d published in the New York papers. These came through the lines and
gave the southern people the full and clear expose of the foreign
question, as it had long been fully and clearly known to their
government.

This publication intensified what had been vague opposition to further
retention abroad of the commissioners. The people felt that their
national honor was compromised; and, moreover, they now realized that
Europe had--and would have--but one policy regarding the Confederacy.

Diplomatically regarded, the position of the South was actually
unprecedented. Europe felt the delicacy--and equally the danger--of
interference in a family quarrel, which neither her theories nor her
experience had taught her to comprehend. Naturally jealous of the
growing power of the American Union, Europe may, moreover, have heard
dictates of the policy of letting it exhaust itself, in this internal
feud; of waiting until both sides--weakened, wearied and worn
out--should draw off from the struggle and make intervention more
nominal than needful. This view of "strict neutrality"--openly vaunted
only to be practically violated--takes color from the fact of her
permitting each side to hammer away at the other for four years,
without one word even of protest!

Southern prejudice ever inclined more favorably toward France than
England; the scale tilting, perhaps, by weight of Franco-Latin
influence among the people, perhaps by belief in the suggested theories
of the third Napoleon. Therefore, intimations of French recognition
were always more welcomed than false rumors about English aid.

In the North also prevailed an idea that France might intervene--or
even recognize the Confederacy--before colder England; but that did not
cause impartial Jonathan to exhibit less bitter, or unreasoning, hatred
of John Bull. Yet, as a practical fact, the alleged neutrality of the
latter was far more operative against the South than the North.
For--omitting early recognition of a blockade, invalid under the Treaty
of Paris--England denied _both_ belligerent navies the right to
refit--or bring in prizes--at her ports. Now, as the United States had
open ports and needed no such grace, while the South having no commerce
thus afforded no prizes--every point of this decision was against her.

Equally favoring the North was the winking at recruiting; for, if men
were not actually enlisted on British soil and under that flag,
thousands of "emigrants"--males