Besides, there was a vacillation of opinion in England as to the blockade, which was an encouragement to the South, though finally, after much oscillation, the Government came to the sound conclusion not to interfere. This hesitation gave confidence to the rebels. Public speakers declared, over and over again, that England would not submit to this blockade. Cotton, they declared, England must and would have, even at the cost of war, and some were unwise enough to threaten the overthrow of the ministry unless they broke the blockade. Let one case stand for all. Captain Jervis, member for Harwich, declared, that “if it is necessary for the Government to interfere in the quarrel for the sake of alleviating the distress of the population at home, I shall certainly give them my best support." All this, combined with the vacillation of the Government, gave great confidence to the South as to its ultimate recognition, and encouraged them in their rebellion.

By giving to Southern rebels the rights of belligerents, the English Government involved itself in a difficulty. Belligerents have ordinarily the right to bring their prizes into neutral ports, and libel them in foreign Admiralty courts. This, however, could not be consistently allowed to a body of persons carrying on war at sea against their legitimate government by means of privateers, especially as the English Government had already, by the treaty of Paris, agreed to refuse all rights to vessels sailing under letters of marque and reprisal. In order to avoid this difficulty, England was forced to refuse to both parties the right to bring prizes into her ports, thus placing on the same footing the privateers of revolutionists and the national armed vessels of the United States. Why should the Federal Government be denied a right which, by the common custom and courtesy of neutrals, is accorded to all belligerent powers? It was because England, having given the status of belligerents to both parties equally, was forced to deny to the navy of the North what she could not grant to the privateers of the South.

While I am writing these lines the news arrives that a Southern vessel, after wantonly destroying an American ship at the mouth of the English Channel, has brought in her crew as prisoners, and is about to refit and more effectually arm. It is to be

hoped that the action of the British Government in the case will be prompt and decided.

But ships are daily fitted out in Liverpool to carry arms and munitions of war to Southern ports, and thus practically break the blockade, and therefore the Government has declared that persons engaged in such operations "must do so at the risk of capture and condemnation," and that "her Majesty's Government will not afford the slightest protection and countenance to vessels sailing to break the blockade." Yet it has taken no sufficient steps to prevent such shipments; and upon information laid before it, that certain vessels were loading in her ports with goods contraband of war to break the blockade, she has not prevented them from continuing to load and from sailing, since it is only the other day that an English steamer with a large cargo of arms and munitions of war illegally entered a Southern port. There may be great difficulty in preventing such shipments; but, were England earnestly opposed to it, efforts at least would be made to such an end. The purpose and object are undoubtedly illegal, and must finally result, if carried on, in obliging the Federal Government to lay vessels of war along the English coast to capture and destroy such vessels, they being guilty of breach of blockade according to the international law from the moment of their sailing to a blockaded port with contraband goods intending to break the blockade. In such cases, whatever may be the difficulty in proving the object and intention, the law is clear. All this may lead to unpleasant consequences, greatly to be deprecated; and it is to be hoped that the English Government will take some sufficient steps to prevent it.

Again, during the Italian war armed forces were enlisted in England to take part in the revolutionary struggle, and the Government, though it admitted this to be illegal, winked at it and allowed it. Its feelings and hopes were with Italy, and therefore it took no steps to stop this enlistment; but when an English officer in Canada offers his services to the American Government, he is at once arrested, and prevented from carrying his offer into practice by the English Government. It had an

undoubted right to do this; but its conduct in Italy was different, because its sympathies were different.*

And here one fact requires to be noticed, of which there seems to be great misapprehension. Throughout England it has been said by the public prints that the injury done to the Federal commerce by the Southern cruisers was a fit penalty for the refusal of the United States to accede to the terms of the Treaty of Paris as to privateers. "Had the American Government adopted the declaration of Paris in 1856," says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, on the "Disunion of America," for October, 1861, "against privateering, which it rejected on the most selfish and discreditable grounds, it would have had a far better claim than it now possesses to protest against the commissions of the Southern privateers" (p. 585). Can it be possible that the writer of this article is ignorant of the real history of this transaction? The American Government, so far from refusing its consent to this declaration, expressly declared its readiness to agree to it, on the condition that England, France, and the other great European powers would go further, and not only abolish privateering, but also carry out at sea the laws of war on land. "If," said the President of the United States, "the leading powers of Europe should concur in proposing as a rule of national law to exempt private property on the ocean from seizure by public armed cruisers as well as privateers, in like manner as private property on land is respected, as far as possible, by national armies, the United States will readily meet them on that broad ground." This was absolutely refused

* Colonel Rankin, a member of the provincial parliament, had been arrested at Toronto for enlisting recruits for the American army. The offence urged against him in the complainant's affidavit is, that he has agreed to accept a military commission to enter into the service of the United States, and that he has induced divers of the Queen's lieges to enlist in the same service. The Colonel claims the right under the British law for himself and his associates "to enrol themselves in the cause of freedom-that of the North against the South ;" and he says, "there will be no lack of Canadian gentlemen not only willing, but eager to avail themselves of the opportunity now presented to them of achieving an honourable distinction."- Galignani's Messenger.

by England. I do not say on "selfish and discreditable grounds," but certainly refused, and thus the whole matter dropped, not through the refusal of America to accede to a request to abandon one chief arm of her service-her seamilitia-in favour of countries possessing a great standing naval power, vastly superior to her own limited marine, but solely through the refusal of England to abandon the right during war of capturing private property at sea. Had the writer of this article studied the history of America on this point, and acquainted himself with the real facts, he would have seen that the constant efforts of America have been to liberalise the principles of war at sea; that for long years she has strenuously contended for the principle that "free ships make free goods" as a neutral right; and that England as strenuously, and for her own selfish interests, has opposed that principle, never, until the breaking out of the Crimean war, even admitting it as a temporary rule, and that in this opposition she of the great powers stood alone, Russia, Prussia, France, and other nations having concurred with the United States in affirming it as a sound and salutary principle of international law.* In like manner America has resisted the right of search, which England has never wholly renounced. The proposal, then, of America, rejected by England, to exempt private property not contraband of war from capture at sea, was in advance of the views of England.

During the Russian war, her Britannic Majesty's Government, in a note to the American Government, expressed "a confident hope" that it would," in the spirit of just reciprocity, give orders that no privateer under Russian colours shall be equipped, or victualled, or admitted with its prizes in the ports of the United States, and that the citizens of the United States shall rigorously abstain from taking any part in armaments of this nature, or in any measure opposed to the duties of a strict neutrality." Mr. Marcy, in answer, assents to this entirely, and declares that the "laws of this country impose severe restrictions, not only upon its own citizens, but upon all persons

* See Debate in House of Commons, July 4, 1854.

who may be residents within any of the territories of the United States, against equipping privateers, receiving commissions, or enlisting men therein for the purpose of taking part in any foreign war." And this was in a war between nations, not between a nation and rebels within its own borders. Has England acted, or is she acting now, within the spirit of the above communication? Does she prevent her subjects rigorously from taking part in any armaments of this nature, or in any measure opposed to the duties of a strict neutrality?

But it is asserted, that while America has resented the attitude and criticism of England, she has calmly taken that of France, though the action of both these governments has been the same. True; but, in the first place, no such series of bitter attacks has been made on us by the French press. Public men in France have not rejoiced openly at the "bursting of the republican bubble"-threatened the breaking of the blockade for the sake of cotton-suffered vessels in their ports to lade arms and munitions of war to carry to blockaded ports, and exhausted epithets of abuse on us. In the second place, America has no just title to expect from France the sympathy and moral aid which it claims of England. France is a despotism tempered by popular revolutions against the government. Its history is a series of such revolutions, and it is natural that, to a certain extent, it should sympathise with them. England, on the contrary, is a constitutional government, founded on law, and recognising only legal and constitutional modes of growth and change. In its character it is distinguished by submission to existing institutions until they can be peaceably reformed. It grows steadily towards freedom. It discountenances mob-law and violent revolution. Therefore it is, that by virtue of its noble history, of the utterances of its great men, of its earnest, untiring struggles towards the largest civilisation, of its grand self-sacrifices, that America looked to it for sympathy and encouragement, for words of cheer in subduing the Gerion of slavery, whose hundred hands were violently grasping at her throat, to strangle liberty and constitutional government at once. We cannot but be pained at the thought that it may suffer its material interest to warp its judg