the world to make sacrifices of what they think their interest. At
present all the nations of Europe have sympathized with us; have
acknowledged that we were injured, and declared with rare unanimity,
that we had no choice but to resist, if necessary, by arms. But the
consequences of such a war would soon have buried its causes in
oblivion. When the new Confederate States, made an independent Power
by English help, had begun their crusade to carry negro slavery from
the Potomac to Cape Horn; who would then have remembered that England
raised up this scourge to humanity not for the evil's sake, but
because somebody had offered an insult to her flag? Or even if
unforgotten, who would then have felt that such a grievance was a
sufficient palliation of the crime? Every reader of a newspaper, to
the farthest ends of the earth, would have believed and remembered one
thing only--that at the critical juncture which was to decide whether
slavery should blaze up afresh with increased vigor or be trodden out
at the moment of conflict between the good and the evil spirit--at the
dawn of a hope that the demon might now at last be chained and flung
into the pit, England stepped in, and, for the sake of cotton, made
Satan victorious.

The world has been saved from this calamity, and England from this
disgrace. The accusation would indeed have been a calumny. But to be
able to defy calumny, a nation, like an individual, must stand very
clear of just reproach in its previous conduct. Unfortunately, we
ourselves have given too much plausibility to the charge. Not by
anything said or done by us as a Government or as a nation, but by the
tone of our press, and in some degree, it must be owned, the general
opinion of English society. It is too true, that the feelings which
have been manifested since the beginning of the American contest--the
judgments which have been put forth, and the wishes which have been