trong and powerful,
taking advantage of the capture of two Southern emissaries--Mason and
Slidell--from the British ship _Trent_ on the high seas, declared she
would send an army to Canada and ships to batter down our Northern
cities. Even Gladstone bought Southern bonds, but later Gladstone deeply
lamented his sympathy with slavery and the South, and asked the world to
forgive and forget it. Yet if the North has long ago forgiven England,
it must be a hard thing for England to forgive herself that she gave to
slavery every ounce of influence she had, her threats, her frowns, her
diplomacy and her ships. Long afterwards a court of arbitration in
Geneva punished England with an enormous fine for the American shipping
that she helped destroy in her effort to help break down the North and
defeat liberty in a war that her own statesman, John Bright, has
characterized as one of the few wars not only justifiable but glorious
in all history.

Now this was the attitude of England. Her upper classes and financial
interests were all on the side of slavery and the South. Her great
middle class were largely in favour of liberty. Her working people were
naturally on the side of free labour and the North, but they were
weakened by starvation till their endurance and fortitude were almost
gone. And then it was that Beecher entered the scene, returning from the
Continent to England. Recognition of the Confederacy and other
unfriendly official acts were trembling in the balance; yet there was
hesitation, on account of the common people, who sympathized with the
North. In telling of this afterwards, Mr. Beecher said: "To my amazement
I found that the unvoting English possessed great power in England; a
great deal more power, in fact, than if they had a vote. The aristocracy
and the government felt, 'These men know they have no political
privileges, and we must administer with the strictest regard to their
feelings or there will be a revolution.'" There were many noble
exceptions among the higher classes, and the Queen, doubtless under the
influence of the Prince Consort Albert, who died in 1861, and had been
a firm friend of America, was also friendly to the North; but her
Government was not.

The argument finally used to persuade Beecher to speak was that the
English Anti-Slavery Society was already discredited, unpopular, and
frowned upon by the nobility and the upper classes, and that if Beecher
would not recognize them by at least