hey
had all been hoping that Lincoln would give Fort Sumter to them and so
save their having to take it. Not at all. The President of the United
States was not going to give away property of the United States.
Instead, the Governor of South Caro-lina received a polite message that
an attempt would be made to supply Fort Sumter with food only, and that
if this were not interfered with, no arms or ammunition should be sent
there without further notice, or in case the fort were attacked.
Lincoln was leaning backwards, you might say, in his patient effort
to conciliate. And accordingly our transports sailed from New York for
Charleston with instructions to supply Sumter with food alone, unless
they should be opposed in attempting to carry out their errand. This
did not suit Jefferson Davis at all; and, to cut it short, at half-past
four, on the morning of April 12, 1861, there arose into the air from
the mortar battery near old Fort Johnson, on the south side of the
harbor, a bomb-shell, which curved high and slow through the dawn, and
fell upon Fort Sumter, thus starting four years of civil war. One week
later the Union proclaimed a blockade on the ports of Slave Land.

Bear each and all of these facts in mind, I beg, bear them in mind well,
for in the light of them you can see England clearly, and will have no
trouble in following the different threads of her conduct towards us
during this struggle. What she did then gave to our ancient grudge
against her the reddest coat of fresh paint which it had received
yet--the reddest and the most enduring since George III.

England ran true to form. It is very interesting to mark this; very
interesting to watch in her government and her people the persistent and
conflicting currents of sympathy and antipathy boil up again, just as
they had boiled in 1776. It is equally interesting to watch our ancient
grudge at work, causing us to remember and hug all the ill will she
bore us, all the harm she did us, and to forget all the good. Roughly
comparing 1776 with 1861, it was once more the Tories, the aristocrats,
the Lord Norths, who hoped for our overthrow, while the people of
England, with certain liberal leaders in Parliament, stood our friends.
Just as Pitt and Burke had spoken for us in our Revolution, so Bright
and Cobden befriended us now. The parallel ceases when you come to the
Sovereign. Queen Victoria declined to support or recognize Slave Land.
She stopped the Government an