| YEAR. | NUMBER. | CHARACTER. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANTI-SLAVERY AND RELIGIOUS | WORKING-MEN. | ||
| 1860 | 3 | 3 | - |
| 1861 | 7 | 7 | - |
| 1862 | 16 | 11 | 5 |
| 1863 | 82 | 26 | 56 |
| 1864 | 21 | 10 | 11 |
| 1865 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
Many persons took part in these meetings as presiding officers or as speakers and movers of resolutions; among them those appearing with frequency were George Thompson, Rev. Dr. Cheever, Rev. Newman Hall, John Bright, Professor Newman, Mr. Bagley, M.P., Rev. Francis Bishop, P.A. Taylor, M.P., William Evans, Thomas Bayley Potter, F.W. Chesson and Mason Jones. While held in all parts of England and Scotland the great majority of meetings were held in London and in the manufacturing districts with Manchester as a centre. From the first the old anti-slavery orator of the 'thirties, George Thompson, had been the most active speaker and was credited by all with having given new life to the moribund emancipation sentiment of Great Britain[1204]. Thompson asserted that by the end of 1863 there was a "vigilant, active and energetic" anti-slavery society in almost every great town or city[1205]. Among the working-men, John Bright was without question the most popular advocate of the Northern cause, but there were many others, not named in the preceding list, constantly active and effective[1206]. Forster, in the judgment of many, was the most influential friend of the North in Parliament, but Bright, also an influence in Parliament, rendered his chief service in moulding the opinion of Lancashire and became to American eyes their great English champion, a view attested by the extraordinary act of President Lincoln in pardoning, on the appeal of Bright, and in his honour, a young Englishman named Alfred Rubery, who had become involved in a plot to send out from the port of San Francisco, a Confederate "privateer" to prey on Northern commerce[1207].
This record of the activities of Northern friends and organizations, the relative subsidence of their efforts in the latter part of 1864, thus indicating their confidence in Northern victory, the practical cessation of public Southern meetings, are nevertheless no proof that the bulk of English opinion had greatly wavered in its faith in Southern powers of resistance. The Government, it is true, was better informed and was exceedingly anxious to tread gently in relations with the North, the more so as there was now being voiced by the public in America a sentiment of extreme friendship for Russia as the "true friend" in opposition to the "unfriendly neutrality" of Great Britain and France[1208]. It was a period of many minor irritations, arising out of the blockade, inflicted by America on British interests, but to these Russell paid little attention except to enter formal protests. He wrote to Lyons:
"I do not want to pick a quarrel out of our many just causes of complaint. But it will be as well that Lincoln and Seward should see that we are long patient, and do nothing to distract their attention from the arduous task they have so wantonly undertaken[1209]."
Lyons was equally desirous of avoiding frictions. In August he thought that the current of political opinion was running against the re-election of Lincoln, noting that the Northern papers were full of expressions favouring an armistice, but pointed out that neither the "peace party" nor the advocates of an armistice ever talked of any solution of the war save on the basis of re-union. Hence Lyons strongly advised that "the quieter England and France were just at this moment the better[1210]." Even the suggested armistice was not thought of, he stated, as extending to a relaxation of the blockade. Of military probabilities, Lyons professed himself to be no judge, but throughout all his letters there now ran, as for some time previously, a note of warning as to the great power and high determination of the North.
But if the British Government was now quietly operating upon the theory of an ultimate Northern victory, or at least with the view that the only hope for the South lay in a Northern weariness of war, the leading British newspapers were still indulging in expressions of confidence in the South while at the same time putting much faith in the expected defeat of Lincoln at the polls. As always at this period, save for the few newspapers avowedly friendly to the North and one important daily professing strict neutrality--the Telegraph--the bulk of the metropolitan press took its cue, as well as much of its war news, from the columns of the Times. This journal, while early assuming a position of belief in Southern success, had yet given both sides in the war fair accuracy in its reports--those of the New York correspondent, Mackay, always excepted. But from June, 1864, a change came over the Times; it was either itself deceived or was wilfully deceiving its readers, for steadily every event for the rest of the year was coloured to create an impression of the unlimited powers of Southern resistance. Read to-day in the light of modern knowledge of the military situation throughout the war, the Times gave accurate reports for the earlier years but became almost hysterical; not to say absurd, for the last year of the conflict. Early in June, 1864, Grant was depicted as meeting reverses in Virginia and as definitely checked, while Sherman in the West was being drawn into a trap in his march toward Atlanta[1211]. The same ideas were repeated throughout July. Meanwhile there had begun to be printed a series of letters from a Southern correspondent at Richmond who wrote in contempt of Grant's army.
"I am at a loss to convey to you the contemptuous tone in which the tried and war-worn soldiers of General Lee talk of the huddled rabble of black, white, and copper-coloured victims (there are Indians serving under the Stars and Stripes) who are at times goaded up to the Southern lines.... The truth is that for the first time in modern warfare we are contemplating an army which is at once republican and undisciplined[1212]."
At the moment when such effusions could find a place in London's leading paper the facts of the situation were that the South was unable to prevent almost daily desertions and was wholly unable to spare soldiers to recover and punish the deserters. But on this the Times was either ignorant or wilfully silent. It was indeed a general British sentiment during the summer of 1864, that the North was losing its power and determination in the war[1213], even though it was unquestioned that the earlier "enthusiasm for the slave-holders" had passed away[1214]. One element in the influence of the Times was its seeming impartiality accompanied by a pretentious assertion of superior information and wisdom that at times irritated its contemporaries, but was recognized as making this journal the most powerful agent in England. Angry at a Times editorial in February, 1863, in which Mason had been berated for a speech made at the Lord Mayor's banquet, The Index declared:
"Our contemporary is all things to all men. It not only shouts with the largest crowd, according to the Pickwickian philosophy, but with a skill and daring that command admiration, it shouts simultaneously with opposite and contending crowds. It is everybody's Times[1215]."
Yet The Index knew, and frequently so stated, that the Times was at bottom pro-Southern. John Bright's medium, the Morning Star, said: "There was something bordering on the sublime in the tremendous audacity of the war news supplied by the Times. Of course, its prophecies were in a similar style. None of your doubtful oracles there; none of your double-meaning vaticinations, like that which took poor Pyrrhus in[1216]." In short, the Times became for the last year of the war the Bible of their faith to Southern sympathizers, and was frequent in its preachments[1217].