ffairs, stated in the House of Lords that the subjugation of the
South by the North "would prove a calamity to the United States and to
the world." The Alabama and other privateers went forth from British
ports to prey on American commerce, and the builder of the Alabama was
cheered in the House of Commons when he boasted of what he had done. Even
Mr. Gladstone--before Vicksburg and Gettysburg--declared that "the
restoration of the American Union by force is unattainable."

Napoleon the Third--that crow in the eagle's nest--was cordially with
Great Britain in all efforts to injure the American Union. He had long
cherished the design to establish a vassal empire in Mexico, and in our
Civil War he saw his opportunity. A Southern Confederacy would form a
grand barrier between a Franco-Mexican dominion and the United States,
and while the French emperor treated the government at Washington with
diplomatic courtesy, he never ceased to exert his influence in favor of
the South, so far as he could, without an actual rupture. Napoleon was
ready and anxious to recognize the Confederacy, and he only waited for
the South to win victories that would give him an excuse for action. "His
course toward us," says Bigelow, "from the beginning to the end of the
plot was deliberately and systematically treacherous, and his ministers
allowed themselves to be made his pliant instruments."[1] General Grant
declared at City Point, in 1864, that as soon as we had disposed of the
Confederates we must begin with the Imperialists, and after Appomattox he
expressed the opinion that the French intervention in Mexico was so
closely allied to the rebellion as to be a part of it.

[1] France and the Confederate Navy.

Neither England nor France interfered directly in behalf of the South.
Louis Napoleon waited for England to act, and the British Cabinet felt
that the British masses would not justify a war in defence of slavery.
The American Government, while it met with firm and dignified protest
Great Britain's disregard of international obligations, was careful to
abstain from giving any excuse for British hostility. "One war at a
time," said Abraham Lincoln, in deciding to surrender Mason and Slidell.
But Americans kept careful account of every item of outrage on the part
of England, and in due time the bill was presented--and paid. And in due
time also Napoleon was told to go out of Mexico--and he went.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The Confedera