The great American abolitionist, Garrison, found more support in England than in his own country; his weekly paper, The Liberator, is full of messages of cheer from British friends and societies, and of quotations from a sympathetic, though generally provincial, British press.

From 1830 to 1850 British anti-slavery sentiment was at its height. It watched with anxiety the evidence of a developing struggle over slavery in the United States, hopeful, as each crisis arose, that the free Northern States would impose their will upon the Southern Slave States. But as each crisis turned to compromise, seemingly enhancing the power of the South, and committing America to a retention of slavery, the hopes of British abolitionists waned. The North did indeed, to British opinion, become identified with opposition to the expansion of slavery, but after the "great compromise of 1850," where the elder American statesmen of both North and South proclaimed the "finality" of that measure, British sympathy for the North rapidly lessened. Moreover, after 1850, there was in Britain itself a decay of general humanitarian sentiment as regards slavery. The crusade had begun to seem hopeless and the earlier vigorous agitators were dead. The British Government still maintained its naval squadron for the suppression of the African slave trade, but the British official mind no longer keenly interested itself either in this effort or in the general question of slavery.

Nevertheless American slavery and slave conditions were still, after 1850, favourite matters for discussion, almost universally critical, by English writers. Each renewal of the conflict in America, even though local, not national in character, drew out a flood of comment. In the public press this blot upon American civilization was a steady subject for attack, and that attack was naturally directed against the South. The London Times, in particular, lost no opportunity of presenting the matter to its readers. In 1856, a Mr. Thomas Gladstone visited Kansas during the height of the border struggles there, and reported his observations in letters to the Times. The writer was wholly on the side of the Northern settlers in Kansas, though not hopeful that the Kansas struggle would expand to a national conflict. He constantly depicted the superior civilization, industry, and social excellence of the North as compared with the South[26].

Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin excited greater interest in England than in America itself. The first London edition appeared in May, 1852, and by the end of the year over one million copies had been sold, as opposed to one hundred and fifty thousand in the United States. But if one distinguished writer is to be believed, this great British interest in the book was due more to English antipathy to America than to antipathy to slavery[27]. This writer was Nassau W. Senior, who, in 1857, published a reprint of his article on "American Slavery" in the 206th number of the Edinburgh Review, reintroducing in his book extreme language denunciatory of slavery that had been cut out by the editor of the Review[28]. Senior had been stirred to write by the brutal attack upon Charles Sumner in the United States Senate after his speech of May 19-20, 1856, evidence, again, that each incident of the slavery quarrel in America excited British attention.

Senior, like Thomas Gladstone, painted the North as all anti-slavery, the South as all pro-slavery. Similar impressions of British understanding (or misunderstanding) are received from the citations of the British provincial press, so favoured by Garrison in his Liberator[29]. Yet for intellectual Britain, at least--that Britain which was vocal and whose opinion can be ascertained in spite of this constant interest in American slavery, there was generally a fixed belief that slavery in the United States was so firmly established that it could not be overthrown. Of what use, then, the further expenditure of British sympathy or effort in a lost cause? Senior himself, at the conclusion of his fierce attack on the Southern States, expressed the pessimism of British abolitionists. He wrote, "We do not venture to hope that we, or our sons, or our grandsons, will see American slavery extirpated, or even materially mitigated[30]."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] State Department, Eng., Vol. LXXIX, No. 135, March 27, 1862.

[2] Walpole, Russell, Vol. II, p. 367.

[3] Life of Lady John Russell, p. 197.

[4] There was a revival of this fear at the end of the American Civil War. This will be commented on later.

[5] This was the position of President and Congress: yet the United States had not acknowledged the right of an American citizen to expatriate himself.

[6] Between 1797 and 1801, of the sailors taken from American ships, 102 were retained, 1,042 were discharged, and 805 were held for further proof. (Updyke, The Diplomacy of the War of 1812, p. 21.)

[7] The people of the British North American Provinces regarded the war as an attempt made by America, taking advantage of the European wars, at forcible annexation. In result the fervour of the United Empire Loyalists was renewed, especially in Upper Canada. Thus the same two wars which fostered militant patriotism in America against England had the same result in Canadian sentiment against America.

[8] Temperley, "Later American Policy of George Canning" in Am. Hist. Rev., XI, 783. Also Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, Vol. II, ch. 2.

[9] Much has recently been published on British policy in Texas. See my book, British Interests and Activities in Texas, 1838-1846, Johns Hopkins Press, Balt., 1910. Also Adams, Editor, British Diplomatic Correspondence concerning the Republic of Texas, The Texas State Historical Association, Austin, Texas, 1918.

[10] In my studies on British-American relations, I have read the leading British reviews and newspapers, and some four hundred volumes by British travellers. For a summary of the British travellers before 1860 see my article "The Point of View of the British Traveller in America," in the Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, June, 1914.

[11] John Melish, Travels, Vol. I, p. 148.

[12] Morris Birkbeck, Letters from Illinois, London, 1818, p. 29.

[13] Letter in Edinburgh Scotsman, March, 1823. Cited by Niles Register, Vol. XXV, p. 39.

[14] Travels in North America, 1827-28, London, 1829.

[15] Captain Thomas Hamilton, Men and Manners in America, Edinburgh and London, 1833. 2 vols.

[16] Society in America, London, 1837. 3 vols. Retrospect of Western Travel, London, 1838. 2 vols.

[17] Captain Frederick Marryat, A Diary in America, with Remarks on Its Institutions, Vol. VI, p. 293.

[18] James Silk Buckingham, America, Historical, Statistic and Descriptive, London, 1841-43. 9 vols.

[19] Notes on the United States of North America during a phrenological visit, 1838-9-40, Edinburgh, 1841. 3 vols.

[20] A Visit to the United States in 1841, London, 1842.

[21] George William Featherstonaugh, Excursion through the Slave States, London, 1844. 2 vols.

[22] William Kennedy, Texas: The Rise, Progress and Prospects of the Republic of Texas, London, 1841. 2 vols. George Warburton, Hochelaga: or, England in the New World, London, 1845. 2 vols.

[23] Warburton, Hochelaga, 5th Edition, Vol. II, pp. 363-4.

[24] Alexander Mackay, The Western World: or, Travels through the United States in 1846-47, London, 1849.

[25] This is clearly indicated in Parliament itself, in the debate on the dismissal by the United States in 1856 of Crampton, the British Minister at Washington, for enlistment activities during the Crimean War.--Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CXLIII, 14-109 and 120-203.

[26] Gladstone's letters were later published in book form, under the title The Englishman in Kansas, London, 1857.

[27] "The evil passions which 'Uncle Tom' gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance [of slavery], but national jealousy and national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of America--we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen. Our clergy hate her voluntary system--our Tories hate her democrats--our Whigs hate her parvenus--our Radicals hate her litigiousness, her insolence, and her ambition. All parties hailed Mrs. Stowe as a revolter from the enemy." Senior, American Slavery, p. 38.

[28] The reprint is without date, but the context shows the year to be 1857.

[29] For example the many British expressions quoted in reference to John Brown's raid, in The Liberator for February 10, 1860, and in succeeding issues.

[30] Senior, American Slavery, p. 68.

* * *

It has been remarked by the American historian, Schouler, that immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War, diplomatic controversies between England and America had largely been settled, and that England, pressed from point to point, had "sullenly" yielded under American demands. This generalization, as applied to what were, after all, minor controversies, is in great measure true. In larger questions of policy, as regards spheres of influence or developing power, or principles of trade, there was difference, but no longer any essential opposition or declared rivalry[31].

In theories of government there was sharp divergence, clearly appreciated, however, only in governing-class Britain. This sense of divergence, even of a certain threat from America to British political institutions, united with an established opinion that slavery was permanently fixed in the United States to reinforce governmental indifference, sometimes even hostility, to America. The British public, also, was largely hopeless of any change in the institution of slavery, and its own active humanitarian interest was waning, though still dormant--not dead. Yet the two nations, to a degree not true of any other two world-powers, were of the same race, had similar basic laws, read the same books, and were held in close touch at many points by the steady flow of British emigration to the United States.

When, after the election of Lincoln to the Presidency, in November, 1860, the storm-clouds of civil strife rapidly gathered, the situation took both British Government and people by surprise. There was not any clear understanding either of American political conditions, or of the intensity of feeling now aroused over the question of the extension of slave territory. The most recent descriptions of America had agreed in assertion that at some future time there would take place, in all probability, a dissolution of the Union, on lines of diverging economic interests, but also stated that there was nothing in the American situation to indicate immediate progress in this direction. Grattan, a long-time resident in America as British Consul at Boston, wrote:

"The day must no doubt come when clashing objects will break the ties of common interest which now preserve the Union. But no man may foretell the period of dissolution.... The many restraining causes are out of sight of foreign observation. The Lilliputian threads binding the man mountain are invisible; and it seems wondrous that each limb does not act for itself independently of its fellows. A closer examination shows the nature of the network which keeps the members of this association so tightly bound. Any attempt to untangle the ties, more firmly fastens them. When any one State talks of separation, the others become spontaneously knotted together. When a section blusters about its particular rights, the rest feel each of theirs to be common to all. If a foreign nation hint at hostility, the whole Union becomes in reality united. And thus in every contingency from which there can be danger, there is also found the element of safety." Yet, he added, "All attempts to strengthen this federal government at the expense of the States' governments must be futile.... The federal government exists on sufferance only. Any State may at any time constitutionally withdraw from the Union, and thus virtually dissolve it[32]."

Even more emphatically, though with less authority, wrote one Charles Mackay, styled by the American press as a "distinguished British poet," who made the usual rapid tour of the principal cities of America in 1857-58, and as rapidly penned his impressions:

"Many persons in the United States talk of a dissolution of the Union, but few believe in it.... All this is mere bravado and empty talk. It means nothing. The Union is dear to all Americans, whatever they may say to the contrary.... There is no present danger to the Union, and the violent expressions to which over-ardent politicians of the North and South sometimes give vent have no real meaning. The 'Great West,' as it is fondly called, is in the position even now to arbitrate between North and South, should the quarrel stretch beyond words, or should anti-slavery or any other question succeed in throwing any difference between them which it would take revolvers and rifles rather than speeches and votes to put an end to[33]."

The slavery controversy in America had, in short, come to be regarded in England as a constant quarrel between North and South, but of no immediate danger to the Union. Each outbreak of violent American controversy produced a British comment sympathetic with the North. The turmoil preceding and following the election of Lincoln in 1860, on the platform of "no extension of slavery," was very generally noted by the British press and public, as a sign favourable to the cause of anti-slavery, but with no understanding that Southern threat would at last be realized in definite action. Herbert Spencer, in a letter of May 15, 1862, to his American friend, Yeomans, wrote, "As far as I had the means of judging, the feeling here was at first very decidedly on the side of the North[34] ..." The British metropolitan press, in nearly every issue of which for at least two years after December, 1860, there appeared news items and editorial comment on the American crisis, was at first nearly unanimous in condemning the South[35]. The Times, with accustomed vigour, led the field. On November 21, 1860, it stated:

"When we read the speech of Mr. Lincoln on the subject of Slavery and consider the extreme moderation of the sentiments it expresses, the allowance that is made for the situation, for the feelings, for the prejudices, of the South; when we see how entirely he narrows his opposition to the single point of the admission of Slavery into the Territories, we cannot help being forcibly struck by the absurdity of breaking up a vast and glorious confederacy like that of the United States from the dread and anger inspired by the election of such a man to the office of Chief Magistrate.... We rejoice, on higher and surer grounds, that it [the election] has ended in the return of Mr. Lincoln. We are glad to think that the march of Slavery, and the domineering tone which its advocates were beginning to assume over Freedom, has been at length arrested and silenced. We rejoice that a vast community of our own race has at length given an authoritative expression to sentiments which are entertained by everyone in this country. We trust to see the American Government employed in tasks more worthy of a State founded on the doctrines of liberty and equality than the invention of shifts and devices to perpetuate servitude; and we hear in this great protest of American freedom the tardy echo of those humane doctrines to which England has so long become a convert."

Other leading journals, though with less of patronizing self-complacency, struck the same note as the Times. The Economist attributed Lincoln's election to a shift in the sympathies of the "lower orders" in the electorate who had now deserted their former leaders, the slave-owning aristocracy of the South, and allied themselves with the refined and wise leaders of the North. Lincoln, it argued, was not an extremist in any sense. His plan of action lay within the limits of statesmanlike moderation[36]. The Saturday Review was less sure that England should rejoice with the North. British self-esteem had suffered some hard blows at the hands of the Democratic party in America, but at least England knew where Democrats stood, and could count on no more discourtesy or injustice than that inflicted in the past. The Republican party, however, had no policy, except that of its leader, Seward, and from him might be expected extreme insolence[37]. This was a very early judgment of Seward, and one upon which the Saturday Review preened itself later, as wholly justified. The Spectator, the only one of the four journals thus far considered which ultimately remained constant in advocacy of the Northern cause, was at first lukewarm in comment, regarding the 1860 election, while fought on the slavery issue, as in reality a mere contest between parties for political power[38].

Such was the initial attitude of the English press. Each press issue for several weeks harped on the same chord, though sounding varying notes. If the South really means forcible resistance, said the Times, it is doomed to quick suppression. "A few hundred thousand slave-owners, trembling nightly with visions of murder and pillage, backed by a dissolute population of 'poor whites,' are no match for the hardy and resolute populations of the Free States[39]," and if the South hoped for foreign aid it should be undeceived promptly: "Can any sane man believe that England and France will consent, as is now suggested, to stultify the policy of half a century for the sake of an extended cotton trade, and to purchase the favours of Charleston and Milledgeville by recognizing what has been called 'the isothermal law, which impels African labour toward the tropics' on the other side of the Atlantic[40]?" Moreover all Americans ought to understand clearly that British respect for the United States "was not due to the attitude of the South with its ruffian demonstrations in Congress.... All that is noble and venerable in the United States is associated with its Federal Constitution[41]."

Did the British public hold these same opinions? There is no direct evidence available in sufficient quantity in autobiography or letters upon which to base a conclusion. Such works are silent on the struggle in America for the first few months and presumably public opinion, less informed even than the press, received its impressions from the journals customarily read. Both at this period and all through the war, also, it should be remembered, clearly, that most newspapers, all the reviews, in fact nearly all vehicles of British expression, were in the early 'sixties "in the hands of the educated classes, and these educated classes corresponded closely with the privileged classes." The more democratic element of British Society lacked any adequate press representation of its opinions. "This body could express itself by such comparatively crude methods as public meetings and demonstrations, but it was hampered in literary and political expression[42]." The opinion of the press was then, presumably, the opinion of the majority of the educated British public.

Thus British comment on America took the form, at first of moralizations, now severe toward the South, now indifferent, yet very generally asserting the essential justice of the Northern position. But it was early evident that the newspapers, one and all, were quite unprepared for the determined front soon put up by South Carolina and other Southern States. Surprised by the violence of Southern declarations, the only explanation found by the British press was that political control had been seized by the uneducated and lawless element. The Times characterized this element of the South as in a state of deplorable ignorance comparable with that of the Irish peasantry, a "poor, proud, lazy, excitable and violent class, ever ready with knife and revolver[43]." The fate of the Union, according to the Saturday Review, was in the hands of the "most ignorant, most unscrupulous, and most lawless [class] in the world--the poor or mean whites of the Slave States[44]." Like judgments were expressed by the Economist and, more mildly, by the Spectator[45]. Subsequently some of these journals found difficulty in this connection, in swinging round the circle to expressions of admiration for the wise and powerful aristocracy of the South; but all, especially the Times, were skilled by long practice in the journalistic art of facing about while claiming perfect consistency. In denial of a Southern right of secession, also, they were nearly a unit[46], though the Saturday Review argued the case for the South, making a pointed parallel between the present situation and that of the American Colonies in seceding from England[47].

The quotations thus far made exhibit for the leading papers an initial confusion and ignorance difficult to harmonize with the theory of an "enlightened press." The Reviews, by the conditions of publication, came into action more slowly and during 1860 there appeared but one article, in the Edinburgh Review, giving any adequate idea of what was really taking place in America[48]. The lesser British papers generally followed the tone of the leading journals, but without either great interest or much acumen. In truth the depth of British newspaper ignorance, considering their positiveness of utterance, appears utterly astonishing if regarded from the view-point of modern historical knowledge. But is this, after all, a matter for surprise? Was there not equal confusion at least, possibly equal ignorance, in America itself, certainly among the press and people of the Northern States? They also had come by experience to discount Southern threats, and were slow to understand that the great conflict of ideals and interests was at last begun.

The British press both influenced and reflected educated class opinion, and, in some degree, official opinion as well. Lord John Russell at the Foreign Office and Lord Lyons, British Minister at Washington, were exchanging anxious letters, and the latter was sending home reports remarkable for their clear analysis of the American controversy. Yet even he was slow to appreciate the inevitability of secession.

LORD LYONS

(From a photograph taken at Boston, U.S.A., in 1860) (From Lord Newton's "Life of Lord Lyons," by kind permission)

Other officials, especially those in minor positions in the United States, showed a lack of grasp of the situation similar to that of the press. An amusing illustration of this, furnishing a far-fetched view of causes, is supplied in a letter of February 2, 1860, from Consul Bunch, at Charleston, S.C., to Lord Lyons, the British Minister at Washington[49]. Bunch wrote describing a dinner which had been given the evening before, by the Jockey Club of Charleston. Being called upon for a speech, he had alluded to the prizes of the Turf at home, and had referred especially to the Plates run for the various British colonies. Continuing, he said:

"'... I cannot help calling your attention to the great loss you yourselves have suffered by ceasing to be a Colonial Dependency of Great Britain, as I am sure that if you had continued to be so, the Queen would have had great pleasure in sending you some Plates too.'

"Of course this was meant for the broadest sort of joke, calculated to raise a laugh after dinner, but to my amazement, the company chose to take me literally, and applauded for about ten minutes--in fact I could not go on for some time."

Bunch evidently hardly knew what to make of this demonstration. He could with difficulty believe that South Carolina wished to be re-annexed as a colony of Great Britain, and comments upon the episode in a somewhat humorous vein. Nevertheless in concluding his letter, he solemnly assures Lord Lyons that

"... The Jockey Club is composed of the 'best people' of South Carolina--rich planters and the like. It represents, therefore, the 'gentlemanly interest' and not a bit of universal suffrage."

It would be idle to assume that either in South Carolina or in England there was, in February, 1860, any serious thought of a resumption of colonial relations, though W.H. Russell, correspondent of the Times, reported in the spring, 1861, that he frequently heard the same sentiment in the South[50]. For general official England, as for the press, the truth is that up to the time of the secession of South Carolina no one really believed that a final rupture was about to take place between North and South. When, on December 20, 1860, that State in solemn convention declared the dissolution "of the Union now existing between South Carolina and the other States, under the name of the 'United States of America,'" and when it was understood that other Southern States would soon follow this example, British opinion believed and hoped that the rupture would be accomplished peaceably. Until it became clear that war would ensue, the South was still damned by the press as seeking the preservation of an evil institution. Slavery was even more vigorously asserted as the ignoble and sole cause. In the number for April, 1861, the Edinburgh Review attributed the whole difficulty to slavery, asserted that British sympathy would be with the anti-slavery party, yet advanced the theory that the very dissolution of the Union would hasten the ultimate extinction of slavery since economic competition with a neighbouring free state, the North, would compel the South itself to abandon its beloved "domestic institution[51]."

Upon receipt of the news from South Carolina, the Times, in a long and carefully worded editorial, took up one by one the alleged causes of secession, dismissed them as inadequate, and concluded, "... we cannot disguise from ourselves that, apart from all political complications, there is a right and a wrong in this question, and that the right belongs, with all its advantages, to the States of the North[52]." Three days later it asserted, "The North is for freedom of discussion, the South represses freedom of discussion with the tar-brush and the pine-fagot." And again, on January 10, "The Southern States expected sympathy for their undertaking from the public opinion of this country. The tone of the press has already done much to undeceive them...."

In general both the metropolitan and the provincial press expressed similar sentiments, though there were exceptions. The Dublin News published with approval a long communication addressed to Irishmen at home and abroad: "... there is no power on earth or in heaven which can keep in peace this unholy co-partnership.... I hope ... that the North will quietly permit the South to retire from the confederacy and bear alone the odium of all mankind[53]...." The Saturday Review thought that deeper than declared differences lay the ruling social structure of the South which now visioned a re-opening of the African Slave Trade, and the occupation by slavery of the whole southern portion of North America. "A more ignoble basis for a great Confederacy it is impossible to conceive, nor one in the long run more precarious.... Assuredly it will be the Northern Confederacy, based on principles of freedom, with a policy untainted by crime, with a free working-class of white men, that will be the one to go on and prosper and become the leader of the New World[54]." The London Chronicle was vigorous in denunciation. "No country on the globe produces a blackguardism, a cowardice or a treachery, so consummate as that of the negro-driving States of the new Southern Confederacy"--a bit of editorial blackguardism in itself[55]. The London Review more moderately stigmatized slavery as the cause, but was lukewarm in praise of Northern idealisms, regarding the whole matter as one of diverging economic systems and in any case as inevitably resulting in dissolution of the Union at some time. The inevitable might as well come now as later and would result in benefit to both sections as well as to the world fearing the monstrous empire of power that had grown up in America[56].

The great bulk of early expressions by the British press was, in truth, definitely antagonistic to the South, and this was particularly true of the provincial press. Garrison's Liberator, advocating extreme abolition action, had long made a practice of presenting excerpts from British newspapers, speeches and sermons in support of its cause. In 1860 there were thirty-nine such citations; in the first months of 1861 many more, all condemning slavery and the South. For the most part these citations represented a comparatively unknown and uninfluential section, both in politics and literature, of the British people. Matthew Arnold was among the first of men of letters to record his faith that secession was final and, as he hoped, an excellent thing for the North, looking to the purity of race and the opportunity for unhampered advance[57]. If English writers were in any way influenced by their correspondents in the United States they may, indeed, have well been in doubt as to the origin and prospects of the American quarrel. Hawthorne, but recently at home again after seven years' consulship in England, was writing that abolition was not a Northern object in the war just begun. Whittier wrote to his English friends that slavery, and slavery alone, was the basic issue[58]. But literary Britain was slow to express itself save in the Reviews. These, representing varying shades of British upper-class opinion and presenting articles presumably more profound than the newspaper editorials, frequently offered more recondite origins of the American crisis. The Quarterly Review, organ of extreme Conservatism, in its first article, dwelt upon the failure of democratic institutions, a topic not here treated at length since it will be dealt with in a separate chapter as deserving special study. The Quarterly is also the first to advance the argument that the protective tariff, advocated by the North, was a real cause for Southern secession[59]; an idea made much of later, by the elements unfriendly to the North, but not hitherto advanced. In these first issues of the Reviews for 1861, there was frequently put forth the "Southern gentlemen" theory.

"At a distance of three thousand miles, the Southern planters did, indeed, bear a resemblance to the English country gentleman which led to a feeling of kinship and sympathy with him on the part of those in England who represented the old traditions of landed gentility. This 'Southern gentleman' theory, containing as it did an undeniable element of truth, is much harped upon by certain of the reviewers, and one can easily conceive of its popularity in the London Clubs.... The 'American,' so familiar to British readers, during the first half of the century, through the eyes of such travellers as Mrs. Trollope, now becomes the 'Yankee,' and is located north of Mason and Dixon's line[60]."

Such portrayal was not characteristic of all Reviews, rather of the Tory organs alone, and the Radical Westminster took pains to deny the truth of the picture, asserting again and again that the vital and sole cause of the conflict was slavery. Previous articles are summed up in that of October, 1863, as a profession of the Westminster's opinion throughout: "... the South are fighting for liberty to found a Slave Power. Should it prove successful, truer devil's work, if we may use the metaphor, will rarely have been done[61]."

Fortunate would it have been for the Northern cause, if British opinion generally sympathetic at first on anti-slavery grounds, had not soon found cause to doubt the just basis of its sympathy, from the trend of events in America. Lincoln had been elected on a platform opposing the further territorial expansion of slavery. On that point the North was fairly well united. But the great majority of those who voted for Lincoln would have indignantly repudiated any purpose to take active steps toward the extinction of slavery where it already existed. Lincoln understood this perfectly, and whatever his opinion about the ultimate fate of slavery if prohibited expansion, he from the first took the ground that the terms of his election constituted a mandate limiting his action. As secession developed he rightly centred his thought and effort on the preservation of the Union, a duty imposed by his election to the Presidency.

Naturally, as the crisis developed, there were many efforts at still another great compromise. Among the friends of the outgoing President, Buchanan, whose term of office would not expire until March 4, 1861, there were still some Southern leaders, like Jefferson Davis, seeking either a complete surrender to Southern will, or advantages for Southern security in case secession was accomplished. Buchanan appealed hysterically to the old-time love of the Union and to the spirit of compromise. Great congressional committees of both Senate and House of Representatives were formed seeking a solution. Crittenden for the border states between North and South, where, more than anywhere else, there was division of opinion, proposed pledges to be given to the South. Seward, long-time champion of the anti-slavery North, was active in the Senate in suggestion and intrigue seemingly intended to conciliate by concessions. Charles Francis Adams, early a Free Soiler, in the House of Representatives Committee conducted his Republican colleagues along a path apparently leading to a guarantee of slavery as then established[62]. A constitutional amendment was drafted to this effect and received Lincoln's preliminary approval. Finally Lincoln, in his inaugural address, March 4, 1861, declared:

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

It should be no matter for surprise, therefore, that, as these efforts were observed in Great Britain, a note of uncertainty began to replace the earlier unanimity of opinion that the future of slavery was at stake in America. This offered an easy excuse for a switch-about of sympathy as British commercial and other interests began to be developed, and even dismayed the ardent friends of the anti-slavery North. Meanwhile the Government of Great Britain, from the very first appearance of the cloud of civil war, had focused its attention on the point of what the events in America portended to British interests and policy. This is the business of governments, and their agents would be condemned as inefficient did they neglect it. But did British governmental policy go beyond this entirely justifiable first thought for immediate British interests to the point of positive hope that England would find an advantage in the breaking up of the great American Republic? American opinion, both then and later, believed Great Britain guilty of this offence, but such criticism was tinged with the passions of the Civil War. Yet a more impartial critic, though possibly an unfriendly one because of his official position, made emphatic declaration to like effect. On January 1, 1861, Baron de Brunow, Russian Ambassador at London, reported to St. Petersburg that, "the English Government, at the bottom of its heart, desires the separation of North America into two republics, which will watch each other jealously and counterbalance one the other. Then England, on terms of peace and commerce with both, would have nothing to fear from either; for she would dominate them, restraining them by their rival ambitions[63]."

If, however, one turns from the surmises of foreign diplomats as to the springs of British policy, to the more authentic evidence of official and private diplomatic correspondence, there is found no proof for such accusations. Certainty neither Lord John Russell, Foreign Secretary, nor Lord Lyons, British Minister at Washington, reveal any animus against the United States. Considering his many personal ties with leaders of both factions Lyons, from the first, reported events with wonderful impartiality, and great clarity. On November 12, 1860, he sent to Russell a full description of the clamour raised in the South over the election of Lincoln, enumerated the resignation of Federal officials (calling these "ill-judged measures"), and expressed the opinion that Lincoln was no Radical. He hoped the storm would blow over without damage to the Union[64]. Russell, for his part, was prompt to instruct Lyons and the British consuls not "to seem to favour one party rather than the other," and not to express opinions or to give advice, unless asked for by the State Governments, in which case the advice should be against all violent action as tending toward civil war[65].

This bare statement may indeed be interpreted as indicating an eager readiness on Russell's part to accept as final the dissolution of the Union, but such an interpretation is not borne out by a reading of his instructions. Rather he was perplexed, and anxious that British agents should not gain the ill-will of either American faction, an ill-will that would be alike detrimental in the future, whether the Union remained unbroken or was destroyed.

Strict instructions against offering advice are therefore repeated frequently[66]. Meanwhile the first concrete problem requiring British action came from the seizure by South Carolina of the Federal customs house at the port of Charleston, and the attempt of the State authorities to collect port dues customarily paid to Federal officials. British shipowners appealed to Consul Bunch for instructions, he to Lyons, and the latter to the American Secretary of State, Judge Black. This was on December 31, 1860, while Buchanan was still President, and Black's answer was evasive, though asserting that the United States must technically regard the events in South Carolina as acts of violent rebellion[67]. Black refused to state what action would be taken if Bunch advised British shipowners to pay, but a way out of the embarrassment was found by advising such payment to State authorities "under protest" as done "under compulsion." To one of his letters to Bunch on this topic, Lyons appended an expression indicative of his own early attitude. "The domestic slavery of the South is a bitter pill which it will be hard enough to get the English to swallow. But if the Slave Trade is to be added to the dose, the least squeamish British stomach will reject it[68]."

Nevertheless the vigorous action of South Carolina, soon followed by other Southern States, made a deep impression on Russell, especially when compared with the uncertainty and irresolution manifested in the attempted compromise measures of Northern statesmen. In a private letter to Lyons, January 10, 1861, he wrote "I do not see how the United States can be cobbled together again by any compromise.... I cannot see any mode of reconciling such parties as these. The best thing now would be that the right to secede should be acknowledged.... I hope sensible men will take this view.... But above all I hope no force will be used[69]." And again twelve days later, "I suppose the break-up of the Union is now inevitable[70]." To Russell, as to most foreign observers, it seemed that if the South with its great wealth, its enormous extent of territory, and its five and one-half millions of population, were determined to leave the Union, no force whatever could compel a return. History failed to record any revolution on so large a scale which had not succeeded. His desire, therefore, was that the North would yield to the inevitable, and would not plunge into a useless civil war disastrous alike to the prosperity of America and of foreign nations. Russell's first hope was that the South would forgo secession; his second, this accomplished, that there would be no war, and in this sense he instructed Lyons. The latter, less expectant of peaceful separation, and more aware of the latent power of the North, maintained throughout his entire service at Washington that there was at least a chance that the North could subdue the South by might of arms[71], but he also, looking to British interests, saw his early duty, before war broke, in cautious suggestions against forcible Northern action. Thus from January to March, 1861, British effort and indirect advice were based on the hope that British trade interests might escape the tribulations inevitable from a civil conflict in America. Beyond that point there was no grasp of the complications likely to arise in case of war, and no clear formulation of British policy[72].

In fact up to the middle of March, 1861, both public and official British opinion discounted armed conflict, or at least any determined Northern effort to recover the South. Early British attitude was, therefore, based on a misconception. As this became clear, public opinion began to break from a united humanitarian pro-Northern sentiment and to show, in some quarters, quite another face. Even as early as January the Economist expressed wonder that the Northern States had not availed themselves gladly of the chance to "shake off such an incubus, and to purify themselves of such a stain[73]." and a month later professed to believe that Great Britain would willingly permit the North to secure compensation for loss of territory by annexing Canada--provided the Canadians themselves desired it. This, it was argued, would directly benefit England herself by cutting down military expenditures[74]. The London Press indulged in similar speculation, though from the angle of a Canadian annexation of the Northern States, whose more sober citizens must by now be weary of the sham of American democracy, and disgusted with the rowdyism of political elections, which "combine the morals of a horse race, the manners of a dog fight, the passions of a tap-room, and the emotions of a gambling house[75]." Probably such suggestions had little real purpose or meaning at the moment, but it is interesting that this idea of a "compensation" in Canada should have been voiced thus early. Even in the United States the same thought had occurred to a few political leaders. Charles Sumner held it, though too wise, politically, to advance it in the face of the growing Northern determination to preserve the Union. It lay at the bottom of his increasing bitterness toward his old friend Charles Francis Adams, now busy in schemes intended, apparently, to restore the Union by compromise, and it led Sumner to hope for appointment as Minister to England[76].

The chief organ of British upper-class opinion, the Times, was one of the first to begin the process of "face about," as civil war in America seemed imminent[77]. Viewed from the later attitude of the Times, the earlier expressions of that paper, and in truth of many British journals, seem merely the customary platitudinous British holding up of horrified hands at American slavery. On January 19, 1861, a strong editorial still proclaimed the folly of South Carolina, as acting "without law, without justice," but displayed a real dismay at the possible consequences of war to British trade and commerce. On January 22, the Times reprinted an article from the Economist, on a probable cessation of cotton supply and editorially professed great alarm, even advocating an early recognition of the Southern confederacy if needed to maintain that supply. From this time on there is no further note in the Times of the righteousness of the Northern cause; but while it is still asserted that war would be folly, the strength of the South, its superiority as a military nation, are depicted.

A long break of nearly six weeks follows with little editorial comment. Soon the correspondence from New York, previously written by Bancroft Davis, and extremely favourable to the Northern cause, was discontinued. W.H. Russell, the famous war correspondent of the Crimea, was summoned to London and, according to his own story, upon being given papers, clippings, and correspondence (largely articles from the New York Herald) supporting the right of the South to secede, hastily took his departure for America to report upon the situation[78]. He sailed from Queenstown on March 3, and arrived in New York on March 16. At last on March 12, the Times took positive ground in favour of the justice of the Southern cause.

"No treachery has been at work to produce the disruption, and the principles avowed are such as to command the sympathies of every free and enlightened people. Such are the widely different auspices under which the two rival Republics start into existence. But mankind will not ultimately judge these things by sympathies and antipathies; they will be greatly swayed by their own interest, and the two Republics must be weighed, not by their professions or their previous history, but by the conduct they pursue and the position they maintain among the Powers of the earth. Their internal institutions are their own affair; their financial and political arrangements are emphatically ours. Brazil is a slave-holding Empire, but by its good faith and good conduct it has contrived to establish for itself a place in the hierarchy of nations far superior to that of many Powers which are free from this domestic contamination. If the Northern Confederacy of America evinces a determination to act in a narrow, exclusive, and unsocial spirit, while its Southern competitor extends the hand of good fellowship to all mankind, with the exception of its own bondsmen, we must not be surprised to see the North, in spite of the goodness of its cause and the great negative merit of the absence of Slavery, sink into a secondary position, and lose the sympathy and regard of mankind."

This to Northern view, was a sad relapse from that high moral tone earlier addressed to the South notifying slave-holders that England would not "stultify the policy of half a century for the sake of an extended cotton trade[79]."

The Economist, with more consistency, still reported the violence and recklessness of the South, yet in logical argument proved to its own satisfaction the impossibility of Northern reconquest, and urged a peaceful separation[80]. The Spectator, even though pro-Northern, had at first small hope of reunion by force, and offered consolation in the thought that there would still remain a United States of America "strong, powerful and free; all the stronger for the loss of the Black South[81]." In short from all quarters the public press, whatever its sympathy, united in decrying war as a useless effort doomed to failure if undertaken in the hope of restoring the Union. Such public opinion, however, was not necessarily governmental opinion. The latter was indeed more slow to make up its mind and more considerate in expressing itself. When it became clear that in all probability the North would fight, there was still no conception, any more than in the United States itself, of the duration and intensity of the conflict. Indeed, Russell yet hoped, as late as the end of January, that no protracted war would occur. Nevertheless he was compelled to face the situation in its relation to British commerce.

On February 16, Russell addressed Lyons on that aspect of possible war which would at once call for a determination of British policy. "Above all things," he wrote, "endeavour to prevent a blockade of the Southern coast. It would produce misery, discord, and enmity incalculable[82]." Within a week Forster, a thorough friend of the North throughout the whole war, was interrogating the Ministry in the House of Commons in regard to the situation at Charleston, and expressing the hope that England would not in any way attempt to interfere[83]. This was the first reference in Parliament, its sittings but just renewed after the long vacation, to the American conflict, but British commercial interests were being forced to a keener attention, and already men in many circles were asking themselves what should be the proper governmental attitude; how soon this new Southern Confederacy could justly claim European recognition; how far and how fast European governments ought to go in acknowledging such a claim; what ought to be the proper policy and position of a neutral power; whether, indeed, a declaration of neutrality ought to be issued.

With these questions rapidly coming to the front, it became important for British statesmen to know something about the leaders in this new Southern movement, the attitude of the people in general, and the purposes of the new Government. Here, unfortunately, Lord Lyons could be no guide. The consuls in the South, however, were in a position to give their impressions. On February 28, 1861, Bunch wrote to Russell, describing the election of Davis and Stephens[84], to the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the Confederacy, and giving a personal characterization of many members of the Government. He was rather caustic. Davis, he said, was the only able man, and he, unfortunately, was a confirmed "manifest destiny" leader, so much so in fact that Bunch prophesied a renewal of filibustering when once the North had acquiesced in a Southern State and the fear of the North had passed. Bunch had no faith in any future greatness of the South, asserting that it would be a State despised among nations for its maintenance of slavery, and that it could not hope for any encouragement or sympathy from the humane nations of Europe; in fact, his entire characterization was wholly damning to the South. Yet it is to be noted that he never for a moment questioned that the South had already actually established its independence. This he seems to take for granted. Thus again, and from another quarter, there was presented the double difficulty of England in regard to the Civil War--the difficulty of reconciling sentiments of humanity long preached by Great Britain, with her commercial interests and her certainty that a new State was being born.

For men in the Northern Government Lyons was in a position to report, but up to the end of January he had not written in any great detail with regard to the new administration and its make-up, though on January 7, he had informed Russell that Seward would be the Secretary of State and had expressed the fear that with regard to Great Britain he would be "a dangerous Foreign Minister[85]." Lincoln was still in Illinois and the constituency of the Cabinet was yet uncertain, but Seward's voice was sure to be a powerful one. Occasionally Lyons found some opportunity to talk with him. On February 4, 1861, in an official letter to Russell, Lyons reported at length an interview with Seward, in which the latter had expressed his extreme confidence that the trouble in America was but superficial and that union sentiment in the South would soon prevail[86]. In a private letter of the same date, however, Lyons asserted that Seward was indeed likely to be a very dangerous Secretary of State. He had told Lyons that if European governments interfered to protect their commerce, he could unite America by a foreign war in order to resist such interference[87]. Again, on February 12, while himself expressing hope that a solution might be found for the difficulties in America, Lyons warned Russell that there were those who would solve these difficulties by a foreign war, especially if foreign governments refused to acknowledge a United States declaration without formal blockade closing the Southern ports[88]. Writing privately, Lyons exhibited great anxiety in regard to Seward's attitude and suggested that the best safeguard would be close union by England and France, for if these two governments took exactly the same stand in regard to trade, Seward would hardly dare to carry out his threat[89].

Lyons' letter of February 4 called out from Russell an instruction in which it was repeated that advice to either party should be withheld and a strictly neutral attitude maintained, and Russell concluded by an assertion that if the United States attempted a jingo policy toward England, the British Cabinet would be tolerant because of its feeling of strength but that "blustering demonstrations" must not be carried too far[90]. Even as early as December, 1860, Russell had foreseen the possibility of what he considered a mere jingo policy for home effect in America. Now, however, upon the repeated expression of fears from Lyons that this might be more than mere "bunkum," Russell began to instruct Lyons not to permit English dignity to be infringed, while at the same time desiring him to be cautious against stirring American antagonism. Lyons' earlier disquietude seems, indeed, to have passed away for a time, and on February 26 he wrote that everyone was waiting to see what Lincoln would do when inaugurated, that there was still hope of compromise, and that in his own view this was still possible. In this letter the tone is more important than the matter, and so far as Lyons is concerned the tone is all distinctly hopeful, all favourable to a resumption of normal relations between the North and South. He at least had no hope of disruption, and no happiness in it[91].

Before this communication could reach England Russell had thoroughly awakened to the seriousness of the American situation in relation to British foreign trade. On March 9, writing privately to Lyons, he stated, "I hope you are getting on well with the new President. If he blockades the Southern ports we shall be in a difficulty. But according to all American doctrine it must be an actual blockade kept up by an efficient force[92]." Thus, before any act had really occurred in America, the matter of a blockade was occupying the attention of British statesmen. One difficulty at the time was that there was no one in England qualified to speak for the new administration at Washington. Dallas, the American Minister appointed under the Buchanan administration, while, unlike some other diplomatic representatives abroad, faithful to the cause of the United States, was nevertheless not wholly trusted by Lincoln or by Seward, and was thus handicapped in representing to Russell American conditions or intentions. Indeed he had very little communication with Russell. Adams' nomination to England was known to Lyons on March 20, for on that day he telegraphed to Russell, "Mr. Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, is appointed Minister in London. I think it a very good appointment[93]." This news was received in London on April 2, but over six weeks were yet to elapse before Adams reached his post. The appointment of Adams, however, seemed to Lyons a matter of congratulation in his hope that no vicious anti-British policy would be indulged in by Seward. Ten days after his telegram, he wrote at length to Russell, making an excellent statement and analysis in regard to the character of Adams.

"Mr. Adams is son of John Quincy Adams, the fifth P. of the U.S., and grandson of John Adams, the second P. The grandfather was the first Am. minister in England. The father was one of the Plenipotentiaries who signed in London the Convention of the 3rd July, 1815. Mr. Adams as a member of the H. of R. for one of the districts of Mass., acted with the less violent section of the 'Republican' Party. During the last session of Congress he made a very remarkable speech on the state of the Union, denying the reasonableness of the complaints of the Southern States, but stating his desire that every concession not inconsistent with honour and principle should be made to them. He is considered to be a man of great independence of character, and has the reputation of being very tenacious of his own opinions. In manner he is quiet and unassuming. He is a man of good fortune. Mrs. Adams comes of a considerable family in Mass., of the name of Brooks. The late wife of Mr. Edward Everett, who, as your L. is aware, has held the offices of Minister in London and Secretary of State, was her sister[94]."

Similar characterizations were being forwarded at almost the same time by Bunch in regard to the Southern Commissioners, now being despatched to London, but they were not so favourable. Mann, wrote Bunch, was the son of a "bankrupt grocer." His personal character was "not good," yet he alone of the three Commissioners appointed had had diplomatic experience. Yancey, it was stated, was an able lawyer, a stirring orator, and a recognized leader of the secession movement, but he was also extremely pro-slavery in his views, had expressed himself in favour of a renewal of the slave trade, and throughout his career had been a "manifest destiny" man. Of Rost, Bunch had no knowledge. In conclusion Bunch described the extreme confidence expressed in the South in "King Cotton," and in rather bitter criticism stated that the Southern Commissioners thought even England, the foe of slavery, would now be compelled to bend the knee and recognize the South in order to get cotton[95].

The Northern British Consuls on the other hand took an astonishingly pro-Northern view of the whole situation. Archibald, consul at New York, wrote to Russell soon after the fall of Sumter, an exceedingly strong statement of his faith in the power of the North and its fixed and unalterable determination to force the South back into the Union, his confidence in Northern success, and his belief in the justice of the Northern cause. He ventured to suggest the proper policy for England to pursue, viz., to offer immediately her services in mediation but wholly and clearly on the side of the North. He stated that if England did not feel free to offer mediation, she should at least show "such a consistent and effective demonstration of sympathy and aid" for the North as would help in shortening the war[96]. The British Consul at Boston wrote to Russell in much the same vein. So far, indeed, did these men go in expressing their sympathy with the North, that Lyons, on April 27, commented to Russell that these consuls had "taken the Northern War Fever," and that he had mildly reproved Archibald[97].

With the inauguration of Lincoln on March 4, and the installation of Seward as Secretary of State, it was possible for Lyons to become more active in his efforts to prevent a disruption of British Trade. On March 20 he told Seward in a confidential conversation:

"... If the United States determined to stop by force so important a commerce as that of Great Britain with the cotton-growing States, I could not answer for what might happen.

"... It was, however, a matter of the greatest consequence to England to procure cheap cotton. If a considerable rise were to take place in the price of cotton, and British ships were to be at the same time excluded from the Southern Ports, an immense pressure would be put upon Her Majesty's Government to use all the means in their power to open those ports. If Her Majesty's Government felt it to be their duty to do so, they would naturally endeavour to effect their object in a manner as consistent as possible, first with their friendly feelings towards both Sections of this Country, and secondly with the recognized principles of International Law. As regards the latter point in particular, it certainly appeared that the most simple, if not the only way, would be to recognize the Southern Confederacy[98]."

This was plain speaking, and Lyons' threat of recognizing the South did not at the moment stir Seward to any retort. But five days later, on March 25, Lyons gave a dinner to Seward and a number of the foreign Ministers, and there Seward's violent talk about seizing any and all ships that tried to trade with the South, even if there was no blockade, made Lyons very anxious. As a host he diverted the conversation lest it become too acrimonious, but he himself told Seward

"... that it was really a matter so very serious that I was unwilling to discuss it; that his plan seemed to me to amount in fact to a paper blockade of the enormous extent of coast comprised in the seceding States; that the calling it an enforcement of the Revenue Laws appeared to me to increase the gravity of the measure, for it placed Foreign Powers in the dilemma of recognizing the Southern Confederation or of submitting to the interruption of their commerce[99]."

Lyons' advice to Russell was that no rebuff should be given the Southern Commissioners when they arrived in London, but that they be treated well. This, he thought, might open Seward's eyes to his folly. Still Lyons did not yet fully believe that Seward would be so vigorous as his language seemed to imply, and on March 29 he wrote that "prudent counsels" were in the ascendant, that there would be no interference with trade "at present," and that a quieter tone was everywhere perceptible in Washington[100].

From the point of view of the British Minister at Washington, the danger spot in relations between the United States and Great Britain lay in this matter of interference with trade to Southern ports. Naturally, and as in duty bound, he sought to preserve that trade. At first, indeed, he seems to have thought that even though a civil war really ensued the trade might continue uninterrupted. Certainly he bore hard and constantly on this one point, seeking to influence not only officials at Washington but the public press. Thus, in a letter to Bunch dated April 12, 1861, at a time when he knew that W.H. Russell, the Times correspondent, would shortly appear in Charleston, he instructed Bunch to remember that in talking to Russell he must especially impress him with the idea that any interruption of trade might and probably would result in a British recognition of the South. Lyons wrote, "... the only chance, if chance there still be of preventing an interruption of the English commerce with the S. is the fear entertained here, that it would lead to our recognizing the S.C.[101]" In these words is revealed, however, as in other communications from Lyons, the fact that he was striving to prevent an interruption of trade rather than that he was convinced such interruption ought to result in a British recognition of the South. Indeed, as will be seen, when the blockade was at last declared, Lyons thought it no cause for recognition and was most tolerant of its early ineffectiveness.

While Lyons was thus keeping in close touch with Seward, the relations between England and America at London were exceedingly meagre. All that the American Minister Dallas knew of Russell's intentions is summed up in his despatches to Seward of March 22 and April 9, 1861[102]. On the former date, he gave an account of an interview with Russell in which the latter simply refused to pledge himself against a recognition of the Confederacy; in the latter, presenting a long memorial written by Seward to all of the larger European Governments arguing in friendly spirit the cause of the North, Dallas reported that he drew from Russell merely a general expression of England's kindly feeling towards the United States and her hope that there might still be a peaceful solution. Russell again refused to make any pledge in regard to English policy. In this interview it was tacitly agreed that it would be better for Great Britain to await Adams' arrival before taking any definite action, or so at least Dallas understood Russell--though the latter later denied that any pledge of delay was given. There is no doubt, however, that in Russell's mind, whatever he might say to Dallas, the separation in America was an accomplished fact and the hope of Great Britain was centred upon the idea of a peaceful separation.

Up to and including April 1, indeed, Lyons had been reporting that no definite stand was yet being taken by the American Government. At the same time Russell was continuing his instructions to Lyons to recommend conciliation "but never to obtrude advice unasked[103]." Yet Russell was not wholly undisturbed by the reports of Seward's quarrelsome attitude, for in a private letter of the same date as the preceding, he wrote to Lyons, "I rely upon your wisdom, patience, and prudence, to steer us through the dangers of this crisis. If it can possibly be helped Mr. Seward must not be allowed to get us into a quarrel. I shall see the Southerners when they come, but not officially, and keep them at a proper distance[104]." It is an interesting query, whether this fear thus expressed of Seward's temper was not of distinct benefit to the United States at the moment when the Southern Commissioners arrived in England. The inference would seem to be clear, that in spite of Lyons' advice to treat them well, the effect upon Russell of Seward's attitude was to treat them coolly. Russell was indeed distinctly worried by Seward's unfriendly attitude.

In the meantime the British press and public, while still uncertain and divided as to the merits of the conflict were now substantially a unit in accepting separation as final. The Times, with judicial ponderosity declared: "The new nationality has been brought forth after a very short period of gestation.... and the Seceding States have now constituted themselves a nation[105] ..." At the other end of the scale in newspaper "tone," the London Press jeered at the Northern American eagle as having "had his tail pulled out and his wings clipped--yet the meek bird now holds out his claws to be pared, with a resignation that would be degrading in the most henpecked of domestic fowls[106]." Having now veered about to expressions of confidence in the permanency of the Southern Confederacy the Times was also compelled to alter its opinion of Southern Statesmen. An editorial gave high praise to the Confederate Congress sitting at Montgomery, stated its personnel to be far superior to that of the Congress at Washington, yet was unable to resist making the customary reference to manners traditionally American;

"With regard to the Congress itself, we cannot refrain from quoting the na?ve testimony of a visitor in its favour. 'Gentlemen here [Montgomery] who have spent much time in Washington city declare that they have never witnessed such industry, care, propriety, courtesy, and pleasant Congressional action. Not one member has appeared in his seat under the influence of liquors or wines, not a harsh word has been uttered in debate, and all exhibit the most unflagging energy and determination[107].'"

The most of the British press quickly followed the lead of the Times, forgot its previous dictum that the South was in the control of "ignorant ruffians," and dilated upon the statemanlike directness and sagacity of Southern leaders as contrasted with the stupidity of the North, displayed in its tariff policy[108]. A few journals thought that the North might eventually win in a prolonged struggle but that such a victory would be disastrous to the principles of federalism[109], and, in any case, that this civil war was one without "a noble cause to sustain either side[110]." By May nearly all the older journals were aligned on the right of the South to secede, and on the fact of a successful secession, though still differing as to the basic causes and essential justice involved. In this same month, however, there emerged a few vigorous champions of the Northern cause and prospects. In April the Spectator agreed that the Great Republic was at an end[111]; in May it urged the North to fight it out with hope, asserting a chance of ultimate victory because of superior resources and the sympathy of all European nations[112]. A small newspaper of limited circulation, the Morning Star, organ of John Bright, had from the first championed the Northern cause. Now, as the armed conflict broke in America, it was joined by a more important paper, the Daily News, which set itself the task of controverting the Times. Moreover the Daily News was all the more influential in that it was not uncritical of the North, yet consistently, throughout the war, expressed sympathy for the cause and principles behind the efforts of the Northern Government. Selling for a low price, twopence-halfpenny, the Daily News, like the Westminster among the Reviews, appealed to a broader and more popular constituency than the older publications, especially to a constituency not yet vocal, since still unrepresented, in Parliament[113].

The Daily News was fortunate in having, after 1862, the best-informed New York correspondent writing to the London press. This was an Irishman, E.L. Godkin, who, both at home and in America, was the intimate friend of literary men, and himself, later, a great moulder of public opinion[114]. Harriet Martineau further aided the Daily News by contributing pro-Northern articles, and was a power in Radical circles[115]. But literary England in general, was slow to express itself with conviction, though Robert Browning, by April, 1861, was firmly determined in his pro-Northern sentiment. In August he was writing in letters of the "good cause[116]." But Browning was a rare exception and it was not until the Civil War had been under way for many months that men of talent in the non-political world were drawn to make comment or to take sides. Their influence at the outset was negligible[117].

In spite of press utterances, or literary silence, alike indicative of a widespread conviction that Southern independence was assured, there still remained both in those circles where anti-slavery sentiment was strong, and in others more neutral in sympathy, a distaste for the newly-born State as the embodiment of a degrading institution. Lincoln's inaugural address denying an intention to interfere with slavery was a weapon for the friends of the South, but it could not wholly still that issue. Even in the Times, through the medium of W.H. Russell's descriptive letters, there appeared caustic criticisms. He wrote in his "Diary," "I declare that to me the more orderly, methodical, and perfect the arrangements for economizing slave labour ... are, the more hateful and odious does slavery become[118]," and in his letter of May 8, from Montgomery, having witnessed an auction sale of slaves he stated:

"I am neither sentimentalist nor Black Republican, nor negro worshipper, but I confess the sight caused a strange thrill through my heart. I tried in vain to make myself familiar with the fact that I could, for the sum of $975, become as absolutely the owner of that mass of blood, bones, sinew, flesh and brains as of the horse which stood by my side. There was no sophistry which could persuade me the man was not a man--he was, indeed, by no means my brother, but assuredly he was a fellow creature[119]."

This was hard printing for the Times, in its new advocacy of the South, and Russell's description was made much of by the Westminster Review and other publications that soon began to sound again the "issue" of slavery[120]. Yet the Westminster itself in the same article decried the folly of the Northern attempt at reconquest. So also thought even John Bright at the moment, when expressing himself privately to friends in America[121].

Slavery, then, still remained an issue before the British public, but of what use was it to upbraid the South, if a new world State were in fact born? And if a State in power, why not give it prompt recognition? The extreme British anti-slavery opponents feared that this was just what the Government was inclined to do, and with promptness. Here and there meetings were hurriedly called to protest against recognition[122]. This fear was unfounded. Neither in London nor at Washington was there any official inclination to hasten recognition. Lyons had held up to Seward the logic of such action, if British trade were illegally interfered with. By April 9 Lyons was aware that the so-called Radical Party in the Cabinet would probably have its way, that conciliation would no longer be attempted, and that a coercive policy toward the South was soon to follow. On that date he wrote to Russell stating that people in Washington seemed so convinced that Europe would not interfere to protect its trade that they were willing to venture any act embarrassing to that trade. He himself was still insisting, but with dwindling confidence, that the trade must not be interfered with under any circumstances. And in a second letter of this same date, he repeated to Russell his advice of treating the Southern Commissioners with deference. Any rebuff to them, he asserts again, will but increase the Northern confidence that they may do anything without provoking the resistance of England[123].

Like a good diplomat Lyons was merely pushing the argument for all it was worth, hoping to prevent an injury to his country, yet if that injury did come (provided it were sanctioned by the law of nations) he did not see in it an injury sufficient to warrant precipitate action by Great Britain. When indeed the Southern capture of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour finally brought the actual clash of arms, Lyons expressed himself with regard to other elements in the struggle previously neglected in his correspondence. On April 15 describing to Russell the fall of Sumter, he stated that civil war had at last begun. The North he believed to be very much more powerful than the South, the South more "eager" and united as yet, but, he added, "the taint of slavery will render the cause of the South loathsome to the civilized world." It was true that "commercial intercourse with the cotton States is of vital importance to manufacturing nations[124]...." but Lyons was now facing an actual situation rather than a possible one, and as will be seen later, he soon ceased to insist that an interruption of this "commercial intercourse" gave reasonable ground for recognition of the South.

With the fall of Fort Sumter and the European recognition that a civil war was actually under way in America, a large number of new and vexing problems was presented to Russell. His treatment of them furnishes the subject matter of later chapters. For the period previous to April, 1861, British official attitude may be summed up in the statement that the British Minister at Washington hoped against hope that some solution might be found for the preservation of the Union, but that at the same time, looking to future British interests and possibly believing also that his attitude would tend to preserve the Union, he asserted vehemently the impossibility of any Northern interference with British trade to Southern ports. Across the water, Russell also hoped faintly that there might be no separation. Very soon, however, believing that separation inevitable and the disruption of the Union final, he fixed his hope on peaceful rather than warlike secession. Even of this, however, he had little real expectation, but neither he nor anyone else in England, nor even in America, had any idea that the war would be a long and severe one. It is evident that he was already considering the arrival of that day when recognition must be granted to a new, independent and slave-holding State. But this estimate of the future is no proof that the Russian Ambassador's accusation of British governmental pleasure in American disruption was justified[125]. Russell, cautious in refusing to pledge himself to Dallas, was using exactly such caution as a Foreign Secretary was bound to exercise. He would have been a rash man who, in view of the uncertainty and irresolution of Northern statesmen, would have committed Great Britain in March, 1861, to a definite line of policy.

On April 6, Russell was still instructing Lyons to recommend reconciliation. April 8, Dallas communicated to Russell an instruction from Seward dated March 9, arguing on lines of "traditional friendship" against a British recognition of the Confederacy. Russell again refused to pledge his Government, but on April 12 he wrote to Lyons that British Ministers were "in no hurry to recognize the separation as complete and final[126]." In the early morning of that same day the armed conflict in America had begun, and on the day following, April 13, the first Southern victory had been recorded in the capture of Fort Sumter. The important question which the man at the head of the British Foreign Office had now immediately to decide was, what was to be England's attitude, under international law, toward the two combatants in America. In deciding this question, neither sentiment nor ideals of morality, nor humanitarianism need play any part; England's first need and duty were to determine and announce for the benefit of her citizens the correct position, under International law, which must be assumed in the presence of certain definite facts.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Dr. Newton asserts that at the end of the 'fifties Great Britain made a sharp change of policy. (Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, Vol. II, p. 283.)

[32] Thomas Colley Grattan, Civilized America, 2 vols. 2nd ed., London, 1859, Vol. I, pp. 284-87. The first edition was printed in 1859 and a third in 1861. In some respects the work is historically untrustworthy since internal evidence makes clear that the greater part of it was written before 1846, in which year Grattan retired from his post in Boston. In general he wrote scathingly of America, and as his son succeeded to the Boston consulship, Grattan probably thought it wiser to postpone publication. I have found no review of the work which treats it otherwise than as an up-to-date description of 1859. This fact and its wide sale in England in 1860-61, give the work importance as influencing British knowledge and opinions.

[33] Charles Mackay, Life and Liberty in America: or, Sketches of a Tour in the United States and Canada in 1857-8, one vol., New York, 1859, pp. 316-17. Mackay was at least of sufficient repute as a poet to be thought worthy of a dinner in Boston at which there were present, Longfellow, Holmes, Agassiz, Lowell, Prescott, Governor Banks, and others. He preached "hands across the seas" in his public lectures, occasionally reading his poem "John and Jonathan"--a sort of advance copy of Kipling's idea of the "White Man's Burden." Mackay's concluding verse, "John" speaking, was:

"And I have strength for nobler work

Than e'er my hand has done,

And realms to rule and truths to plant

Beyond the rising sun.

Take you the West and I the East;

We'll spread ourselves abroad,

With trade and spade and wholesome laws,

And faith in man and God."

[34] Duncan, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, Vol. I, p. 140.

[35] R.C. Hamilton, Manuscript Chapters and Notes on "The English Press and the Civil War." Mr. Hamilton was at work on this subject, as a graduate student, but left Stanford University before completing his thesis. His notes have been of considerable value, both for suggested citations from the English Press, and for points of interpretation.

[36] Economist, November 24, 1860. Six months later, however, the Economist pictured Lincoln as merely an unknown "sectionalist," with no evidence of statesmanship--Economist, June 1, 1861.

[37] Saturday Review, November 24, 1860.

[38] Spectator, November 24, 1860.

[39] The Times, November 26, 1860.

[40] Ibid., November 29, 1860.

[41] Ibid.

[42] R.L. Duffus, "Contemporary English Popular Opinion on the American Civil War," p. 2. A thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Stanford University, 1911. This thesis is in manuscript. It is a valuable study of the Reviews and of the writings of men of letters. Hereafter cited as Duffus "English Opinion."

[43] The Times, January 12, 1861.

[44] Saturday Review, January 12, 1861.

[45] Economist, December 8, 1860. Spectator, January 19, 1861.

[46] Spectator, December 1, 1860. Times, January 29, 1861. Economist, May 25, 1861.

[47] Saturday Review, January 19, 1861.

[48] Edinburgh Review, Vol. 112, p. 545.

[49] Lyons Papers.

[50] Russell, My Diary North and South, Boston, 1863, p. 134. "Then cropped out again the expression of regret for the rebellion of 1776, and the desire that if it came to the worst, England would receive back her erring children, or give them a prince under whom they could secure a monarchical form of government. There is no doubt about the earnestness with which these things are said." Russell's Diary is largely a condensation of his letters to the Times. In the letter of April 30, 1861 (published May 28), he dilates to the extent of a column on the yearning of South Carolina for a restoration of colonial relations. But Consul Bunch on December 14, 1860, reported a Charleston sentiment very different from that of the Jockey Club in February. He wrote to Lyons:

"The church bells are ringing like mad in celebration of a

newly revived festival, called 'Evacuation Day,' being the

nefastus ille dies in which the bloody Britishers left

Charleston 78 years ago. It has fallen into utter disuse for

about 50 years, but is now suddenly resuscitated apropos de

nothing at all."

In this same letter Bunch described a Southern patriotic demonstration. Returning to his home one evening, he met a military company, which from curiosity he followed, and which

"drew up in front of the residence of a young lawyer of my

friends, after performing in whose honour, through the medium

of a very brassy band, a Secession Schottische or Palmetto

Polka, it clamorously demanded his presence. After a very

brief interval he appeared, and altho' he is in private life

an agreeable and moderately sensible young man, he succeeded,

to my mind at any rate, in making most successfully, what Mr.

Anthony Weller calls 'an Egyptian Mummy of his self.' the

amount of balderdash and rubbish which he evacuated (dia

stomatos) about mounting the deadly breach, falling back

into the arms of his comrades and going off generally in a

blaze of melodramatic fireworks, really made me so unhappy

that I lost my night's rest. So soon as the speech was over

the company was invited into the house to 'pour a libation to

the holy cause'--in the vernacular, to take a drink and spit

on the floor."

Evidently Southern eloquence was not tolerable to the ears of the British consul. Or was it the din of the church bells rather than the clamour of the orator, that offended him? (Lyons Papers.)

[51] Edinburgh Review, Vol. 113, p. 555.

[52] The Times, January 4, 1861.

[53] Letter to Dublin News, dated January 26, 1861. Cited in The Liberator, March 1, 1861. Garrison, editor of The Liberator, was then earnest in advocating "letting the South go in peace" as a good riddance.

[54] Saturday Review, March 2, 1861, p. 216.

[55] London Chronicle, March 14, 1861. Cited in The Liberator, April 12, 1861.

[56] London Review, April 20, 1861. Cited in Littel's Living Age, Vol. LXIX, p. 495. The editor of the Review was a Dr. Mackay, but I have been unable to identify him, as might seem natural from his opinions, as the Mackay previously quoted (p. 37) who was later New York correspondent of the Times.

[57] Matthew Arnold, Letters, Vol. I., p. 150. Letter to Mrs. Forster, January 28, 1861.

[58] Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife, Vol. II, pp. 271-78. Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, Vol. II, pp. 439 seq.

[59] Quarterly Review, Vol. 110, p. 282. July, 1861.

[60] Duffus, "English Opinion," p. 7.

[61] Westminster, Vol. LXXX, p. 587.

[62] Adams' course was bitterly criticized by his former intimate friend, Charles Sumner, but the probable purpose of Adams was, foreseeing the certainty of secession, to exhibit so strongly the arrogance and intolerance of the South as to create greater unity of Northern sentiment. This was a purpose that could not be declared and both at home and abroad his action, and that of other former anti-slavery leaders, for the moment weakened faith that the North was in earnest on the general issue of slavery.

[63] Services rendered by Russia to the American People during the War of the Rebellion, Petersburg, 1904, p. 5.

[64] Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV, "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States," No. 1.

[65] Ibid., No. 6. Russell to Lyons, December 26, 1860.

[66] Ibid., Russell to Lyons, No. 9, January 5, 1861, and No. 17, February 20, 1861.

[67] Parliamentary Papers, 1861, Lords, Vol. XVIII. Correspondence with U.S. Government respecting suspension of Federal Customs House at the Port of Charleston. Nos. 1 and 3.

[68] Lyons Papers. Lyons to Bunch, December 12, 1860.

[69] Ibid., The same day official instructions were sent permitting Bunch to remain at Charleston, but directing him, if asked to recognize South Carolina, to refer the matter to England. F.O., Am., Vol. 754, No. 6. Russell to Lyons, January 10, 1861.

[70] Lyons Papers. Russell to Lyons, January 22, 1861.

[71] This view was not shared by Lyons' colleagues at Washington. The Russian Minister, Stoeckl, early declared the Union permanently destroyed, and regretting the fact, yet hoped the North would soon accept the inevitable and seek close co-operation with the South in commerce and in foreign relations. This view was repeated by him many times and most emphatically as late as the first month of 1863. (Russian Archives, Stoeckl to F.O., January 29-February 10, 1863. No. 342.) It was not until September, 1863, that Stoeckl ventured to hope for a Northern reconquest of the South. I am indebted to Dr. Frank A. Golder, of Stanford University, for the use of his notes and transcripts covering all of the Russian diplomatic correspondence with the United States, 1860-1865. In the occasional use made of this material the English translation is mine.

[72] Stoeckl reported that at a dinner with Lyons, at which he, Mercier and Seward were the guests, Seward had asserted that if Civil War came all foreign commerce with the South would be interrupted. To this Lyons protested that England could not get along without cotton and that she would secure it in one way or another. Seward made no reply. (Ibid., March 25-April 9, 1861, No. 810.)

[73] Economist, January 12, 1861.

[74] Ibid., February 23, 1861.

[75] London Press, March 23, 1861. Cited in Littell's Living Age, Vol. LXIX, p. 438.

[76] Before Adams' selection as Minister to England was decided upon, Sumner's Massachusetts friends were urging him for the place. Longfellow was active in this interest. H.W. Longfellow, by Samuel Longfellow, Vol. II, pp. 412-13.

[77] John Bright later declared "his conviction that the leading journal had not published one fair, honourable, or friendly article toward the States since Lincoln's accession to office." Dasent, Life of Delane, Vol. II, p. 38. The time is approximately correct, but the shift in policy began earlier, when it came to be feared that the North would not submit to peaceable secession.

[78] Bigelow, Retrospections, Vol. I, pp. 344-45.

[79] See ante, p. 40.

[80] Economist, March 2, 1861.

[81] Spectator, March 16, 1861.

[82] Lyons Papers.

[83] Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXI, p. 814. February 22, 1861. William E. Forster was of Quaker descent and had early taken part in public meetings called to express humanitarian sentiment. From 1850 on he was an acceptable public speaker in all matters liberal, as free trade, social reform, and anti-slavery. Elected to Parliament in 1859 and again in 1861 from Bradford, where he was engaged in business as a woollen manufacturer, he sought, after the fashion of new Members, a cause to represent and found it in championship of the North. Having great native ability, as shown by his later distinguished career, it was the good fortune of the United States thus to enlist so eager a champion. Forster and John Bright were the two leading "friends of the North" in Parliament. The latter already had established reputation, but was more influential out of Parliament than in it. Forster, with a reputation to make, showed skill in debate, and soon achieved prestige for himself and his American cause. Henry Adams, son and private secretary of the American Minister to England, once told the writer that he regarded Forster's services as, on the whole, the most valuable rendered by any Englishman to the North.

[84] F.O., Am., Vol. 780, No. 30.

[85] Newton, Lord Lyons, Vol. I, p. 30.

[86] F.O., Am., Vol. 760, No. 40.

[87] Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, February 4, 1861.

[88] F.O., Am., Vol. 760, No. 59.

[89] Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, February 12, 1861.

[90] Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States," No. 17. Russell to Lyons, February 20, 1861.

[91] F.O., Am., Vol. 761, No. 78. Received March 11. It is curious that in the first period of the war Lyons made no extended characterization of Lincoln. Probably his contacts with the new President were insufficient to justify it. The first record of personal impressions was that made by W.H. Russell and later printed in his "Diary" but not reproduced in his letters to the Times. Russell was taken to the White House. "Soon afterwards there entered, with a shambling, loose, irregular, almost unsteady gait, a tall, lank, lean man, considerably over six feet in height, with stooping shoulders, long pendulous arms, terminating in hands of extraordinary dimensions, which, however, were far exceeded in proportion by his feet.... The impression produced by the size of his extremities, and by his flapping and wide-projecting ears, may be removed by the appearance of kindliness, sagacity, and awkward bonhomie of his face ... eyes dark, full, and deeply set, are penetrating, but full of an expression which almost amounts to tenderness.... A person who met Mr. Lincoln in the street would not take him to be what--according to usages of European society--is called a 'gentleman' ... but, at the same time, it would not be possible for the most indifferent observer to pass him in the street without notice."--My Diary, I, pp. 37-8.

[92] Lyons Papers.

[93] F.O., Am., Vol. 761.

[94] F.O., Am., Vol. 762, No. 122. March 30, 1861. Received April 16.

[95] F.O., Am., Vol. 780, No. 37. March 21, 1861. Received April 9.

[96] F.O., Am., Vol. 778, No. 26. April 24, 1861.

[97] Russell Papers.

[98] Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, March 26, 1861. Printed in Newton, Lord Lyons, Vol. I., p. 31.

[99] Ibid.

[100] Russell Papers.

[101] Lyons Papers.

[102] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, pp, 80-81.

[103] F.O., Am., Vol. 754, No. 79. Russell to Lyons, April 6, 1861.

[104] Lyons Papers, Russell to Lyons, April 6, 1861.

[105] The Times, February 26, 1861.

[106] London Press, March 30, 1861, Cited in Littell's Living Age, Vol. 69, p. 379.

[107] The Times, March 26, 1861.

[108] Saturday Review, May 11, 1861, pp. 465-6.

[109] Economist, May 4, 1861.

[110] Examiner, January 5 and (as quoted) April 27, 1861. Cited in Littell's Living Age, Vol. 68, p. 758 and Vol. 69, p. 570.

[111] Spectator, April 27, 1861.

[112] Ibid., May 4, 1861.

[113] These four publications, the Spectator, the Westminster, the Daily News, and the Morning Star, were the principal British pro-Northern organs. In addition The Liberator names among the lesser and provincial press the following: Nonconformist, British Standard, Dial, Birmingham Post, Manchester Examiner, Newcastle Chronicle, Caledonian Mercury and Belfast Whig. Duffus, "English Opinion," p. 40.

[114] Godkin had joined the staff of the Daily News in 1853. During the Crimea War he was special war correspondent. He had travelled extensively in America in the late 'fifties and was thoroughly well informed. From 1862 to 1865 his letters to the Daily News were of great value in encouraging the British friends of the North. In 1865 Godkin became editor of the New York Nation.

[115] W.E. Forster said of her, "It was Harriet Martineau alone who was keeping English opinion about America on the right side through the Press." The Daily News Jubilee Edition, p. 46.

[116] James, William Wetmore Story and His Friends, Vol. II, p. 92.

[117] Moncure D. Conway's Autobiography asserts that two-thirds of the English authors "espoused the Union cause, some of them actively--Professor Newman, Mill, Tom Hughes, Sir Charles Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall, Swinburne, Lord Houghton, Cairns, Fawcett, Frederic Harrison, Leslie Stephen, Allingham, the Rossettis," Vol. I, p. 406. This is probably true of ultimate, though not of initial, interest and attitude. But for many writers their published works give no clue to their opinions on the Civil War--as for example the works of Dickens, Thackeray, William Morris, or Ruskin. See Duffus, "English Opinion," p. 103.

[118] Russell, My Diary, I, p. 398.

[119] The Times, May 30, 1861.

[120] Westminster Review, Vol. 76, pp. 487-509, October, 1861.

[121] Bright to Sumner, September 6, 1861. Cited in Rhodes, United States, Vol. III, p. 509.

[122] A meeting held in Edinburgh, May 9, 1861, declared that anti-slavery England ought never to recognize the South. Reported in Liberator, May 31, 1861.

[123] F.O., Am., Vol. 762, Nos. 141 and 142.

[124] Ibid., No. 146.

[125] See ante, pp. 50-51.

[126] Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." Nos. 24, 25 and 26.

* * *

In June, 1859, a short-lived Conservative Government under the leadership of Lord Derby had been replaced by a "coalition" Liberal Government, at the head of which stood Palmerston, but so constituted that almost equal influence was attributed to the Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell. Both men had previously held the Premiership, and, as they represented different wings of the Whig-Liberal party, it was prophesied by political wiseacres that personal friction would soon lead to a new disruption. Nor were the possible elements of discord confined to these two.

Gladstone, formerly a Peelite Tory, and for a time uncertain whether to return to the Tory fold or to join the Liberals, had yielded to Palmerston's promise of a free hand in financial matters, and had joined the Ministry as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Opposed to him in a certain sense, as the rival claimant for political leadership among the younger group, was Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Home Secretary until July, 1861, thereafter until his death in April, 1863, Secretary for War. Acting in some degree as intermediary and conciliator between these divergent interests stood Lord Granville, President of Council, then a "Conservative-Liberal," especially valuable to the Cabinet for the confidence reposed in him by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

In 1861 Palmerston was seventy-seven years old. Long before this he had built his popularity upon a vigorous British "patriotism," assertive of England's honour and jealous for British advantage. Now, however, as head of a Government requiring the most delicate handling to maintain itself, he devoted his energies to details of political management in which he had great skill. His ambition was, primarily, to retain office, and in this purpose he was fortunate because, unknown to his ministerial colleagues, he had received an indirect pledge from Lord Derby, the Opposition leader, that there would be, for a time at least, no determined effort to unseat him so long as his Ministry brought forward no Bill for a further expansion of the franchise. In the unwillingness to make any further adventure toward an expanded democracy Palmerston was wholly at one with Derby. Of like opinion, though less strongly so, was Russell, whose popular nickname, "Finality John," gained by his assertion that the Reform Bill of 1832 was England's last step toward democracy, sufficiently indicates his stand on the franchise question. In fact every member of the Cabinet belonged to the "Conservative-Liberal" group, though with shades of political faith, and none were really Liberals--far less Radicals. The outspoken Radicals in Parliament, like John Bright, and his friend Cobden, who had refused to take office under Palmerston, gave a lukewarm support to the Ministry, but would not pledge themselves to steadfast adherence. They had hopes of Gladstone, believed that he would ultimately come into their group, but meanwhile watched with anxiety his delighted immersion, as indeed Palmerston desired it, in the details of financial management to the exclusion of other questions.

The matter of ministerial and general British attitude toward democracy as affecting British policy during the American Civil War will be considered in a later chapter. In the spring of 1861 it had not become a clear-cut British opinion and did not, so far as historical evidence can determine, affect early governmental policy toward America. The outstanding feature of the British Government in 1861 is that it was made up of various so-called "Liberal" elements, the representatives of each of which carried on the business of his own department much as he pleased. Palmerston's was, of course, the deciding opinion, whenever he cared to express it, but this he did but rarely. His great concern was to keep his all-star associates running smoothly together and thus to give no occasion for parliamentary criticism and attack. It followed that Russell, eight years the junior of Palmerston, was in foreign affairs more powerful and independent than is customary. Indeed the Government was at times spoken of as the "Palmerston-Russell Ministry." These two were the leaders of the team; next came Gladstone and Cornewall Lewis, rivals of the younger generation, and each eager to lead when their elders should retire from harness. Gladstone's great ability was already recognized, but his personal political faith was not yet clear. Lewis, lacking his rival's magnetic and emotional qualities, cold, scholarly, and accurate in performance, was regarded as a statesman of high promise[127]. Other Cabinet members, as is the custom of coalitions, were more free in opinion and action than in a strict party ministry where one dominating personality imposes his will upon his colleagues.

Lord John Russell, then, in foreign policy, was more than the main voice of the Government; rather, save in times of extreme crisis, governmental foreign policy was Russell's policy. This was even more true as regards American than European affairs, for the former were little understood, and dependence was necessarily placed upon the man whose business it was to be familiar with them. Indeed there was little actual parliamentary or governmental interest, before midsummer of 1861, in the American question, attention in foreign affairs being directed toward Italian expansion, to the difficulties related to the control of the Ionian islands, and to the developing Danish troubles in Schleswig-Holstein. Neither did the opposition party venture to express a policy as regards America. Lord Derby, able but indolent, occasionally indulged in caustic criticism, but made no attempt to push his attack home. Malmesbury, his former Foreign Secretary, was active and alert in French affairs, but gave no thought to relations across the Atlantic[128]. Disraeli, Tory leader in the Commons, skilfully led a strong minority in attacks on the Government's policy, but never on the American question, though frequently urged to do so by the friends of the South. In short for the first year of the Civil War, 1861, the policy of Great Britain toward America was the policy of Lord John Russell, unhampered by friend or foe.

This being the case, what did Russell know about the American crisis? Briefly, no more than has already been stated as derived from the reports of British officials in the United States, and from the pages of the public press. The salient facts known to Russell were few. Lincoln's Cabinet had been named. Lincoln himself was absolutely an unknown quantity, but it was unbelievable that a man of his origins and history could be more than a mere figurehead--an opinion then held as widely in America as in England. But someone must determine American policy, and by universal consent, this would be Seward.

The new Secretary of State was at the moment better known in England than any other American statesman, with the possible exception of Charles Sumner, whose visits and personal contacts had established a circle of British friendships. Both men were accepted as champions of anti-slavery, Sumner for his vigorous denunciations and his so-called "martyrdom" under the physical violence of the South Carolinan, Brooks; and Seward for his clever political anti-Southern leadership in the United States Senate. But Seward's reputation in this respect was offset by the belief that he was anti-British in his personal sentiments, or at least that he was very ready to arouse for political ends the customary anti-British sentiment of his Irish constituents in the State of New York. In 1860, on the occasion of the visit to the United States of the Prince of Wales, Seward is alleged to have stated to the Duke of Newcastle that in case he became Secretary of State it would then "become my duty to insult England, and I mean to do so"--a threat, whether jocose or not, that aroused much serious and anxious speculation in British governmental circles[129]. Moreover Seward's reputation was that of a wily, clever politician, rather unscrupulous in methods which British politicians professed to disdain--a reputation serving to dim somewhat, as indeed it did in America also, the sincere idealisms and patriotism of the statesman. Altogether, Seward was regarded in Great Britain as a rather dangerous man, yet as the inevitable guiding power in the new Republican administration.

This estimate was shared by many in the United States also, but not by all. The new American Minister to London, Charles Francis Adams, himself a most stiffly upright politician, both regarded Seward as the only possible leader of Republican party policy and rejoiced that this was so, having great confidence in his chief's integrity and wisdom. Adams himself was well suited to his new post. He was known as having early in 1849 fought the battle of anti-slavery as a "Free Soil Whig," and later as a leading Republican member of Congress from Massachusetts. Principally, however, he was suited to his post by education, family, and character. He had been taken as a boy to Russia during his father's ministry at St. Petersburg, and later had been educated in England. His father and grandfather, John Quincy Adams and John Adams, both Presidents of the United States, had both, also, been American Ministers at London. Intensely patriotic, but having wide acquaintance through training and study with European affairs, especially those of Britain, and equipped with high intellectual gifts, Adams was still further fitted to his new post by his power of cool judgment and careful expression in critical times. His very coolness, sometimes appearing as coldness and stiff dignity, rendered him an especially fit agent to deal with Russell, a man of very similar characteristics. The two men quickly learned to respect and esteem each other, whatever clash arose in national policies.

But meanwhile Adams, in April, 1861, was not yet arrived in London. The Southern Government organized at Montgomery, Alabama, but soon transferred to Richmond, Virginia, was headed by Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander Stephens as Vice-President. Neither man was well known in England, though both had long been prominent in American politics. The little British information on Davis, that he had served in the United States Senate and as a Cabinet member, seemed to indicate that he was better fitted to executive duties than his rival, Lincoln. But Davis' foreign policy was wholly a matter for speculation, and his Cabinet consisted of men absolutely unknown to British statesmen. In truth it was not a Cabinet of distinction, for it was the misfortune of the South that everywhere, as the Civil War developed, Southern gentlemen sought reputation and glory in the army rather than in political position. Nor did President Davis himself ever fully grasp the importance to the South of a well-considered and energetic foreign policy. At first, indeed, home controversy compelled anxious attention to the exclusion of other matters. Until war cemented Southern patriotism, Davis, himself regarded as an extremist, felt it necessary in denial of an asserted unreasonableness of personal attitude, to appoint to office men known for their earlier moderate opinions on both slavery and secession[130]. "The single exception to this general policy[131]" was the appointment as agents to Europe of Yancey, Rost and Mann, all of them extreme pro-slavery men and eager secessionists. Of these Mann was the only one with any previous diplomatic experience. Yancey's choice was particularly inappropriate, for he at least was known abroad as the extreme fire-eating Southern orator, demanding for ten years past, that Southern action in defence of states rights and Southern "interests," which now, at last, the South was attempting[132].

Yancey and Rost, starting on their journey on March 16, reached London on April 29[133]. Meanwhile in this same month of April, conditions in America, so long confused and uncertain, were being rapidly clarified. The South, earlier than the North, had come to a determined policy, for while during January and February, at the Montgomery convention, there had been uncertainty as to actively applying the doctrinaire right of secession, by March the party of action had triumphed, and though there was still talk of conferences with the North, and commissioners actually appointed, no real expectation existed of a favourable result. In the North, the determination of policy was more slowly developed. Lincoln was not inaugurated until March 4, and no positive pronouncement was earlier possible. Even after that date uncertainty still prevailed. European correspondents were reporting men like Sumner as willing to let the South go in peace. The Mayor of New York City was discussing the advisability of a separate secession by that financial centre from Nation and State alike--and of setting up as a "free town." Seward, just appointed Secretary of State, was repudiating in both official and private talk any intention to coerce the South by force of arms[134]. It is no wonder that British statesmen were largely at sea over the American situation.

But on April 13, 1861, the Stars and Stripes floating over Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour was lowered in surrender of a Federal fortress under the armed attack of the newly-born Confederacy. That event drove away as by magic the uncertainty of the North, and removed the last vestiges of Southern doubt. A great wave of militant patriotism swept over both sections[135]. Hurriedly both North and South prepared for war, issuing calls for volunteers and organizing in all accustomed warlike preparations. The news of Sumter reached London on April 27, and that civil war seemed certain was known on April 29. On April 17, Davis, since the South lacked a navy, approved a proclamation offering to issue letters of marque and reprisal. On April 19 Lincoln proclaimed a Northern intention to treat as pirates any privateers acting under such letters, and also gave notice of a blockade of Southern ports, to be instituted later. Thus suddenly, so it seemed to British officials and public after the long delay and uncertainty of months, events in America had precipitated a state of war, though in fact there were still to elapse other months in which both North and South laboured to transform a peaceful society into one capable of waging effective battle.

The result of this sudden change in the American horizon was to alter, almost as quickly, the previous delay in outlining a British policy, though, presumably, the British Government, while waiting the turn of events, had given careful consideration to the steps required of it in just such a situation as had now arisen. Certainly both Lyons and Russell had been deeply anxious for some time, and had visualized a proper British policy. The movement in Great Britain now became rapid. On April 29, Malmesbury, in the Lords, spoke of the news of civil war which had arrived "this morning," and asked if the Government had tried to prevent it, or had set on foot negotiations with other powers to check it. Wodehouse, replying for the Government, stated that the United States as an independent State would have resented any suggestions from Great Britain, and that Lyons had been instructed to be extremely careful about offering advice unless "asked for by the contending parties themselves." Both speakers commented on the "ties of blood" rendering Britain especially anxious in this American quarrel, and regretted the conflict[136]. Malmesbury's query as to the approach to another government, meaning France, was evaded. That some such approach, in accordance with the earlier advice of Lyons[137], had already been made, is evident from the fact that three days later, on May 1, Dallas learned from Russell of the plan of joint action with France, though what that action would be was not made clear[138]. As Dallas' report was soon the basis of an American complaint shortly to be considered, the paragraph referring to this matter is important:

"The solicitude felt by Lord John Russell as to the effect of certain measures represented as likely to be adopted by the President induced him to request me to call at his private residence yesterday. I did so. He told me that the three representatives of the Southern confederacy were here[139]; that he had not seen them, but was not unwilling to do so, unofficially; that there existed an understanding between this government and that of France which would lead both to take the same course as to recognition, whatever that course might be; and he then referred to the rumour of a meditated blockade of Southern ports and their discontinuance as ports of entry--topics on which I had heard nothing. But as I informed him that Mr. Adams had apprised me of his intention to be on his way hither, in the steamship 'Niagara,' which left Boston on the 1st May, and that he would probably arrive in less than two weeks, by the 12th or 15th instant, his lordship acquiesced in the expediency of disregarding mere rumour, and waiting the full knowledge to be brought by my successor. The motion, therefore, of Mr. Gregory may be further postponed, at his lordship's suggestion."

May 3rd, Russell held an unofficial interview with the two Southern commissioners in fact arrived, Yancey and Rost. As reported by them[140], Russell listened with attention to their representation, but made no informing comment. They argued the constitutional right of secession, depicted the firm determination of the South, were confident of early acquiescence by the North, and especially laid stress on the Southern desire for free trade. Russell's own report to Lyons on this interview and on one held six days later, May 9, is in substantial agreement, but much more is made by him than by the Commissioners of a question put by Russell as to a Southern plan of reviving the African slave-trade[141]. Yancey and Rost denied this and asserted "that they had prohibited the slave-trade, and did not mean to revive it." Their report to Richmond does not depict this matter as of special significance in the interview; Russell's report to Lyons lays stress upon it. The general result of the interview was that Russell listened, but refused, as to Dallas, to make any pledge on recognition. But the Southern Commissioners came away with a feeling of confidence and were content to wait on British action[142].

On this same day, May 3, Russell received from the Attorney-General a memorandum in reply to a query as to recognizing the belligerency of the South and as to the right of the South to issue letters of marque and reprisal. The memorandum notes that Southern privateering would be dangerous to British commerce with the North, but sees no help for it. "The best solution," wrote the Attorney-General, "would be for the European nations to determine that the war between the two Confederacies shall be carried on on the principles of 'Justum Bellum,' and shall be conducted according to the rules of the Treaty of Paris. Recognize the Southern States as a Belligerent on this condition only[143]." The next day, referring to this memorandum, Russell wrote Lyons that the law officers "are of opinion that we must consider the Civil War in America as regular war[144]," but he does not comment on the legal advice to press the South to abandon privateering before recognizing her belligerent rights, for this is the only meaning that can be attached to the last sentence quoted from the Attorney-General's memorandum. This advice, however, in view of the opinion that there was "no help for it," was presumably but a suggestion as to a possible diplomatic manoeuvre with little confidence that it would succeed. The "best solution" was not the probable one, for the South, without a navy, would not readily yield its only naval weapon.

In these few days British policy was rapidly matured and announced. The letter of May 4 to Lyons, stating the Civil War to be a "regular war" was followed on May 6 by a formal instruction giving Lyons advance notice of the determination reached by the Cabinet to recognize the belligerent rights of the South. Russell indulged in many expressions of regret and sympathy, but Lyons was not to conceal that this British action represented the Government's view of the actualities of the American situation. Yet while Lyons was not to conceal this opinion he was not instructed to notify Seward, officially, of the recognition of Southern belligerency[145]. Here was a correct understanding of the difficulty of the diplomatic position at Washington, and a permitted avoidance by Lyons of dangerous ground[146]. Russell was not then aware of the tenacity with which Seward was to cling to a theory, not yet clearly formulated for foreign governments, that the Civil War was a rebellion of peoples rather than a conflict of governments, but he does appear to have understood the delicacy of formal notification to the constituted government at Washington[147]. Moreover his instructions were in line with the British policy of refusing, at present, a recognition of Southern sovereignty.

On the same day, May 6, a copy of the instructions to Lyons was sent to Cowley, British Ambassador at Paris, directing him to request France to join, promptly, in recognizing Southern belligerent rights. Cowley was also instructed that the blockade and privateering required precautions by European governments, and it was suggested that France and England unite in requesting both belligerents to accede to the second and third articles of the Declaration of Paris[148]. These articles refer to the exemption from capture, except contraband, of enemy's goods under a neutral flag, and of neutral goods under an enemy's flag[149]. This day, also, Russell stated in Parliament that England was about to recognize the belligerent rights of the South, and spoke of the measure as a necessary and inevitable one. May 7, Cowley notified Russell that Thouvenel, the French Foreign Minister, was in complete agreement with England's policy[150], and on May 9, in a more extended communication, Cowley sent word of Thouvenel's suggestion that both powers issue a declaration that they "intended to abstain from all interference," and that M. de Flahault, French Ambassador at London, had been given instructions to act in close harmony with Russell[151].

The rapidity of movement in formulating policy in the six days from May 1 to May 6, seems to have taken the British public and press somewhat by surprise, for there is a lack of newspaper comment even after Russell's parliamentary announcement of policy on the last-named date. But on May 9 the Times set the fashion of general approval in an editorial stating that Great Britain was now coming to see the American conflict in a new light--as a conflict where there were in fact no such ideals involved as had been earlier attributed to it. Southern rights were now more clearly understood, and in any case since war, though greatly to be regretted, was now at hand, it was England's business to keep strictly out of it and to maintain neutrality[152]. This generalization was no doubt satisfactory to the public, but in the Government and in Parliament men who were thinking seriously of specific difficulties realized that the two main problems immediately confronting a British neutral policy were privateering and blockade. The South had declared its intention to use privateers. The North had declared its intention, first to hang those who engaged in privateering, and second to establish a blockade. Neither declaration had as yet been put into effect.

The first action of the British Government was directed toward privateering. On May 1, Russell sent a note to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty calling attention to the Southern plan to issue letters of marque and reprisal and directing that reinforcements be sent to the British fleet in American waters. This was prompt action on unofficial information, for Davis' proclamation bore date of April 17, and Lyons' despatch containing copies of it, sent on April 22, was not received by Russell until May 10[153]. Ordinary news from the United States required ten days to get into print in London[154], but official messages might be sent more rapidly by way of telegraph to Halifax, thence by steamer to Liverpool and by telegraph again to London. In case the telegram to Halifax coincided with the departure of a fast vessel the time was occasionally reduced to seven days, but never less. At the best the exact information as to the contents of the Davis and Lincoln proclamations of April 17 and 19 respectively, could have been received only a few days before the order was issued to reinforce the British fleet.

Photo: F. Hollyer.

SIR WILLIAM GREGORY, K.C.M.G.

(From Lady Gregory's "Sir William Gregory, K.C.M.G.: An Autobiography," by kind permission)

The next day, May 2, Ewart, in the Commons, asked "if Privateers sailing under the flag of an unrecognized Power will be dealt with as Pirates," thus showing the immediate parliamentary concern at the Davis and Lincoln proclamations. Russell stated in reply that a British fleet had been sent to protect British interests and took occasion to indicate British policy by adding, "we have not been involved in any way in that contest by any act or giving any advice in the matter, and, for God's sake, let us if possible keep out of it[155]." May 6, Gregory, a friend of the South, who had already given notice of a motion for the recognition of the Confederacy as an independent State, asked whether the United States had been informed that a blockade of Southern ports would not be recognized unless effective, and whether there would be acquiescence in the belligerent right of the South to issue letters of marque and reprisal[156]. Russell replied that Lincoln had not been informed that a blockade must be effective to be respected since the Washington Government did not need to be told of an international rule which it had itself long proclaimed. As to the second point, he now announced what heretofore had not been clearly stated, that Southern privateers could not be regarded by Great Britain as pirates, for if so regarded Britain would herself have to treat them as pirates and would thus be unneutral. This was in fact, in spite of Northern bitter accusations that Britain was exhibiting governmental sympathy with the South by her tolerance of the plan of Southern privateering, an inescapable conclusion. Russell added, however, that the matter of privateering involved some new questions under the Declaration of Paris upon which the Government had not yet decided what stand to take[157]. It was on this same day, in fact, that Russell had instructed Cowley to take up with France the question of the Declaration of Paris[158], Privateering and blockade, declared in America months before there was any possibility of putting them into effect, and months before there were any military operations in the field, forced this rapid European action, especially the action of Great Britain, which, more than any other European nation, feared belligerent interference with her carrying and export trade. How was the British Government to know that Davis would not bend every energy in sending out privateers, and Lincoln to establish a blockade? The respective declarations of Davis and Lincoln were the first evidences offered of belligerent status. It was reasonable to assume that here would come the first energetic efforts of the belligerents. Nor was British governmental intelligence sufficiently informed to be aware that Davis, in fact, controlled few ships that could be fitted out as privateers, or that two-thirds of the Northern navy was at the moment widely scattered in foreign seas, making impossible a prompt blockade.

To the British view the immediate danger to its commercial interests lay in this announced maritime war, and it felt the necessity of defining its neutral position with speed. The underlying fact of the fixity of Southern determination to maintain secession had in the last few weeks become clearly recognized.

Moreover the latest information sent by British officials in America, some of it received just before the issue of the Proclamation of Neutrality, some just after, was all confirmative of the rapid approach of a great war. A letter from Bunch, at Charleston, was received on May 10, depicting the united Southern will to resist Northern attack, and asserting that the South had no purpose save to conduct a strictly defensive war. Bunch was no longer caustic; he now felt that a new nation was in process of birth[159]. May 4, Monson, writing from Washington, and just returned from a trip through the South, in the course of which he had visited Montgomery, stated "no reconstruction of the Union is possible," and added that there was no danger of a servile insurrection, a matter that now somewhat began to disturb the British Government and public[160]. A few days later on, May 12, Lyons expressed his strong sympathy with the North for reasons of anti-slavery, law, and race, but added that he shrank from expressions of sympathy for fear of thus encouraging the Northern Cabinet in its plan of prosecuting civil war since such a war would be frightful in its consequences both to America and to England[161].

Such reports if received before the issue of the Proclamation of Neutrality must have strengthened the feeling that prompt action was necessary; if received later, they gave confidence that that action had been wise. May 9, Forster asked in the Commons a series of questions as to the application of the British Foreign Enlistment Act in the American crisis. What would be the status of British citizens serving on Confederate privateers? How would the Government treat citizens who aided in equipping such privateers? Did not the Government intend to take measures to prevent the infringement of law in British ports? Here was pressure by a friend of the North to hasten an official announcement of the policy already notified to Parliament. Sir George Lewis replied stating that the Government was about to issue a general proclamation warning British subjects not to take any part in the war[162]. Similar questions were asked by Derby in the Lords on May 10, and received a similar answer[163]. The few days' delay following Russell's statement of May 6 was due to consideration given by the Law Officers to the exact form required. The Proclamation as issued was dated May 13, and was officially printed in the London Gazette on May 14.

In form and in substance the Proclamation of Neutrality did not differ from customary usage[164]. It spoke of the Confederacy as "states styling themselves the Confederate States of America," prohibited to Englishmen enlistment on either side, or efforts to enlist others, or equipment of ships of war, or delivery of commissions to such ships. War vessels being equipped in British ports would be seized and forfeited to the British Government. If a belligerent war-ship came into a British port, no change or increase of equipment was to be permitted. If a subject violated the Proclamation he was both punishable in British courts and forfeited any claim to British protection. The Parliamentary discussion on May 16 brought out more clearly and in general unanimity of opinion the policy of the Government in application of the Proclamation; the South was definitely recognized as a belligerent, but recognition of independence was for the future to determine; the right of the South to send out privateers was regretfully recognized; such privateers could not be regarded as pirates and the North would have no right to treat them as such, but if the North in defiance of international opinion did so treat them, Great Britain had at least warned its subjects that they, if engaged in service on a Southern privateer, had no claim to British protection; a blockade of the South to be respected must be effective at least to the point where a vessel attempting to pass through was likely to be captured; the plan of blockading the entire Southern coast, with its three thousand miles of coast line, was on the face of it ridiculous--evidence that Members of Parliament were profoundly ignorant of the physical geography of the Southern seaboard[165].

The Parliamentary discussion did not reveal any partiality for one side in the American quarrel above the other. It turned wholly on legal questions and their probable application. On May 15 Russell sent to Lyons the official text of the Proclamation, but did not instruct him to communicate it officially to Seward, leaving this rather to Lyons' discretion. This was discretionary in diplomatic usage since in strict fact the Proclamation was addressed to British subjects and need not be communicated officially to the belligerents. In the result the discretion permitted to Lyons had, an important bearing, for recognition of Southern belligerency was opposed to the theory upon which the Northern Government was attempting to proceed. Lyons did not then, or later, make official communication to Seward of the Proclamation[166]. The fact soon appeared that the United States seriously objected to the Proclamation of Neutrality, protesting first, its having been issued at all, and, in the second place, resenting what was considered its "premature" announcement by a friendly nation. This matter developed so serious a criticism by both American Government and public, both during and after the Civil War, that it requires a close examination. Did the British Government exhibit an unfriendly attitude toward the North by a "premature" Proclamation of Neutrality?

On May 13 the new American Minister landed at Liverpool, and on the morning of the fourteenth he was "ready for business" in London[167], but the interview with Russell arranged for that day by Dallas was prevented by the illness of Russell's brother, the Duke of Bedford[168]. All that was immediately possible was to make official notification of arrival and to secure the customary audience with the Queen. This was promptly arranged, and on May 16 Adams was presented, Palmerston attending in the enforced absence of Russell. Adams' first report to Seward was therefore brief, merely noting that public opinion was "not exactly what we would wish." In this he referred to the utterances of the press, particularly those of the Times, which from day to day and with increasing vigour sounded the note of strict neutrality in a "non-idealistic" war. On May 30 the Times, asserting that both parties in America were bidding for English support, summed up public opinion as follows:

"We have been told, in fact, by Northern politicians, that it does not become us to be indifferent, and by Southern leaders that they are half inclined to become British once more. Both sides are bidding for us, and both sides have their partisans over here. On such perilous ground we cannot walk too warily.

"For our own part, we are free to confess that the march of events has induced us to regard the dispute as a more commonplace kind of quarrel than it at first appeared to be. The real motives of the belligerents, as the truth transpires; appear to be exactly such motives as have caused wars in all times and countries. They are essentially selfish motives--that is to say, they are based upon speculations of national power, territorial aggrandizement, political advantage, and commercial gain. Neither side can claim any superiority of principle, or any peculiar purity of patriotism....

"We certainly cannot discover in these arguments anything to remove the case from the common category of national or monarchical quarrels. The representations of the North might be made word for word by any autocrat or conqueror desirous of 'rectifying' his frontier, consolidating his empire, or retaining a disaffected province in subjection. The manifestos of the South might be put forth by any State desirous of terminating an unpleasant connexion or exchanging union for independence....

"It is just such a question as has been left times out of mind in this Old World to the decision of the sword. The sword will be the arbitrator in the New World too; but the event teaches us plainly enough that Republics and Democracies enjoy no exemption from the passions and follies of humanity."

Under these impressions Adams presented himself on May 18 for his first interview with Russell[169]. He stated that he had come with the idea that there was

".... little to do beyond the duty of preserving the relations actually existing between the two nations from the risk of being unfavourably affected by the unfortunate domestic disturbances prevailing in my own country. It was not without pain that I was compelled to admit that from the day of my arrival I had felt in the proceedings of both houses of Parliament, in the language of Her Majesty's ministers, and in the tone of opinion prevailing in private circles, more of uncertainty about this than I had before thought possible,"

Adams then inquired whether the replies given by Russell to Dallas refusing to indicate a policy as to recognition of the South implied a British purpose "to adopt a policy which would have the effect to widen, if not to make irreparable, a breach [between North and South] which we believed yet to be entirely manageable by ourselves."

Russell here replied that "there was no such intention"; he had simply meant to say to Dallas that the British Government "were not disposed in any way to interfere." To this Adams answered that:

".... it was deserving of grave consideration whether great caution was not to be used in adopting any course that might, even in the most indirect way, have an effect to encourage the hopes of the disaffected in America.... It was in this view that I must be permitted to express the great regret I had felt on learning the decision to issue the Queen's proclamation, which at once raised the insurgents to the level of a belligerent State, and still more the language used in regard to it by Her Majesty's ministers in both houses of Parliament before and since. Whatever might be the design, there could be no shadow of doubt that the effect of these events had been to encourage the friends of the disaffected here. The tone of the press and of private opinion indicated it strongly."

Russell's answer was that Adams was placing more stress on recent events than they deserved. The Government had taken the advice of the Law Officers and as a result had concluded that "as a question merely of fact, a war existed.... Under such circumstances

it seemed scarcely possible to avoid speaking of this in the technical sense as justum bellum, that is, a war of two sides, without in any way implying an opinion of its justice, as well as to withhold an endeavour, so far as possible, to bring the management of it within the rules of modern civilized warfare. This was all that was contemplated by the Queen's proclamation. It was designed to show the purport of existing laws, and to explain to British subjects their liabilities in case they should engage in the war."

To this Adams answered "... that under other circumstances

I should be very ready to give my cheerful assent to this view of his lordship's. But I must be permitted frankly to remark that the action taken seemed, at least to my mind, a little more rapid than was absolutely called for by the occasion.... And furthermore, it pronounced the insurgents to be a belligerent State before they had ever shown their capacity to maintain any kind of warfare whatever, except within one of their own harbours, and under every possible advantage. It considered them a marine power before they had ever exhibited a single privateer on the ocean.... The rule was very clear, that whenever it became apparent that any organized form of society had advanced so far as to prove its power to defend and protect itself against the assaults of enemies, and at the same time to manifest a capacity to maintain binding relations with foreign nations, then a measure of recognition could not be justly objected to on any side. The case was very different when such an interference should take place, prior to the establishment of the proof required, as to bring about a result which would not probably have happened but for that external agency."

This representation by the American Minister, thus [V1:pg 100] early made, contains the whole argument advanced against the British Proclamation of Neutrality, though there were many similar representations made at greater length both by Adams later, and by Seward at Washington. They are all well summarized by Bernard as "a rejection ... of the proposition that the existence of war is a simple matter of fact, to be ascertained as other facts are--and an assertion ... of the dogma that there can be no war, so far as foreign nations are concerned, and, therefore, no neutrality, so long as there is a sovereignty de jure[170]." But in this first representation Adams, in the main, laid stress upon the haste with which the Proclamation of Neutrality had been issued, and, by inference, upon the evidence that British sympathies were with the South.

One British journal was, indeed, at this very moment voicing exactly those opinions advanced by Adams. The Spectator declared that while the Proclamation, on the face of it, appeared to be one of strict neutrality, it in reality tended "directly to the benefit of the South[171]." A fortnight later this paper asserted, "The quarrel, cover it with cotton as we may, is between freedom and slavery, right and wrong, the dominion of God and the dominion of the Devil, and the duty of England, we submit, is clear." She should, even though forced to declare her neutrality, refuse for all time to recognize the slave-holding Confederacy[172]. But the Spectator stood nearly alone in this view. The Saturday Review defended in every respect the issue of the Proclamation and added, "In a short time, it will be necessary further to recognize the legitimacy of the Southern Government; but the United States have a right to require that the acknowledgment shall be postponed until the failure of the effort [V1:pg 101] which they assert or believe that they are about to make has resulted in an experimental proof that subjugation is impossible[173]." A few provincial papers supported the view of the Spectator, but they were of minor importance, and generally the press heartily approved the Proclamation.

At the time of Adams' interview with Russell on May 18 he has just received an instruction from Seward written under the impression aroused by Dallas' report of Russell's refusal on April 8 to make any pledge as to British policy on the recognition of Southern independence. Seward was very much disturbed by what Russell had said to Dallas. In this instruction, dated April 27[174], he wrote:

"When you shall have read the instructions at large which have been sent to you, you will hardly need to be told that these last remarks of his lordship are by no means satisfactory to this government. Her Britannic Majesty's government is at liberty to choose whether it will retain the friendship of this government by refusing all aid and comfort to its enemies, now in flagrant rebellion against it, as we think the treaties existing between the two countries require, or whether the government of Her Majesty will take the precarious benefits of a different course.

"You will lose no time in making known to Her Britannic Majesty's Government that the President regards the answer of his lordship as possibly indicating a policy that this government would be obliged to deem injurious to its rights and derogating from its dignity."

Having promptly carried out these instructions, as he understood them, Adams soon began to report an improved British attitude, and especially in the Government, stating that this improvement was due, in part, to the vigour now being shown by the Northern Government, in part "to a sense that the preceding action of Her Majesty's ministers has been construed to mean more than they [V1:pg 102] intended by it[175]." But at Washington the American irritation was not so easily allayed. Lyons was reporting Seward and, indeed, the whole North, as very angry with the Proclamation of Neutrality[176]. On June 14, Lyons had a long conversation with Seward in which the latter stubbornly denied that the South could possess any belligerent rights. Lyons left the conference feeling that Seward was trying to divide France and England on this point, and Lyons was himself somewhat anxious because France was so long delaying her own Proclamation[177]. To meet the situation, he and Mercier, the French Minister, went the next day, June 15, on an official visit to Seward with the intention of formally presenting the British Proclamation and Thouvenel's instructions to Mercier to support it[178]. But Seward "said at once that he could not receive from us a communication founded on the assumption that

the Southern Rebels were to be regarded as Belligerents; that this was a determination to which the Cabinet had come deliberately; that he could not admit that recent events had in any respect altered the relations between Foreign Powers and the Southern States; that he would not discuss the question with us, but that he should give instructions to the United States Ministers in London and Paris who would thus be enabled to state the reasons for the course taken by their Government to Your Lordship and to M. Thouvenel, if you should be desirous to hear them.... He should not take Official cognizance of the recognition of the Belligerent Rights of Southern Rebels by Great Britain and France, unless he should be forced to do so by an Official communication addressed to the Government of the United States itself."

[V1:pg 103]

In the result the two Ministers submitted their papers to Seward "for his own use only." They did not regard the moment well chosen "to be punctilious." Lyons reported that Seward's language and demeanour throughout the interview were "calm, friendly, and good humoured," but the fact remained that the United States had not been officially notified of the Proclamation of Neutrality, and that the American Government, sensitive to popular excitement in the matter and committed to the theory of a rebellion of peoples, was thus left free to continue argument in London without any necessity of making formal protest and of taking active steps to support such protest[179]. The official relation was eased by the conciliatory acquiescence of Lyons. The public anger of America, expressed in her newspapers, astonished the British press and, temporarily, made them more careful in comment on American affairs. The Times told its readers to keep cool. "It is plain that the utmost care and circumspection must be used by every man or party in England to avoid giving offence to either of the two incensed belligerents[180]." In answer to the Northern outcry at the lack of British sympathy, [V1:pg 104] it declared "Neutrality--strict neutrality--is all that the United States Government can claim[181]."

While the burden of American criticism was thus directed toward the British recognition of Southern belligerency, there were two other matters of great moment to the American view--the attitude of the British Government toward Southern privateers, and the hearing given by Russell to the Confederate envoys. On the former, Seward, on May 21, wrote to Adams: "As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent service, you will say that this is a question exclusively our own. We treat them as pirates. They are our own citizens, or persons employed by our own citizens, preying on the commerce of our country. If Great Britain shall choose to recognize them as lawful belligerents and give them shelter from our pursuit and punishment, the law of nations affords an adequate and proper remedy[182]." This was threatening language, but was for Adams' own eye, and in the next sentence of his letter Seward stated that avoidance of friction on this point was easy, since in 1856 Great Britain had invited the United States to adhere to the Declaration of Paris everywhere abolishing privateering, and to this the United States was now ready to accede.

What Seward really meant to accomplish by this was not made clear for the question of privateering did not constitute the main point of his belligerent letter of May 21. In fact the proposed treatment of privateers as pirates might have resulted in very serious complications, for though the Proclamation of Neutrality had warned British subjects that they would forfeit any claim to protection if they engaged in the conflict, it is obvious that the hanging as a pirate of a British seaman would have aroused a national outcry almost certain to have forced the Government into [V1:pg 105] protest and action against America. Fortunately the cooler judgment of the United States soon led to quiet abandonment of the plan of treating privateers as pirates, while on the other point of giving "shelter" to Confederate privateers Seward himself received from Lyons assurance, even before Adams had made a protest, that no such shelter would be available in British ports[183].

In this same letter of May 21 Seward, writing of the rumour that the Southern envoys were to be received by Russell "unofficially," instructed Adams that he must use efforts to stop this and that: "You will, in any event, desist from all intercourse whatever, unofficial as well as official, with the British Government, so long as it shall continue intercourse of either kind with the domestic enemies of this country." Here was a positive instruction as to the American Minister's conduct in a given situation, and a very serious instruction, nearly equivalent to "taking leave" after a rupture of diplomatic relations, but the method to be used in avoiding if possible the necessity of the serious step was left to Adams' discretion. Well might Adams' comment, when reporting the outcome, that this was the "most delicate portion of my task[184]." Adams again went over with Russell the suspicion as to British intentions aroused in America by the Queen's Proclamation, but added that he had not been able to convince himself of the existence of an unfriendly design. "But it was not to be disguised that the fact of the continued stay of the pseudo-commissioners in this city, and still more the knowledge that they had been admitted to more or less interviews with his lordship, was calculated to excite uneasiness. Indeed, it had already given great dissatisfaction to my [V1:pg 106] Government. I added, as moderately as I could, that in all frankness any further protraction of this relation could scarcely fail to be viewed by us as hostile in spirit, and to require some corresponding action accordingly." Russell replied that both France and England had long been accustomed to receive such persons unofficially, as in the case of "Poles, Hungarians, Italians, etc.," to hear what they had to say. "But this did not imply recognition in their case any more than in ours. He added that he had seen the gentlemen once some time ago, and once more some time since; he had no expectation of seeing them any more[185]."

For the moment, then, a matter which under Seward's instructions might have brought on a serious crisis was averted by the tact of Adams and the acquiescence of Russell. Yet no pledge had been given; Russell merely stated that he had "no expectation" of further interviews with the Southern commissioners; he was still ready to hear from them in writing. This caused a division of opinion between the commissioners; Yancey argued that Russell's concession to Adams was itself a violation of the neutrality the British Government had announced, and that it should be met by a formal protest. But the other members insisted on a reference to Richmond for instructions[186]. On the same day that Adams reported the result to Seward he wrote privately to his son in Boston:

[V1:pg 107]

"My position here thus far has not been difficult or painful. If I had followed the course of some of my colleagues in the diplomatic line, this country might have been on the high road to the confederate camp before now. It did not seem to me to be expedient so to play into the hands of our opponents. Although there has been and is more or less of sympathy with the slave-holders in certain circles, they are not so powerful as to overbear the general sentiment of the people. The ministry has been placed in rather delicate circumstances, when a small loss of power on either extreme would have thrown them out[187]."

In Adams' opinion the Liberals were on the whole more friendly, at least, to the North than were the Conservatives, and he therefore considered it best not to press too harshly upon the Government.

But the concluding sentence of this same letter was significant: "I wait with patience--but as yet I have not gone so far as to engage a house for more than a month at a time...." He might himself be inclined to view more leniently the Proclamation of Neutrality and be able to find excuses for the alleged haste with which it had been issued, but his instructions required strong representations, especially on the latter point. Adams' report to Seward of June 14, just noted, on the interview with Russell of June 12, after treating of privateering and the Southern commissioners, turns in greater length to the alleged pledge of delay given by Russell to Dallas, and to the violation of that pledge in a hasty issue of the Proclamation. He renews attack on the line already taken on May 18[188]. From this time on, throughout and after the war, this criticism was repeatedly made and with increasing bitterness. British friends of the North joined in the American outcry. [V1:pg 108] By mere reiteration it became in the popular mind on both sides of the Atlantic an accepted and well-founded evidence of British governmental unfriendliness in May, 1861. At the conclusion of the Civil War, John Bright in Parliament, commenting on the causes of American ill-will, declared that the Government of 1861, knowing that Adams was on his way, should in mere courtesy, have waited his arrival. Then, said Bright, the Proclamation, entirely justifiable in itself, might have been issued without offence and without embittering the United States[189].

Had in fact a "pledge to wait" been given to Dallas; and was the Proclamation hasty and premature? Russell always denied he had given any such pledge, and the text of Dallas' report of the interview of May 1 would seem to support that denial[190]. On that day Russell for the second time told Dallas that England would not commit herself, as yet, as regards Southern recognition, clearly meaning a recognition of sovereignty, not of belligerency, and immediately asked Dallas what the rumours of a blockade meant. Dallas replied that he had no information on this point, and Russell "acquiesced in the expediency of disregarding mere rumour, and waiting the full knowledge to be brought by my successor. The motion, therefore, of Mr. Gregory may be further postponed, at his lordship's suggestion."

The unprejudiced interpretation of this report is merely that Russell refrained from pressing Dallas about a matter--blockade--of which Dallas knew nothing, agreeing that this would be explained by Adams, and especially that he let Dallas understand that Gregory's motion, which was one for recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the South, would be postponed. If there was a pledge here it was a pledge not to recognize Southern sovereignty until after Adams' arrival.

[V1:pg 109]

But even if there was no promise of delay "there can be no question," writes the son of Adams in a brief biography of his father, "that the proclamation of the 13th was issued with unseemly haste.... The purpose was manifest. It was to have the status of the Confederacy as a belligerent an accomplished fact before the arrival of the newly accredited minister. This precipitate action was chiefly significant as indicating an animus; that animus being really based on ... the belief, already matured into a conviction, that the full recognition of the Confederacy as an independent power was merely a question of time, and probably of a very short time[191]." The author does not, however, support the contemporary American contention that any Proclamation was contrary to international custom and that no recognition of belligerent status was permissible to neutrals until the "insurgents" had forced the mother country itself to recognize the division as fully accomplished, even while war still continued. Indeed American practice was flatly contradictory of the argument, as in the very pertinent example of the petty Canadian rebellion of 1837, when President Van Buren had promptly issued a proclamation of neutrality. It is curious that in his several replies to Seward's complaints Russell did not quote a letter from Stevenson, the American Minister to London, addressed to Palmerston, May 22, 1838. Stevenson was demanding disavowal and disapproval of the "Caroline" affair, and incidentally he asserted as an incontrovertible principle "that civil wars are not distinguished from other wars, as to belligerent and neutral rights; that they stand upon the same ground, and are governed by the same principles; that whenever [V1:pg 110] a portion of a State seek by force of arms to overthrow the Government, and maintain independence, the contest becomes one de facto of war[192]." This was as exact, and correct, a statement of the British view as could have been desired[193].

The American Minister, whatever his official representation, did not then hold, privately, the view of "unfriendly animus." On July 2, 1861, his secretary son wrote: "The English are really on our side; of that I have no doubt whatever. [Later he was less sure of this.] But they thought that as a dissolution seemed inevitable and as we seemed to have made up our minds to it, that their Proclamation was just the thing to keep them straight with both sides, and when it turned out otherwise they did their best to correct their mistake[194]." The modern historical judgment of the best American writers likewise exonerates the British Government of "unfriendly animus[195]," but is still apt to refer to the "premature" issue of the Proclamation.

This was also John Bright's view. But can Russell and the Government be criticized even as exercising an unwise (not unfriendly) haste? Henry Adams wrote that the British thought the "dissolution seemed inevitable" and "we seemed to have made up our minds to it." Certainly this was a justifiable conclusion from the events in America from Lincoln's election in November, 1860, to his inauguration in March, 1861--and even to a later date, almost in [V1:pg 111] fact to the first week in April. During this period the British Ministry preserved a strictly "hands off" policy. Then, suddenly, actual conflict begins and at once each side in America issues declarations, Davis on privateering, Lincoln on blockade and piracy, indicative that maritime war, the form of war at once most dangerous to British interests and most likely to draw in British citizens, was the method first to be tried by the contestants. Unless these declarations were mere bluff and bluster England could not dare wait their application. She must at once warn her citizens and make clear her position as a neutral. The Proclamation was no effort "to keep straight with both sides"; it was simply the natural, direct, and prompt notification to British subjects required in the presence of a de facto war.

Moreover, merely as a matter of historical speculation, it was fortunate that the Proclamation antedated the arrival of Adams. The theory of the Northern administration under which the Civil War was begun and concluded was that a portion of the people of the United States were striving as "insurgents" to throw off their allegiance, and that there could be no recognition of any Southern Government in the conflict. In actual practice in war, the exchange of prisoners and like matters, this theory had soon to be discarded. Yet it was a far-seeing and wise theory nevertheless in looking forward to the purely domestic and constitutional problem of the return to the Union, when conquered, of the sections in rebellion. This, unfortunately, was not clear to foreign nations, and it necessarily complicated relations with them. Yet under that theory Adams had to act. Had he arrived before the Proclamation of Neutrality it is difficult to see how he could have proceeded otherwise than to protest, officially, against any British declaration of neutrality, declaring that his Government did not acknowledge a state of war as existing, and threatening [V1:pg 112] to take his leave. It would have been his duty to prevent, if possible, the issue of the Proclamation. Dallas, fortunately, had been left uninformed and uninstructed. Adams, fortunately, arrived too late to prevent and had, therefore, merely to complain. The "premature" issue of the Proclamation averted an inevitable rupture of relations on a clash between the American theory of "no state of war" and the international fact that war existed. Had that rupture occurred, how long would the British Government and people have remained neutral, and what would have been the ultimate fate of the United States[196]?

FOOTNOTES:

[127] Sir George Cornewall Lewis was better informed in the early stages of the American conflict than any of his ministerial colleagues. He was an occasional contributor to the reviews and his unsigned article in the Edinburgh, April, 1861, on "The Election of President Lincoln and its Consequences," was the first analysis of real merit in any of the reviews.

[128] In his Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Malmesbury makes but three important references to the Civil War in America.

[129] Adams, Charles Francis Adams, p. 165.

[130] Dodd, Jefferson Davis, pp. 227-8.

[131] Ibid.

[132] It was generally whispered in Southern political circles that Davis sent Yancey abroad to get rid of him, fearing his interference at home. If true, this is further evidence of Davis' neglect of foreign policy.

[133] Du Bose, Yancey, p. 604.

[134] Adams, Charles Francis Adams, pp. 149-51.

[135] Possibly the best concise statement of the effect on the North is given in Carl Schurz, Reminiscences, Vol. II, p. 223. Or see my citation of this in The Power of Ideals in American History, ch. I, "Nationality."

[136] Hansard, 3rd. Ser., Vol. CLXII, pp. 1207-9.

[137] See ante, p. 60.

[138] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-62, pp. 83-4. Dallas to Seward, May 2, 1862.

[139] An error. Mann did not arrive in London until May 15. Du Bose, Yancey, p. 604.

[140] Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Vol. II, p. 34. This report also shows that Mann was not present at the first interview with Russell.

[141] F.O., America, Vol. 755, No. 128, Russell to Lyons, May 11, 1861. This document is marked "Seen by Lord Palmerston and the Queen." The greater and essential part has been printed in Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in United States." No. 33.

[142] Du Bose, Yancey, p. 604.

[143] Lyons Papers. The copy of the Memorandum sent to Lyons is undated, but from Russell's letter to Lyons of May 4, in which it was enclosed, it is presumable that the date of May 3 for the Memorandum is correct.

[144] Ibid., Russell to Lyons, May 4, 1861.

[145] F.O., Am., Vol. 755, No. 121, Russell to Lyons, May 6, 1861.

[146] It is to be remembered that the United States had given no notice of the existence of a state of war.

[147] In diplomatic usage official notification of neutrality to a belligerent has varied, but Russell's letters show him to have appreciated a peculiar delicacy here.

[148] F.O., France, Vol. 1376, No. 553. Draft. Printed in Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on International Maritime Law." No. 1.

[149] It is interesting that on this same day Lyons was writing from Washington advocating, regretfully, because of his sympathy with the North, a strict British neutrality:

"The sympathies of an Englishman are naturally inclined

towards the North--but I am afraid we should find that

anything like a quasi alliance with the men in office here

would place us in a position which would soon become

untenable. There would be no end to the exactions which they

would make upon us, there would be no end to the disregard of

our neutral rights, which they would show if they once felt

sure of us. If I had the least hope of their being able to

reconstruct the Union, or even of their being able to reduce

the South to the condition of a tolerably contented or at all

events obedient dependency, my feeling against Slavery might

lead me to desire to co-operate with them. But I conceive all

chance of this to be gone for ever."

Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, May 6, 1861.

[150] F.O., France, Vol. 1390. No. 677.

[151] Ibid., No. 684. Printed in part in Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on International Maritime Law." No. 3.

[152] Times, May 9, 1861.

[153] Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 31.

[154] So stated by the Times, May 9, 1861.

[155] Hansard, 3rd. Ser., Vol. CLXII, pp. 1378-9. This blunt expression of Great Britain's Foreign Secretary offers an interesting comparison with the words of the American President Wilson, in a parallel statement at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. Wilson on August 3, 1914, gave a special audience to newspaper correspondents, begging them to maintain an attitude of calm impartiality. On August 4 he issued the first of several neutrality proclamations in which, following the customary language of such documents, the people were notified that neutrality did not restrict the "full and free expression of sympathies in public and in private." But on August 18 in an address to the people of the United States, this legal phraseology, required by traditional usage was negatived by Wilson's appeal that "we must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another." And three weeks later, on September 8, came the proclamation setting aside October 4 "as a day of prayer to Almighty God," informing Him that war existed and asking His intervention. Possibly Russell's more blunt and pithy expression was better suited to the forthrightness of the British public.

[156] Hansard, ibid., pp. 1564-7. Gregory, a "Liberal-Conservative," though never a "good party man" was then supporting Palmerston's ministry. He was very popular in Parliament, representing by his prominence in sport and society alike, the "gentleman ruling class" of the House of Commons, and was a valuable influence for the South.

[157] This subject is developed at length in Chapter V on "The Declaration of Paris Negotiation."

[158] See ante, p. 88. The chronology of these rapidly succeeding events is interesting:

April 29--Malmesbury states in the Lords that "news was received

this day."

May 1--Naval reinforcements sent to American waters.

May 1--Russell's interview with Dallas.

May 2--Russell's plea in Parliament, "For God's sake keep out of

it."

May 3--Russell's first interview with Yancey and Rost.

May 3--Attorney-General's memorandum.

May 4--Russell's note to Lyons that this is a "regular war."

May 6--Cowley instructed to ask France to recognize Southern

belligerency.

May 6--Lyons notified that England will recognize Southern belligerency.

May 6--Russell states in Parliament that privateers can not be

treated as pirates.

[Presumably, since parliamentary sittings begin in the late

afternoons, the instructions to diplomats were drawn before

the statement in Parliament.]

May 9--Russell's second interview with Yancey and Rost.

May 9--Sir George Lewis announces that a Proclamation of Neutrality

will be issued soon.

May 13--The Proclamation authorized.

May 13--Adams reaches Liverpool.

May 14--The Proclamation officially published in the London Gazette.

May 14--Adams in London "ready for business."

It would appear that Russell's expressions in Parliament on May 2 indicated clearly the purpose of the Government. This was notified to Lyons on May 4, which may be taken as the date when the governmental position had become definitely fixed, even though official instructions were not sent Lyons until the 6th.

[159] F.O., Am., Vol. 780, No. 50. Bunch to Russell, April 19, 1861.

[160] F.O., Am., 789, Monson to Alston, received May 21.

[161] F.O., Am., 763, No. 197, Lyons to Russell, received May 26. The full statement is:

"To an Englishman, sincerely interested in the welfare of

this country, the present state of things is peculiarly

painful. Abhorrence of slavery, respect for law, more

complete community of race and language, enlist his

sympathies on the side of the North. On the other hand, he

cannot but reflect that any encouragement to the predominant

war feeling in the North cannot but be injurious to both

sections of the country. The prosecution of the war can lead

only to the exhaustion of the North by an expenditure of life

and money on an enterprise in which success and failure would

be alike disastrous. It must tend to the utter devastation of

the South. It would at all events occasion a suspension of

Southern cultivation which would be calamitous even more to

England than to the Northern States themselves."

[162] Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXII, p. 1763.

[163] Ibid., pp. 1830-34. In the general discussion in the Lords there appeared disagreement as to the status of privateering. Granville, Derby, and Brougham, spoke of it as piracy. Earl Hardwicke thought privateering justifiable. The general tone of the debate, though only on this matter of international practice, was favourable to the North.

[164] For example see Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, Vol. I, p. 698, for the Proclamation issued in 1813 during the Spanish-American colonial revolutions.

[165] Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXII, pp. 2077-2088.

[166] Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV, "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 35. Russell to Lyons, May 15, 1861. Another reason for Lyons' precaution was that while his French colleague, Mercier, had been instructed to support the British Proclamation, no official French Proclamation was issued until June 10, and Lyons, while he trusted Mercier, felt that this French delay needed some explanation. Mercier told Seward, unofficially, of his instructions and even left a copy of them, but at Seward's request made no official communication. Lyons, later, followed the same procedure. This method of dealing with Seward came to be a not unusual one, though it irritated both the British and French Ministers.

[167] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, p. 85. Adams to Seward, May 17, 1861.

[168] Bedford died that day.

[169] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, pp. 90-96. Adams to Seward, May 21, 1861.

[170] Bernard, The Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War, p. 161. The author cites at length despatches and documents of the period.

[171] Spectator, May 18, 1861.

[172] Spectator, June 1, 1861.

[173] Saturday Review, June 1, 1861.

[174] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, p. 82.

[175] Ibid., p. 98. Adams to Seward, June 7, 1861. See also p. 96, Adams to Seward, May 31, 1861.

[176] Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell, June 10, 1861.

[177] Ibid., Lyons to Russell, June 14, 1861.

[178] F.O., Am., Vol. 766, No. 282. Lyons to Russell, June 17, 1861. Seward's account, in close agreement with that of Lyons, is in U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, p. 106. Seward to Adams, June 19, 1861.

[179] Bancroft in his Seward (II, p. 183) prints a portion of an unpublished despatch of Seward to Dayton in Paris, July 1, 1861, as "his clearest and most characteristic explanation of what the attitude of the government must be in regard to the action of the foreign nations that have recognized the belligerency of the 'insurgents.'"

"Neither Great Britain nor France, separately nor both

together, can, by any declaration they can make, impair the

sovereignty of the United States over the insurgents, nor

confer upon them any public rights whatever. From first to

last we have acted, and we shall continue to act, for the

whole people of the United States, and to make treaties for

disloyal as well as loyal citizens with foreign nations, and

shall expect, when the public welfare requires it, foreign

nations to respect and observe the treaties.

"We do not admit, and we never shall admit, even the

fundamental statement you assume--namely, that Great Britain

and France have recognized the insurgents as a belligerent

party. True, you say they have so declared. We reply: Yes,

but they have not declared so to us. You may rejoin: Their

public declaration concludes the fact. We, nevertheless,

reply: It must be not their declaration, but the fact, that

concludes the fact."

[180] The Times, June 3, 1861.

[181] Ibid., June 11, 1861.

[182] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-2, p. 87.

[183] Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV. "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States." No. 56. Lyons to Russell, June 17, 1861, reporting conference with Seward on June 15.

[184] U.S. Messages and Documents, 1861-62, p. 104. Adams to Seward, June 14, 1861.

[185] Bancroft, the biographer of Seward, takes the view that the protests against the Queen's Proclamation, in regard to privateering and against interviews with the Southern commissioners were all unjustifiable. The first, he says, was based on "unsound reasoning" (II, 177). On the second he quotes with approval a letter from Russell to Edward Everett, July 12, 1861, showing the British dilemma: "Unless we meant to treat them as pirates and to hang them we could not deny them belligerent rights" (II, 178). And as to the Southern commissioners he asserts that Seward, later, ceased protest and writes: "Perhaps he remembered that he himself had recently communicated, through three different intermediaries, with the Confederate commissioners to Washington, and would have met them if the President had not forbidden it." Bancroft, Seward, II, 179.

[186] Du Bose, Yancey, p. 606.

[187] A Cycle of Adams' Letters, 1861-1865, Vol. I, p. 11. Adams to C.F. Adams, Jnr., June 14, 1861.

[188] See ante, p. 98. Russell's report to Lyons of this interview of June 12, lays special emphasis on Adams' complaint of haste. Parliamentary Papers, 1862, Lords, Vol. XXV, "Correspondence on Civil War in the United States," No. 52. Russell to Lyons, June 21, 1861.

[189] Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXXVII, pp. 1620-21, March 13, 1865.

[190] See ante, p. 85.

[191] C.F. Adams, Charles Francis Adams, p. 172. In preparing a larger life of his father, never printed, the son later came to a different opinion, crediting Russell with foresight in hastening the Proclamation to avoid possible embarrassment with Adams on his arrival. The quotation from the printed "Life" well summarizes, however, current American opinion.

[192] U.S. Documents, Ser. No. 347, Doc. 183, p. 6.

[193] The United States Supreme Court in 1862, decided that Lincoln's blockade proclamation of April 19, 1861, was "itself official and conclusive evidence ... that a state of war existed." (Moore, Int. Law Digest, I, p. 190.)

[194] A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, p. 16. Henry Adams to C.F. Adams, Jnr.

[195] Rhodes, History of the United States, III, p. 420 (note) summarizes arguments on this point, but thinks that the Proclamation might have been delayed without harm to British interests. This is perhaps true as a matter of historical fact, but such fact in no way alters the compulsion to quick action felt by the Ministry in the presence of probable immediate fact.

[196] This was the later view of C.F. Adams, Jnr. He came to regard the delay in his father's journey to England as the most fortunate single incident in American foreign relations during the Civil War.

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