of the proclamation, and meetings of sympathy were called by them. The working classes and the tradesunions likewise felt that it was an appeal to them. Within a few months, everywhere throughout the kingdom meetings of congratulation to Mr. Lincoln and sympathy for the Union cause were held, and the whole land was swept by a wave of humanity and justice.

These demonstrations had a culmination in a great meeting in Exeter Hall, London, which is described as one of the most extraordinary manifestations ever made in that city. In transmitting an account of it to the Department of State, Mr. Adams terms it "a most sig nificant indication of the popular sentiment of the middle classes. Gentlemen tell me there has been nothing like it here since the time of the anti-corn-law gather ings." In forwarding reports of other meetings the next month, our minister writes: "There can be no doubt that these manifestations are the genuine expression of the feelings of the religious dissenting and of the working classes of Great Britain. The political effect of them is not unimportant." 2

1

A unique indication of this dissenting feeling is found in Mr. Adams's account of a regular Sunday morning service in Mr. Spurgeon's great tabernacle in London, at which were present many thousand people. In the course of his prayer he said: "Now, O God, we turn our thoughts across the sea to the dreadful conflict of which we know not what to say; but now

1 Dip. Cor. 1863, p. 97. For correspondence of Mr. Adams on the proclamation meetings, Ib. pp. 52-350.

2 Ib. 100.

the voice of freedom shows where is right. We pray Thee give success to this glorious proclamation of liberty, which comes to us from across the waters. We had feared our brethren were not in earnest, and would not come to this. Bondage and the lash can claim no sympathy from us. God bless and strengthen the North. Give victory to their arms, and a speedy end to the fearful strife. As lovers of freedom, let us not belie our calling. Now that we know their cause, we can but exclaim, God speed them." Mr. Adams reports that the immense audience, interposing in the prayer, responded to this paragraph by a general Amen.1

These demonstrations, indicating the underlying spirit of the English people to range themselves on the side of freedom and humanity, doubtless had a marked influence on the conduct of the government. The friends of America in the cabinet gained fresh courage, and the Duke of Argyll and Milner Gibson made public speeches, indicating their greater confidence in the treatment of the American question and its relations to slavery. A dissolution of Parliament was expected, and the Liberal ministry, then in power, knew that it could not go to the country with any hope of success with the dissenting churches and the working classes arrayed against them. Neither were these demonstrations without their influence on the Conservative leaders. Adams's diary records: "The most marked indication respecting American affairs was the course of Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli. On their minds the

1 Ib. 80.

effect of the President's proclamation on public sentiment had not been lost."

That the effort to carry the people of Great Britain into the support of a slaveholders' rebellion would prove abortive in the end was early foreseen by a Southerner. When the first Confederate agent, W. L. Yancey, was about proceeding to Europe, his brother, B. C. Yancey, who had spent some years in England, wrote him that "unless the [Confederate] government should send a commission authorized to offer commercial advantages so liberal that the Exeter Hall influence could not withstand them, the British government, however well disposed, would not venture to run counter to the antislavery feeling by the recognition of the Confederate States;" and he warned him that Cobden and Bright, as the leaders of the laboring classes, would be found to bar the way to recognition.'

The proclamation of emancipation, issued primarily as a war measure, and to affect the Union cause at home, probably had a still greater influence abroad in achieving the triumph of the North. All over Europe it had an inspiriting effect upon the friends of freedom. But in England it was decisive. The battle of Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg had their weight, but the silent working of the great moral principle in the decree of emancipation did more to restrain the British government in relation to recognition and in arresting the ironclads than all other influences. America owes its deliverance from the untold calamities of disunion in great measure to the anti-slavery sentiment

1 Life and Times of W. L. Yancey, 588.

of Great Britain, as represented mainly in the dissenting churches and the laboring classes, led by Bright, Forster, and Cobden, and a small band of literary

men.

A curious incident connected with the building of the Confederate ironclads ought not to be omitted. In the report of the proceedings of the House of Commons already noticed,' the Prime Minister excused the failure of the government to prevent the sailing of the Alabama, on the ground that if she had been detained without legal cause, the government would have been exposed to heavy damages. It had also been suggested that the ironclads under construction at Liverpool could not be detained without the execution of an indemnifying bond to the government. This situation having been brought to the attention of Secretary Seward and Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, a scheme was conceived to circumvent the plans of the Confederates. Two citizens of the highest standing, Messrs. John M. Forbes, of Boston, and W. H. Aspinwall, of New York, were dispatched to England, with instructions to purchase outright, if possible, the ironclads from the builders by outbidding the Confederates; or to provide a way of furnishing an indemnity bond, in case it became necessary for the detention of the vessels. To effect this purpose they were provided with $10,000,000 in five-twenty United States bonds. The two gentlemen went to London, spent some time in fruitless negotiations, and returned to the United States, bringing back with them the five trunks full of 1 Dip. Cor. 1863, pp. 164–182.

government bonds, doubtless feeling they had been sent on "a fool's errand." 1

In October, 1861, Secretary Seward, with the approval of the President and Cabinet, dispatched to Europe Archbishop Hughes of the Roman Catholic Church, Bishop McIlvaine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and Thurlow Weed, a prominent politician and journalist, on a confidential and secret mission, for the purpose of influencing, as far as possible, public sentiment in respect to the war. They were not to have or assume any diplomatic functions, were not to deal distinctively with any foreign government, although they bore private letters from Secretary Seward to various persons holding important posts in the governments of Europe, and were to receive no compensation beyond their expenses. The services rendered by these citizens were of great value to the country, but no record exists in the Department of State of their appointment, and no reports from them are to be found in its archives.'

As the war progressed quite a number of other private agents were sent to Europe by the different departments. William M. Evarts went to London under employment of the Secretary of State, to aid the lega tion on legal questions concerning the Confederate cruisers and other violations of neutrality. During the Alabama controversy in 1862, Mr. Adams, as we have seen, availed himself of the services of an eminent

1 The story of this visionary scheme is told by Charles Francis Adams, son of the minister, in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, October, 1899; also noticed in 2 Forbes's Letters and Recollections.

23 Life of Seward, 17-20.

3 Dip. Cor. 1863, p. 212.