CHAP. LIX.] prizes. CONFEDERATE PRIVATEERS. 499 ed to them. They were floating among splinters and wreck; their vessel had disappeared. They had been chasing the frigate St. Lawrence, which had opened her ports and instantly sent the Petrel to the bottom. Four men were drowned, and thirty-six rescued from the water. Several prizes were, however, made by other vessels The Confederate sailing under the Confederate flag. At the close of the year (1861) these prizes were fifty-eight in number. The Confederate government carried its point that its prisoners captured at sea should be treated as ordinary prisoners of war. Colonel Corcoran, of the New York 69th Regiment, who had been wounded and captured at the battle of Bull Run, was handcuffed, placed in a solitary cell, and attached to the floor by a chain in the Libby Prison at Richmond. This was done to compel the national government to recede from the position taken by the President in his proc respecting priva- lamation of April 19th, that persons thus captured at sea "will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy," and the measure proved successful. Among other naval operations may be mentioned the Burning of the destruction, in the harbor of Pensacola, of the Judah, a privateer. She was boarded early on the morning of September 14th by a party from the flag-ship Colorado, who spiked a 10-inch gun with which she was armed, and set her on fire. Their loss was 15 in killed and wounded. The Confederates, however, shortly after retaliated. On the night of October Government action teers. Judah. The Confederates rout a Zouave regiment. 9th they sent a force from Pensacola to Santa Rosa Island, and surprised the camp of a Zouave regiment stationed near Fort Pickens. They were successful; the camp was destroyed, and the Zouaves lost about 60 killed and wounded. The steamer Sumter, Captain Semmes, had evaded the Successes of the blockade of the Mississippi about the begin. ning of July, and captured several merchantmen in the West India Seas. She then went to Nassau for supplies. Having made many captures in the Atlantic, she was blockaded in the harbor of Gibraltar by the national steamer Tuscarora. Here she was sold, her officers repairing to Liverpool, and being eventually transferred to the Alabama, which had been built for them at that port. Nashville. The Nashville, which had slipped out of Charleston, Successes of the captured and burnt a valuable merchantman, the Harvey Birch, near the English coast, and then went into Southampton, where the Tusca rora happened to be. She, however, escaped from this national ship, as it was detained by the English government for twenty-four hours after the privateer had sailed. An attempt was made (October 11th) to drive the Attack on a block blockading squadron from the mouths of the Mississippi. For this purpose, a ram, three fire-ships, and five small steamers came down the river. The ram struck the national flag-ship Richmond, and stove in her side. The other ships slipped their cables and ran down to the Southwest Pass. them, the Vincennes, got aground, her captain attempting, without success, to set her on fire. The alarm was, however, very quickly over, and the blockade remained unbroken. ading squadron. One of SECTION XIII. FOREIGN RELATIONS AND DOMESTIC POLICY OF THE REPUBLIC. CHAPTER LX. FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC. STATE OF EUROPEAN OPINION ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS. Public opinion in Europe respecting the American Civil War was, to a great extent, founded on the views of the English press. The middle classes in England were brought to coincide with the privileged classes in sentiments unfavorable to the American Union, partly by appeals to historical recollections, and partly by considerations connected with the revenue legislation of the American Congress. The Confederacy THE people of the Confederacy very confidently expected foreign aid, both moral and material, in expected foreign the establishment of their independence. It was affirmed that promises of that kind had been given before the first public movements of secession in Charleston were undertaken (vol. i., p. 512). aid, The national government also, not without reason, looked for the favorable opinion of that government for powerful influence in Europe which represents itself as dedicated to the support of and the national eign sympathy. law, order, and liberty. Both, however, were disappointed. If a French army appeared on the American continent, it was not in avowed support of the Confederacy, but for the carrying out of European purposes in Mexico. The intellectual power of England was engaged, as far as circumstances permitted, in promoting a partition of the republic. It is impossible to express the pain felt by loyal and conservative men in America when it was announced that the ministry of Lord Palmerston had determined to concede belligerent rights to the South. Republican America did not solicit the moral support of Constitutional England as a boon. She expected it as a right. Not without the deepest regret did she find that she must fight the battle of Representative Institu tions and human freedom alone. ileged classes of England. Though no one imagined that the privileged classes of England would look with disfavor on the Course of the priv- downfall of a democracy, no one in loyal America supposed that they could regard without horror a resort to conspiracy for the accomplishment of political ends, or contemplate without disdain great officers of state, who, with atrocious perfidy, had be trayed their trust. dle classes. No one supposed that the religious middle classes of The religious mid- England, who had ever been foremost in support of human liberty, could forget their traditions, and lend their influence to those who were attempting, by armed force, to perpetuate and extend human slavery. The literary classes. No one supposed that the literature of England, of which it is the glory to have been the champion of Order, Progress, and all that is beneficent in modern civilization, could view unmoved the resort of a faction to brute violence, insurrection, and the horrors of civil war-still less that it would seek to paralyze a loyal people in their efforts to uphold a just, a great, a good government. No one supposed that a commercial community would set the perilous example of building and equipping war-ships to destroy the commerce of its friend. The commercial classes. CHAP. LX.] PUBLIC OPINION IN ENGLAND. 503 Not without profound disappointment did loyal and educated Americans witness the direction of English influence. In their eyes it seemed false to the destinies of our race. Of a conflict which has cost half a million of lives, which in four years has imposed financial burdens and occasioned a destruction of property equal in aggregate value to the public debt of England, what is the result? Only this the Confirmation of Free Institutions. The price to be paid was very great, but it has been paid by America without a murmur. of England. Not among the titled-not among the educated-not The plain people even among the religious classes of England did Free America find favor. Her cause, however, was not without supporters in the ancestral land. The plain people, those who earn their daily bread by honorable industry, who recognized that her cause was their cause, were her friends, and that, too, though they were the chief sufferers by the commercial embarrassments of the war. The Prince Consort One illustrious man there was in England who saw that the great interests of the Future would and the Queen. be better subserved by a sincere friendship with America than by the transitory alliances of Europe. He recognized the bonds of race. His prudent counsels strengthened the determination of the sovereign that the Trent controversy should have an honorable and peaceful solution. Had the desires of these, the most exalted personages in the Realm, been more completely fulfilled, the administration of Lord Palmerston would not have cast a disastrous shadow on the future of the AngloSaxon race. With the exception of Russia, the Continent of Europe was greatly influenced by the representations of the En |