e outset with that intention and they were obliged to pay the rent
of the room, though they did not use it. They knew that their
resolutions would be outvoted and that amendments would pass against
them[1145]." There must have been truth in the taunt for while _The
Index_ in nearly every issue throughout the middle of 1864 reports great
activity there, it does not give any account of a public meeting. The
reports were of many applications for membership "from all quarters,
from persons of rank and gentlemen of standing in their respective
counties[1146]."

Just here lay the weakness of the Southern Independence Association
programme. It _did_ appeal to "persons of rank and gentlemen of
standing," but by the very fact of the flocking to it of these classes
it precluded appeal to Radical and working-class England--already
largely committed to the cause of the North. Goldwin Smith, in his
"Letter to a Whig Member of the Southern Independence Association," made
the point very clear[1147]. In this pamphlet, probably the strongest
presentation of the Northern side and the most severe castigation of
Southern sympathizers that appeared throughout the whole war, Smith
appealed to old Whig ideas of political liberty, attacked the
aristocracy and the Church of England, and attempted to make the
Radicals of England feel that the Northern cause was their cause.
Printing the constitution and address of the Association, with the list
of signers, he characterized the movement as fostered by "men of title
and family," with "a good sprinkling of clergymen," and as having for
its object the plunging of Great Britain into war with the North[1148].

It is significant, in view of Mason Jones' taunt to the Southern
Independence Association at Manchester, that _The Index_, from the end
of March to August, 1864, was unable to report a single Southern public
meeting. The London Association, having completed its top-heavy
organization, was content with that act and showed no life. The first
move by the Association was planned to be made in connection with the
_Alexandra_ case when, as was expected, the Exchequer Court should
render a decision against the Government's right to detain her. On
January 8, 1864, Lindsay wrote to Mason that he had arranged for the
public launching of the Association "next week," that he had again seen
the Chief Baron who assured him the Court would decide "that the
Government is entirely wrong":

"I told him th