however, was a very able tearing
to pieces of Gregory's figures, showing that nearly all the alleged
blockade runners were in reality merely small coasting steamers, which,
by use of shallow inner channels, could creep along the shore and then
make a dash for the West Indies. The effectiveness of the blockade of
main ports for ocean-going vessels carrying bulky cargoes was proved, he
declared, by the price of raw cotton in England, where it was 100 per
cent. greater than in the South, and of salt in Charleston, where the
importer could make a profit of 1,000 per cent. To raise the blockade,
he argued, would be a direct violation by Britain of her neutrality. The
real reason for this motion was not the _ineffectiveness_ of the
blockade, but the effectiveness, and the real object an English object,
not a Southern one. Gregory was taunted for changing a motion to
recognize the Confederacy into the present one because he knew the
former would fail while the present motion was deceitfully intended to
secure the same end. Forster strongly approved the conduct of the
Government in preserving strict neutrality, alleging that any other
conduct would have meant "a war in which she [England] would have had to
fight for slavery against her kinsmen."

Gregory's speech was cautious and attempted to preserve a judicial tone
of argument on fact. Forster's reads like that of one who knows his
cause already won. Gregory's had no fire in it and was characterized by
Henry Adams, an interested auditor, as "listened to as you would listen
to a funeral eulogy."... "The blockade is now universally acknowledged
to be unobjectionable[573]." This estimate is borne out by the speech
for the Government by the Solicitor-General, who maintained the
effectiveness of the blockade and who answered Gregory's argument that
recognition was not in question by stating that to refuse longer to
recognize the blockade would result in a situation of "armed
neutrality"--that is of "unproclaimed war." He pictured the disgust of
Europe if England should enter upon such a war in alliance "with a
country ... which is still one of the last strongholds of slavery"--an
admission made in the fervour of debate that was dangerous as tending to
tie the Government's hands in the future, but which was, no doubt,
merely a personal and carelessly ventured view, not a governmentally
authorized one. In general the most interesting feature of this debate
is the hearty approval giv