nite offensive campaign into Northern territory. Lee's advance north
did not begin until June 10, but his plan was early known in a select
circle in England and much was expected of it. The time seemed ripe,
therefore, and the result was notification by Roebuck of a motion for
the recognition of the Confederacy--first step the real purpose of which
was to attempt that 'turning to the Tories' which had been advocated by
Spence in January, but postponed on the advice of Gregory[1073]. _The
Index_ clearly indicated where lay the wind: "No one," it declared "now
asks what will be the policy of Great Britain towards America; but
everybody anxiously waits on what the Emperor of the French will do."

"... England to-day pays one of the inevitable penalties of
free government and of material prosperity, that of having at
times at the head of national affairs statesmen who belong
rather to the past than to the present, and whose skill and
merit are rather the business tact and knowledge of details,
acquired by long experience, than the quick and prescient
comprehension of the requirements of sudden emergencies....

"The nominal conduct of Foreign Affairs is in the hands of a
diplomatic Malaprop, who has never shown vigour, activity, or
determination, except where the display of these qualities
was singularly unneeded, or even worse than useless.... From
Great Britain, then, under her actual Government, the Cabinet
at Washington has nothing to fear, and the Confederate States
nothing to expect[1074]."

Of main interest to the public was the military situation. The _Times_
minimized the western campaigns, regarding them as required for
political effect to hold the north-western states loyal to the Union,
and while indulging in no prophecies as to the fate of Vicksburg,
expressing the opinion that, if forced to surrender it, the South could
easily establish "a new Vicksburg" at some other point[1075]. Naturally
_The Index_ was pleased with and supported this view[1076]. Such
ignorance of the geographic importance of Vicksburg may seem like wilful
misleading of the public; but professed British military experts were
equally ignorant. Captain Chesney, Professor of Military History at
Sandhurst College, published in 1863, an analysis of American campaigns,
centering all attention on the battles in Maryland and Virginia and
reaching the conclusion that the South co