at until recently General Lee could never
muster more than 60,000 effective men. He confessed that the Southern
forces consisted altogether of about 350,000 to 400,000 men; and when I
asked him where they all were, he replied that, on account of the
enormous tract of country to be defended, and the immense advantages the
enemy possessed by his facilities for sea and river transportation the
South was obliged to keep large bodies of men unemployed, and at great
distances from each other, awaiting the sudden invasions or raids to
which they were continually exposed. Besides which, the Northern troops,
which numbered (he supposed) 600,000 men, having had as yet but little
defensive warfare, could all be employed for aggressive purposes.

He asserted that England has still, and always had had it, in her power
to terminate the war by recognition, and by making a commercial treaty
with the South; and he denied that the Yankees really would dare to go
to war with Great Britain for doing so, however much they might swagger
about it: he said that recognition would not increase the Yankee hatred
of England, for this, whether just or unjust, was already as intense as
it could possibly be. I then alluded to the supposed ease with which
they could overrun Canada, and to the temptation which its unprotected
towns must offer to the large numbers of Irish and German mercenaries in
the Northern armies. He answered, "They probably could not do that so
easily as some people suppose, and they know perfectly well that you
could deprive them of California (a far more serious loss) with much
greater ease." This consideration, together with the certainty of an
entire blockade of their ports, the total destruction of their trade,
and an invasion on a large scale by the Southern troops, in reality
prevents the possibility of their declaring war upon England at the
present time, any more than they did at the period of their great
national humiliation in the Mason-Slidell affair.

Mr Benjamin told me that his property had lately been confiscated in
New Orleans, and that his two sisters had been turned, neck and crop,
into the streets there, with only one trunk, which they had been forced
to carry themselves. Every one was afraid to give them shelter, except
an Englishwoman, who protected them until they could be got out of the
city.

Talking of the just admiration which the English newspapers accorded to
Stonewall Jackson, he expressed, however,