e nations would
result for Americans in a rapid advance in art and commerce such as had
been produced in the old commonwealths of Greece. The _Spectator_
answered that such a breaking up of America was much more likely to
result in a situation comparable to that in South America, inquired
caustically whether Bulwer Lytton had heard that slavery was in
question, and asserted that his speech presumably represented the
official view of the Tories, and embodied that of the English governing
class[342].

In press utterances during the autumn and early fall of 1861 there is
little on British policy toward America. Strict neutrality is approved
by all papers and public speakers. But as the months passed without
further important military engagements attention began to be directed
toward the economic effects on England of the war in America and to the
blockade, now beginning to be made effective by the North. The _Saturday
Review_, though pro-Southern, declared for neutrality, but distinguished
between strict observance of the blockade and a reasonable recognition
of the _de facto_ government of the Confederacy "as soon as the Southern
States had achieved for their independence that amount of security with
which Great Britain had been satisfied in former cases[343]." But
another article in the same issue contained a warning against forcibly
raising the blockade since this must lead to war with the North, and
that would commend itself to no thoughtful Englishman. Two weeks later
appeared a long review of Spence's _American Union_, a work very
influential in confirming British pro-Southern belief in the
constitutional right of the South to secede and in the certainty of
Southern victory. Spence was "likely to succeed with English readers,
because all his views are taken from a thoroughly English
standpoint[344]." The week following compliments are showered upon the
"young professor" Montague Bernard for his "Two Lectures on the Present
American War," in which he distinguished between recognition of
belligerency and recognition of sovereignty, asserting that the former
was inevitable and logical. The _Saturday Review_, without direct
quotation, treated Bernard as an advocate also of the early recognition
of Southern independence on the ground that it was _a fait accompli_,
and expressed approval[345].

These few citations, taken with intent from the more sober and reputable
journals, summarize the prevailing attitude on one side