ss in Lancashire, owing
to the cutting off of supplies of cotton for the mills through the
blockade of the ports of the Confederate States. The starving
weavers, however, gave their moral support to the North, and continued
steadfast to the cause of the Union even in the sorest period of their
suffering. The great majority of the manufacturers and business
classes generally, and the nobility, with a few exceptions,
sympathized with the efforts of the South to establish an independent
Confederacy. Most of the distinguished political and social leaders,
in Parliament and out, with nearly all the influential journals, were
on the same side, and were openly hostile to the Union.[1]

[1] Lord John Russell (Foreign Secretary), Lord Brougham, Sir John
Bowring, Carlyle, Ruskin, and the London Times and Punch espouses the
cause of the South more or less openly; while others, like
Mr. Gladstone, declared their full belief in the ultimate success of
the Confederacy. On the other hand, Prince Albert, the Duke of
Argyll, John Bright, John Stuart Mill, Professor Newman, Lord
Palmerston, at least for a time, and the London Daily News defended
the cause of the North. After the death of President Lincoln, Punch
manfully acknowledged (see issue of May 6, 1865) that it had been
altogether wrong in its estimation of him and his measures; and
Mr. Gladstone, in an essay on "Kin beyond Sea" in his "Gleanings of
Past Years," paid a noble tribute to the course pursued by America
since the close of the war.

Late in Autumn (1861) Captain Wilkes, of the United States Navy,
boarded the British mail steamer Trent, and seized two Confederate
commissioners (Mason and Slidell) who were on their way to England.
When intelligence of the act was conveyed to President Lincoln, he
expressed his unqualified disapproval of it, saying: "This is the very
thing the British captains used to do. They claimed the right of
searching American ships, and taking men out of them. That was the
cause of the War of 1812. Now, we cannot abandon our own principles;
we shall have to give up these men, and apologize for what we have
done."

The British Government made a formal demand that the commissioners
should be given up. Through the influence of Prince Albert, and with
the approval of the Queen, this demand was couched in most
conciliatory language. Slidell and Mason were handed over to Great
Britain, and an apology was made by Secretary Seward.

During t