A.D. 1860-61.]

CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

305

dians. Upon the 20th of the following month, he entered the United States, travelling incognito under the title of Baron Renfrew, and during his short stay met with unbounded marks of friendly attention from all classes. Hardly had the Prince reached England when the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency threw the Southern States into the most violent excitement, which proved to be the preliminary to a most calamitous civil war. As Mr. Lincoln represented the party which, if not prepared for the immediate abolition of slavery, was yet clearly opposed to its further extension, the Southern States professed to see in his election a menace to their own interests. In the beginning of 1861, a Convention met at South Carolina, where it was resolved to secede from the Union. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, immediately joined South Carolina in a confederation, which was soon strengthened by the adhesion of Arkansas and Mississippi. Mr. Lincoln called out 75,000 men to suppress this "rebellion," as he named it, when Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee swelled the secession, while Kentucky and Missouri revealed the direction of their sympathies by refusing to comply with the demand for troops. In Maryland a secessionist movement was only prevented by the presence of the military, and the little State of Delaware was more than suspected of entertaining secessionist tendencies. Awakened to the magnitude of the danger, Congress assembled, and voted a grant of 500 millions of dollars to meet the requirements of an army of 500,000 men.

England and France, seeing that what at Washington was called rebellion was in reality a great civil war, issued proclamations forbidding their respective subjects to enter the service of either of the belligerent parties, and as further proof of their neutrality closed their ports against captures made at sea, which otherwise might have been brought in and sold as prizes. This impartial act excited against England the most unjustifiable anger of the Northern States, because, instead of being regarded as mere rebels, the Secessionists were called belligerents. Bad feeling was increased by the necessity under which the English Government

was placed to demand the restoration of two American gentlemen, Mason and Slidell, who, while on board a British packet-ship sailing under the British flag, were forcibly seized by an American vessel of war. The pretext for this outrage offered by the American captain was, that Messrs. Mason and Slidell were envoys from the Secessionists to England and France. The British Government, in moderate but resolute terms, demanded satisfaction, which was happily accorded by the restoration of the captured passengers, and war, which for a moment seemed to be threatening, was averted. The enormous proportions which this most deplorable war subsequently assumed, did but too well justify the title of belligerents, whose rights were entitled to equal consideration at the hands of foreign powers.

While the American States became convulsed on the subject of slavery, the Czar of Russia had to deal with disorders occasioned by the abolition of the serf system, an act which promises to render the name of Alexander for ever distinguished amongst the benefactors of the human race. Poland, however, remains to be satisfied.

It was under peculiarly favourable circumstances that the year 1862 was fixed upon for a great international exhibition of manufactures at South Kensington. England and France had by their commercial treaty entered upon a rivalry better than that of arms. The cruel war in the American States had not taken such a development as to forbid expectations of an early settlement. Rebellion had been utterly suppressed in India, and under the admirably wise governorship of Lord Canning, whose loss his country had too soon to deplore, was rising in wealth and improvement. Instead of having to compel the Chinese government to be faithful to engagements, we were helping it against rebellious subjects. We were at peace with all the world. Our Colonies were prosperous and satisfied. There was every likelihood of an inpour of the latest specimens of human ingenuity from all parts of the world, accompanied by visitors anxious to compare the advances made since the Great Exhibition of 1851. The building to hold the

A.D. 1861-62.]

DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

307

expected treasures was rising with rapidity, when the great moving spirit of the whole undertaking was called to his last account. The Christmas of 1861 was darkened by the sudden death of the Prince Consort. Never was prince more regretted by a nation, which he served by benign counsel, not openly obtruded, but felt in its result. Around the bereaved Queen, the sympathetic love of the people became more intense. Her Majesty, in order to testify her wish that the Exhibition, which the Prince had so much at heart, should suffer as little as possible by the absence of royal presence from the inauguration, issued a Commission to some of the most important personages of the realm, including His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Earl Derby, the Speaker of the House of Commons, etc., who upon the 1st May 1862 opened the world's show with becoming ceremony. In one respect the present Exhibition presented a contrast with its predecessor, for as the Exhibition of 1851 was to have inaugurated an era of peace, unhappily contradicted by a succession of wars in almost all parts of the world, so this of 1862 would seem to renounce the dreams of philanthropists, by its various specimens of those lately invented instruments of war and means of defence which would seem to absorb the mechanical genius of the age. Rifled cannon of prodigious range and force, shells that would set a ship of the line on fire in a few minutes, defensive armour for vessels of war, and rams before which British oak would be as pasteboard, form the characteristic show of the second half of the nineteenth century. England, with no ambition to assail her neighbours or make fresh conquests, is obliged, by the necessity of her position, to put herself in a state of defence against all who may envy her fame and her wealth. The country responds to the demands made upon its patriotism by a magnificent army of self-sustained volunteers, and by submission to large pecuniary demands for converting the navy from one of wood to one of iron, with fortifications for the protection of docks and arsenals, and for providing projectiles of irresistible force. May such forces be

308

CESSION OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS.. [A.D. 1862–63.

allowed to remain the dormant evidence of resolution equal to emergencies that no wicked ambition shall create !

In February 1862, a revolution in Athens put an end to the Bavarian dynasty, by the expulsion of King Otho from the throne of Greece. The Greeks desired to have the vacant crown placed on the head of our own Prince Alfred, whom they actually elected king; but as Greece was under the protection of the great powers, all of whom had bound themselves by the Convocation of 1832 to exclude their own families from the succession, the offer could not be accepted. In the following year, Prince William of Denmark was chosen King of Greece, and ascended the throne under the title of George I., King of the Hellenes; and England, to consolidate that kingdom, and add lustre to the constitutional monarchy, soon thereafter ceded her protectorate over the Ionian Islands.

In this same year, in consequence of the wrongs inflicted upon British, French, and Spanish subjects by Mexico, the three Governments determined to despatch a united fleet to the coast, with the intention of holding the principal seaport, Vera Cruz, and customs revenues, until proper satisfaction should be given. The French General Lorencez proposed to march upon the capital, alleging that no faith could be placed in the existing government. He was accompanied by the Mexican General Almonte, and their real object was to overthrow the republic, and place the crown upon the head of Maximilian, brother of the Emperor of Austria. The English refused to take part in an expedition which was not authorized by their instructions; and the Spanish General Prim, concurring in their views, also refused to land troops. The French, setting forth alone, met with opposition, which they were far from expecting. At Puebla, they received a severe check. The French Government found it therefore necessary to despatch an army of 30,000 men under General Forey. They ultimately achieved the object of the expedition. The existing government was overthrown, and, after a general election in imitation of the French model, Maximilian was proclaimed Emperor.

Another proposal from France for a mediation between the Northern and Southern States of America, then at war, was

A.D. 1863.]

THE COTTON FAMINE.

309

rejected by the British Cabinet, as calculated rather to give umbrage at European interference than to effect any real good. The Government at Washington had, in the beginning of the year, by liberating the Southern envoys seized on board the Trent, yielded to our remonstrances against the outrage committed upon the English flag; and as the Northern States already felt aggrieved at the joint recognition by England and France of the position of the South as a belligerent power, instead of treating her as a mere rebel, the British Government considered it would be useless, and probably mischievous, to adopt the French proposal.

As the ports of the Southern States of America were blockaded, the Confederate Government endeavoured to purchase vessels in Europe that might be armed to act as privateers. One of these, called the Alabama, was built at Birkenhead, and escaped, while unarmed, under false pretences. It was fitted up elsewhere as a vessel of war, and committed great ravages on the merchant shipping of the Northern States. Much bitter feeling resulted, and the Northern Government held the British Government responsible, and required compensation. This was refused, though at a future time Her Majesty's Government expressed its willingness to submit the matter in dispute to arbitration.

The States, North and South, were not the only sufferers from their terrible strife. Lancashire, the chief seat of the cotton manufacture in England, was no longer able to procure the necessary supplies of the raw cotton material which had been derived from the Southern States. Other districts of England and Scotland were more or less stricken by what was expressively called the cotton famine. Exports had fallen within three years from 56 millions to 37 millions, but the meaning of these figures will be better understood by the fact that there were 595,675 persons in the year 1863 requiring relief. All classes did their duty. Relief was promptly and generously accorded, and our manufacturing population submitted to the severity of their privations with the utmost fortitude.

The year 1863, so dark in many respects, was brightened

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