1862.] THE COTTON FAMINE. 427 Where are all those promises now, when by the last poor-law return the paupers in Lancashire alone are a hundred thousand more than they were in the corresponding period of last year, and there is not cotton in the country for six weeks' consumption ? Let us not deceive ourselves: the cotton famine is the effect of our own act, and might have been avoided, if the direction of the State had been in other hands than those who, set only on mercantile profit, were resolved to sacrifice everything to buying the materials of manufacture in the cheapest market, in order that they might sell it in its finished state in the dearest. What is still more extraordinary, and seems at variance with the obvious dictates of prudence, is that the whole country appears insensible to a still greater and more terrible possible danger, of which the cotton famine is, as it were, a premonitory warning. Since free trade was introduced in 1846, the importation of foreign grain has increased, in round numbers, from 2,000,000 quarters to 16,000,000 annually; and these immense numbers are yearly on the increase. Estimating the annual consumption of grown persons at a quarter of grain, and considering how considerable a part of our inhabitants are infants or children, this will imply that the staple food of nearly twothirds of our people is derived from foreign states -the population of the two islands being now 29,000,000. It is impossible to contemplate such a state of matters without serious apprehensions, more especially when it is recollected that more than half of this foreign grain (53 per cent) comes from two countries only-Russia and America, who were both in a hostile league against us in 1811, in obedience to the sovereign mandates of Napoleon,-nay more, were within three weeks of becoming so again, when the close of the Crimean war led to the adjournment of their hostile designs. Where should we be if Russia and America were at any future time to combine in hostility against this country? Without fitting out an iron-cased frigate, without embarking a regiment, they could now, in three months, by simply passing a non-Intercourse Act, as the Americans once did to aid the French in our destruction, starve us into submission in three months. To the same cause the extraordinary fact is to be ascribed, that amidst all our immense foreign trade and unprecedented emigration, the paupers of the country undergo no diminution, and have been for the last ten years, with an emigration on an average of above 200,000 a-year, from 800,000 to 900,000 in number. The demand for labour has gone past them, and "called new worlds into existence" on the Volga and the Mississippi, while the industrious poor of Britain have been landed in the workhouse or driven into exile. The distress produced by the cotton famine, which at most does not involve the bread of above 2,000,000 persons, is but a mild premonitory symptom of the far more terrible 1862.] RESULTS OF FREE TRADE. 429 food famine which, on the first breaking out of serious hostilities between this country and any two great maritime Powers, will threaten our entire population. It is a system of policy threatened with such danger, that it is now, almost without a dissenting voice, at least in public, the object of general approval in this country! 430 CHAPTER XX. FROM THE BIRTH OF MY GRANDSON IN 1862, TO THE TERMINATION OF MY PUBLIC CAREER. THE great happiness was accorded to my son, Colonel Alison, and indeed to us all, of the birth, on the 20th May in this year (1862), of his son. Great was the joy which his arrival occasioned in our family; and as soon as we heard of Mrs Alison and her son, Archibald the fourth, being well and flourishing, Lady Alison and I resumed our wonted flight to the south, which the preceding summer had been discontinued for the first time for fifteen years, owing to her delicate state of health. We set out on Tuesday 27th May, and the same evening reached the hospitable mansion of our friends, Mr and Mrs Alexander Campbell, to the latter of whom the daughter of my valued friend, Mr Campbell Douglas of Mains-I was guardian. We found them most comfortably settled; and no reception could be more kind and cordial than we experienced from them. Mr Campbell-a younger 1862.] EARL RUSSELL AND THE AMERICAN WAR. 431 son of Mr Campbell of Camis Eskan, in Dumbartonshire was the leading partner of a great house engaged chiefly in the American and Indian trade, and a most superior and intelligent man; and his home was rendered still more agreeable by the presence of Miss Douglas, his sister-in-law, my youngest ward, a charming girl of eighteen, just returned in improved health and beauty from Madeira, whither she had been sent by her physicians the winter before. I was very anxious to hear the opinions of men of different parties on the American question, the great subject of interest to all classes at this juncture; and in the varied society into which I was now thrown, I had soon an opportunity of ascertaining them, as at Mr Campbell's I met many leading American merchants; and at a public dinner of the Caledonian Asylum, shortly after my arrival, I had the good fortune to be introduced to and enjoy a long conversation with Earl Russell; and I subsequently met and had a protracted conference with Lord Shaftesbury, the acknowledged head of the Exeter Hall party. What struck me first with all these different parties was the extreme timidity with which they approached the subject. They gave me the impression of living in a society in which the free expression of thought had become on this subject as much restrained as it is in St Petersburg or Washington. Every one spoke, when the subject was approached, sotto voce: they seemed to fear that the |