lators breathed
freely again only when peace was assured. This speculative British
interest was no cause for serious governmental concern and could not
affect policy. But the manufacturing trade was, presumably, a more
serious anxiety and if cotton became hard, or even impossible to obtain,
a serious situation would demand consideration.

In the generally accepted view of a "short war," there was at first no
great anticipation of real danger. But beginning with December, 1861,
there was almost complete stoppage of supply from America. In the six
months to the end of May, 1862, but 11,500 bales were received, less
than one per cent. of the amount for the same six months of the previous
year[673]. The blockade was making itself felt and not merely in
shipments from the South but in prospects of Southern production, for
the news came that the negroes were being withdrawn by their masters
from the rich sea islands along the coast in fear of their capture by
the Northern blockading squadrons[674]. Such a situation seemed bound in
the end to result in pressure by the manufacturers for governmental
action to secure cotton. That it did not immediately do so is explained
by Arnold, whose dictum has been quite generally accepted, as follows:

"The immediate result of the American war was, at this time,
to relieve the English cotton trade, including the dealers in
the raw material and the producers and dealers in
manufactures, from a serious and impending difficulty. They
had in hand a stock of goods sufficient for the consumption
of two-thirds of a year, therefore a rise in the price of the
raw material and the partial closing of their establishments,
with a curtailment of their working expenses, was obviously
to their advantage. But to make their success complete, this
rise in the price of cotton was upon the largest stock ever
collected in the country at this season. To the cotton trade
there came in these days an unlooked for accession of wealth,
such as even it had never known before. In place of the hard
times which had been anticipated, and perhaps deserved, there
came a shower of riches[675]."

This was written of the situation in December, 1861. A similar analysis,
no doubt on the explanations offered by his English friends, of "the
question of cotton supply, which we had supposed would speedily have
disturbed the level of their neutral policy"