Early in 1861 there sprang up in England a thriving trade in arms and munitions of war. While the cotton spinners of Lancashire were suffering from the loss of their usual supply of raw material, owing to the blockade of the ports of the Confederacy, the merchants of Liverpool were turning their attention to supplying the belligerants with the equipment necessary for the continuance of the conflict. Sales were made directly or indirectly to the Federal government, but the higher prices offered in the South tempted many to engage in the more hazardous traffic with the government at Richmond.
As the blockade gradually became more efficient, insurance companies refused longer to take the risk of loss on Southern commerce. But it still went on. The owners of a blockade runner were certain of enormous profits if they could succeed in getting through the lines, but, if captured, both vessel and cargo were confiscated by the Federal prize courts. The sleepy little village of Nassau in the Bahama islands awoke to find itself a great commercial emporium, and immense quantities of goods were soon collected there, awaiting transshipment within the Confederate lines.
According to the law of nations, vessels of neutral countries were not subject to seizure, unless actually attempting to run the blockade. Consequently, ocean steamers could land their cargoes at the English port of Nassau without danger, while smaller vessels, having less draught than the Federal war ships, could make the short run to the coast with better chances of escape. Liverpool was the principal European depot for this traffic, as Nassau was its principal depot on this side of the Atlantic.
In the spring of 1862 Confederate agents in England were still talking about the “paper blockade,” but English merchants whose goods were piled up at Nassau found the blockade much more real than it had been represented to be. Their anxiety was somewhat lessened by the circulation of rumors that the blockade was shortly to be raised. Confederate vessels of war were to make an opening in the encircling fleets, and the blockade was to become so lax that it would no longer be recognized by European governments. Eventually these prophecies became tangible enough to connect themselves with a certain mysterious vessel which was at that very time lying in the Mersey awaiting her masts and rigging.
Charles Francis Adams was the United States minister to England, residing at London. The suspected character of the vessel was communicated to him by Thomas H. Dudley, the United States consul at Liverpool, and a strict watch was kept upon her.
Any avowed agent of the United States government had great difficulty in acquiring information of a compromising character. Public opinion in England among the wealthy and influential was strongly in favor of the South. For this there were two reasons—one political, the other commercial. People of rank and those of considerable worldly possessions saw with growing apprehension the rising tide of democracy, not only in England but throughout the world. The feeling of disdain with which the idle rich had so long looked upon those who were “in trade” was beginning to lose its sting, and something like an answering scorn of those who never contributed anything toward the struggle for human subsistence began to be felt. The existence side by side of vast wealth and degrading poverty were more often referred to, and the innate perfection of institutions hoary with antiquity was more often called in question. The dread of an uprising of the “lower classes,” peaceful or otherwise, was strong. The success of Napoleon III. in overturning the second republic of France was greeted with delight and construed to mean the triumph of the privileged classes.
And at last had come that long-deferred failure of republican institutions, which aristocracy and aristocracy’s ancestors had been so confidently predicting—the breaking up of the American republic. The refusal of President Lincoln and the people of the North to acquiesce in the dismemberment of the Union was received at first with surprise and then with indignation. British commerce was seriously interfered with by the blockade. Spindles were idle all through the manufacturing districts in the west of England. And all because a blind and headstrong people persisted in an utterly hopeless war of conquest.
Abhorrence of chattel slavery was well nigh universal among the English people of all classes. Indeed, the existence of that institution in America was one of the principal indictments which aristocracy had been fond of bringing against her. The assertion that the North was waging a war for the extinguishment of slavery was laughed to scorn. Aristocracy pointed to the assertion of Lincoln in his inaugural address, that he had no intention or lawful right to interfere with slavery where it already existed and to similar statements of Republican leaders. The general opinion among the well-to-do classes was that the war was being fought on the part of the North for territory—for empire—or from motives of pride.
On the other hand, the mechanics and artizans were inclined to believe that the war was really a war against slavery, and that in the cause of the North was somehow bound up the cause of the poor and downtrodden generally. So it came about that associations of working men passed resolutions of sympathy with President Lincoln, and the craftsmen of Lancashire, who were the principal sufferers from the cotton famine, kept as their representative in parliament the free trade champion, Richard Cobden, an outspoken friend of the North.