vided for in this British proclamation. These facts were soon recognized by Americans in a sober afterthought. Adams reported to Seward that he was assured on every hand that sympathy with the Federal Government was universal, and that the British desired only to be perfectly neutral, giving no aid or comfort to the Confederates. "I believe," he added, "that this sentiment is now growing to be universal. It inspires her Majesty's ministers and is not without effect on the opposition. Neither party would be so bold as to declare its sympathy with a cause based on the extension of slavery, for that would at once draw upon itself the indignation of the great body of the people." He added significantly, however, that the growth of active sympathy with the United States would depend largely upon the success of the Federal arms. President Lincoln himself declared that the Government had no reason to complain of any European power; and in a Fourth of July message he added that a general sympathy with this country was manifested throughout the world.

The next step of the British government was even more marked in its friendliness to the United States. This was, on June 1, an order forbidding the naval vessels or privateers of either belligerent to carry prizes into any British ports or territorial waters. This extraordinary prohibition was intended to discourage privateering and indeed all attacks upon commerce; since if captured vessels could not be taken into ports and sold as prizes, much of the incitement to naval attacks upon commerce, and all the incitement to privateering, would be lost. Moreover, whether so meant or not, it was obvious that the order would operate to the disadvantage of the Confederates far more than to that of the Federal Government. For the latter would at least have its own ports open for the reception of prizes, while the former would have to endure the perils of blockade running to get into any ports of their own. This was clearly recognized at the time, so that the Confederate commissioners in London earnestly protested against the order, but in vain, while Seward remarked that it would probably prove a death-blow to Southern privateering. This anticipation was not fulfilled. But at least the benefits of privateering to those engaged in it were enormously diminished. The Alabama, Shenandoah and other cruis

ers might seize American vessels, but they could not take them into British ports for sale, and thus were generally compelled to destroy them on the high seas. The loss to the United States was great, but the profit to the Confederacy was little. It may be added that during the next few weeks similar orders were issued by France, Spain, Prussia, Belgium, Holland, Hamburg, Bremen, Portugal, and the Hawaiian Islands.

Shortly after the firing upon Fort Sumter, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended in the United States. This was done by the President on his sole authority and without congressional sanction, as a war measure. The attorney general of the United States was of opinion that such an act was within the President's power. The chief justice of the Supreme Court-Taney, a Confederate sympathizer-held otherwise and declared it to be illegal. Whenever British subjects were arrested and held without the privilege of habeas corpus proceedings, therefore, they made appeal to the British government, which sought to discuss diplomatically the question of the constitutionality of the President's action. Seward, however, declined to enter into any such discussion, holding that the question involved was purely domestic and did not concern any foreign country. Appeals continued whenever foreigners were arrested, and the matter was a cause of much friction and controversy, but our Government resolutely maintained the ground which Seward had taken.

Another highly important principle was established by Seward at an early date. He received intimations from Russia that efforts were being made to form an extensive combination of European powers, for concerted action toward America. The French emperor was the author of the scheme, and he proposed it to Great Britain and Russia. The former assented to it, but the latter declined. Whether the declination was prompted by friendship for the United States or by animosity against the two powers which had recently defeated Russia in the Crimea, is an open question. Seward accepted the former theory, though he was compelled to cancel the exequatur of a Russian consul who was the first foreign official to enlist in the Confederate military service. On receiving this information, however, he quickly resolved to meet any such combination by refusing to recognize it or to treat with it in any way. Writing to Adams on May

21, he said, "You will take no notice of that or any other alliance." A few days later he wrote to Dayton, our minister at Paris, that no concert of action among foreign States, in recognizing the Confederacy, could reconcile the United States to such a proceeding, no matter what might be the consequences of our resistance. On June 3 he wrote again to Adams, stating that he was aware of "the contracting of an engagement by the Government of Great Britain with that of France, without consulting us, to the effect that both Governments should adopt one and the same course of procedure in regard to the insurrection," and that "the two Governments were preparing, and would, without delay, address communications to this Government concerning the attitude to be assumed by them." Five days later he informed Adams of his resolution "to hold intercourse only with each of those States severally, giving one notice to both that the circumstance of a concert between the two powers in any proposition each might offer to us would not modify in the least degree the action of the United States upon it." Accordingly, on June 15, when the British and French ministers at Washington called upon him together and sought to communicate their identical despatches to him in a joint interview, Seward declined thus to receive them. He insisted that they should call upon him separately, at different times, and that the communication imparted by each should be considered and treated without the slightest reference or relation to the other. "Each of them," in Seward's own words, "announced that he was charged by his government to read a despatch to me and to give me a copy if I should desire it. I answered that, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the times, I could not consent to an official reading or delivery of these papers without first knowing their characters and objects. They confidentially and with entire frankness put the despatches into my hands for an informal preliminary examination. Having thus become possessed of their characters, I replied that I could not allow them to be officially communicated to this Government.'

The ground for this refusal was dual. The first part was the unwillingness of Seward to deal with a combination of European powers, as already stated. The second was, that the despatches practically regarded the Confederacy as an independent and

sovereign power. "That paper," said Seward, "does not expressly deny the sovereignty of the United States of America, but it does assume, inconsistently with that sovereignty, that the United States are not altogether and for all purposes one sovereign power, but that this nation consists of two parties, of which this Government is one. France purposes to take cognizance of both parties as belligerents, and for some purposes to hold communication with each. The instruction would advise us indeed that we must not be surprised if France shall address herself to a Government which she says is to be installed at Montgomery, for certain explanations. This intimation is conclusive in determining this Government not to allow the instruction to be read to it."

Meantime two circumstances were materially affecting the popular and official attitude of Europe, and particularly of Great Britain, toward this country. One was the Morrill tariff, so called after the distinguished New England statesman who chiefly framed the act. This was intended to provide by a tax on imports the increased revenue needed by the Government for the expenses of the war, but it was so devised as to fall most heavily upon goods which competed with home products, and thus to afford protection to American industries. Both for revenue and for protection it was highly successful, and may be esteemed as probably the best-devised measure of the kind ever adopted in such circumstances by any country. But it not unnaturally gave great displeasure to England. It greatly lessened the profits of the American markets to English manufacturers and merchants, to a degree which caused serious mercantile distress in that country. Moreover, the British nation was then in the first flush of enthusiasm over free trade, and, under the lead of extremists like Cobden and Gladstone, was inclined. to regard a protective tariff as essentially and intrinsically immoral, scarcely less so than larceny or murder. Indeed, the tariff was seriously regarded as comparable in offensiveness with slavery itself, and Englishmen were inclined to condemn the North for the one as much as the South for the other. "We do not like slavery," said Palmerston to Adams, "but we want cotton, and we dislike very much your Morrill tariff."

The other circumstance in question was suggested by the men

tion of cotton in this same remark of Palmerston's. The vast cotton manufacturing industries of Lancashire were dependent upon the Southern States for their supplies of raw material. The Federal blockade of the southern coast almost entirely cut off these supplies, save as they could be precariously maintained by blockade runners. The result was the wholesale closing of cotton mills, and the throwing out of work of hundreds of thousands of employees. There came upon England a season of the greatest industrial distress the land had ever known, for which both the mill owners and merchants and the masses of the people at first, with fierce resentment, held the United States responsible. Against this judgment, happily, several influences were in time triumphant. The mordent satires of London "Punch" revealed as with acid etching the true situation. In its "National Hymn of the Confederate States' occurred the telling lines,

And trade, that knows no god but gold,

Shall to thy pirate ports repair;

Blest land, where flesh-where human flesh-is sold.

And in another bitterly ironic screed,

Though with the North we sympathize, it must not be forgotten
That with the South we've stronger ties which are composed of cotton
Whereof our imports mount into a sum of many figures;

And where would be our calico without the toil of Niggers?

The South enslaves these fellow men whom we all love so dearly;

The North keeps Commerce bound again, which touches us more nearly. Thus a divided duty we perceive in this hard matter;

Free Trade, or sable brothers free? Oh, won't we choose the latter?

Such commanding voices as those of Bright, and Forster, the Duke of Argyll, and "Tom" Hughes, were also freely and efficiently raised, to convince the people of England that in maintaining a conflict which would result in nothing less than the extinction of human slavery, the United States was fighting the great battle of humanity the world over, and that in its success the workingmen of England were more interested than in any temporary question of employment or wages. Better suffer privations and poverty for a season, they argued, than have the hope of humanity destroyed and human slavery forever fastened upon the world. Finally, eloquent voices and persuasive agen