to England:
Germany was hostile to France. Active intervention by England and
France, so much talked of, might have caused an earlier dethronement
of Napoleon III, and a struggle in the East which would have left
England no military power to expend on this side of the Atlantic. The
American citizen cannot so wholly or ignorantly deceive himself as to
believe that the Palmerston Government, from any consideration of the
duties of neutrality, from any sympathy with the anti-slavery aspect
of the contest, or from any ennobling impulse whatever, refrained from
formal recognition of the Southern Confederacy and the open espousal of
its cause.

When the question of recognizing the Confederacy came before
Parliament, it was withdrawn after discussion by request of Mr.
Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He assured the House that
"the main result of the American contest is not, humanly speaking,
_in any degree doubtful_." He thought "there never was a war of more
destructive, more deplorable, more hopeless character." The contest
in his judgment was "a _miserable_ one." "We do not," said he,
"believe that the restoration of the American Union by force is
attainable. _I believe that the public opinion of this country is
unanimous upon that subject_. It is not, therefore, from indifference,
it is not from any belief that this war _is waged for any adequate
or worthy object on the part of the North_, that I would venture to
deprecate in the strongest terms the adoption of the motion of the
honorable and learned gentleman." The "honorable and learned
gentleman" was Mr. Roebuck, already quoted; and his motion was for the
recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an independent Nation. The
argument which Mr. Gladstone brought against it was in effect that
the Confederacy was sure to succeed without foreign intervention. The
fruit when ripe would fall of itself, and hence there was no need
of prematurely beating the tree. The platform speeches of Mr.
Gladstone were still more offensive and unjust, but he need be held
answerable only for official declarations.

The only friends of the United States in England at that trying period
were to be found among the "middle classes," as they are termed, and
among the laboring men. The "nobility and gentry," the bankers, the
great merchants, the ship-builders, were in the main hostile to the
Union,--wishing and waiting for the success of the Confederacy. The
honorable excep