In fearful haste thy murdered corse away!
It was in this faith that we took our stand, with a firm resolution that
no effort of ours should be spared to help your people shake themselves
clear of the dead weight of slavery, and to preserve that vast
inheritance of which God has made you the guardians and trustees for all
the nations of the earth, unbroken, and free from the standing armies,
disputed boundaries, and wretched heart-burnings and dissensions of the
Old World. It was little enough that we could do in any case, but that
little was done with all our hearts, and on looking back I cannot but
think was well done.
There was no need at first for any organisation. Until after the battle
of Manassas Junction in 1861, there was scarcely any public expression
of sympathy with the rebellion. The _Times_ and that portion of the
press which follows its lead, and is always ready to go in for the side
they think will win, were lecturing on the wickedness of the war and the
absurdity of the rebel States in supposing that they could resist for a
month the strength of the North. The news of that first defeat arrived,
and this portion of our press swung round, and the strong feeling in
favour of the rebellion which leavened society and the commercial
world began to manifest itself. The unlucky _Trent_ business, and your
continued want of success in the field, made matters worse. We were
silenced for the moment; for though, putting ourselves in your places,
we could feel how bitter the surrender of the two archrebels must have
been, we could not but admit that our Government was bound to insist
upon it, and that the demand had not been made in an arrogant or
offensive manner. If you will re-read the official documents now, I
think that you too will acknowledge that this was so. Then came Mr.
Mason’s residence in London, where his house became the familiar resort
of all the leading sympathisers with the rebellion. The newspaper
which he started, _The Index_, was full, week after week, of false and
malignant attacks on your Government. The most bitter of them to us was
the constant insistance, backed by quotations from Mr. Lincoln and Mr.
Seward, that the war had nothing to do with slavery, that emancipation
was far more likely to come from the rebels than from you.
“The lie that is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,” and we felt
the truth of that wonderful saying. This had been our great difficulty
from the first. Our generation had been reared on anti-slavery
principles. We remembered as children how the great battle was won in
England, how even in our nurseries we gave up sugar lest we might be
tasting the accursed thing, and subscribed our pennies that the chains
might be struck from all human limbs. Emancipation had been the crowning
glory of England in our eyes. But we found that this great force was not
with us, was even slipping away and drifting to the other side. It was
not only Mr. Mason’s paper, and the backing he got in our press, which
was undermining it. The vehement protests of those who had been for
years looked on by us as the foremost soldiers in the great cause on
your side told in the same direction. I well remember the consternation
and almost despair with which I read in Mr. Phillips’ speech in this
hall on 20th June 1861, “The Republicans, led by Seward, offer to
surrender anything to save the Union. Their gospel is the constitution,
and the slave clause their sermon on the mount. They think that at the
judgment day the blacker the sins they have committed to save the Union
the clearer will be their title to heaven.”
Something must be done to counteract this, to put the case clearly
before our people. Mr. Mason and his friends were already establishing a
Confederate States Aid Association; it must be met by something similar
on the right side. So in 1862 the Emancipation and the Union and
Emancipation Societies were started in London and in Manchester, and in
good time came Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation of emancipation to strengthen
our hands. The original manifesto of the Emancipation Society said--“To
make it clear by the force of indisputable testimony that the South
is fighting for slavery, while the North is fully committed to the
destruction of slavery, is the principal object for which this society
is organised. Its promoters do not believe that English anti-slavery
sentiment is dead or enfeebled. They are confident that when the demands
and designs of the South are made clear, there will be no danger of
England being enticed into complicity with them.” We pledged ourselves
to test the opinion of the country everywhere by public meetings, and
challenged the Confederate States Aid Association to accept that test.
They did so; but I never could hear of any even quasi public meeting but
one which they held in England. That meeting was at Mr. Mason’s house,
and was, I believe, attended by some fifty persons.
The first step of our societies was to hold meetings for passing an
address of congratulation to your President on the publication of the
Emancipation proclamation. It was New Year’s Eve 1862. Our address said:
“We have watched with the warmest interest the steady advance of your
policy along the path of emancipation; and on this eve of the day on
which your proclamation takes effect we pray God to strengthen your
hands, to confirm your noble purpose, and to hasten the restoration of
that lawful authority which engages, in peace or war, by compensation
or by force of arms, to realise the glorious principle on which your
constitution is founded--the brotherhood, freedom, and equality of
all men.” The address was enthusiastically adopted by a large meeting,
chiefly composed of working men. It was clear at once that there was
a grand force behind us, for we became objects of furious attack. The
_Times_ called us impostors, and said we got our funds for the
agitation from American sources--the fact being that we always refused
contributions from this side. The _Saturday Review_ declared, in one
of its bitterest articles, that if anything could be calculated upon as
likely to defer indefinitely the gradual extinction of slavery, it
would be Mr. Lincoln’s fictitious abolition of it. We were meddlesome
fanatics, insignificant nobodies, mischievous agitators. This was
satisfactory and encouraging. We felt sure that we had taken the
right course, and not a moment too soon. Then came the test of public
meetings, which you at least are surely bound to accept as a fair gauge
of what a people thinks and wills.
Our first was held on the 29th of January 1863. We took Exeter Hall,
the largest and most central hall in London. We did nothing but simply
advertise widely that such a meeting would be held, inviting all who
cared to come, foes as well as friends. Prudent and timid people shook
their heads and looked grave. The cotton famine was at its worst, and
tens of thousands of our workpeople were “clemming” as they call it,
starving as you might say. Your prospects looked as black as they had
ever done; it was almost the darkest moment of the whole war. Even
friends warned us that we should fail in our object, and only do harm by
showing our weakness; that the Confederate States Aid Association would
spare no pains or money to break up the meeting, and a hundred roughs
sent there by them might turn it into a triumph for the rebellion.
However, on we went,--we knew our own people too well to fear the
result. The night came, and familiar as I am with this kind of thing,
I have never seen in my time anything approaching this scene. Remember,
there was nothing to attract people; no well-known orators, for we
always thought it best to keep our Parliament men to their own ground;
no great success to rejoice in, for you were just reeling under
the recoil of your gallant army from the blood-stained heights of
Fredericksburg; no attack on our own Government; no appeal to political
or social hates or prejudices; only doors thrown wide open, with the
invitation, “Now let Englishmen come forward and show on which side
their sympathies really are in this war.” Notwithstanding all these
disadvantages the great hall was densely crowded, so that there was no
standing room, and the Strand and the neighbouring streets blocked with
a crowd of thousands who could find no place, long before the doors were
open. We were obliged to organise a number of meetings on the spur of
the moment in the lower halls, and even in the open streets. In the
great hall--where two clergymen, the Hon. Baptist Noel and Mr. Newman
Hall, and I myself, were the chief speakers--as well as in every one of
the other meetings, we carried, not only without opposition, but, so far
as I remember, without a single hand being held up on the other
side, resolutions in favour of your Government, of the Union, and of
emancipation. The success was so complete that in London our work was
done.
Then followed similar meetings at Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol, Leeds,
in all the great centres of population, with precisely the same result.
I don’t remember that the enemy ever even attempted to divide a meeting.
The country was carried by acclamation. Our friends in Liverpool wrote
with some anxiety as to the state of feeling there, and asked me to go
down and deliver an address. I went, and the meeting carried the same
resolutions by a very large majority; and those who, it was supposed,
came to disturb the proceedings, thought better of it when they saw the
temper of the audience, and were quiet. Without troubling you with any
further details of our work, I may just add, as a proof of how those
who profess to be the most astute worshippers of public opinion changed
their minds in consequence of the answer of the country to our appeals,
that in August 1863 the _Times_ supported our demand on the Government
for the stoppage of the steam-rams.
In addition to this political movement, we instituted also a number
of freedmen’s aid associations, in order that those abolitionists in
England who were still unable to put faith in your Government might have
an opportunity of helping in their own way. These associations entered
into correspondence with those on your side, and sent over a good many
thousand pounds’ worth of clothing and other supplies, besides money.
I forget the exact amount. It was a mere drop in the ocean of your
magnificent war charities, but it came from thousands who had little
enough to spare in those hard times, and I trust has had the effect of
a peace-offering with those of your people who are conversant with the
facts, and are ready to judge by their actual doings even those against
whom they think they have fair cause of complaint.
So much for what I may call the unofficial, or extraparliamentary,
struggle in England during your war. And now let me turn to the action
of our Government and of Parliament. I might fairly have rested my case
entirely upon this ground. In the case of nations blessed as America and
England are with perfect freedom of speech and action within the limits
of law--where men may say the thing they will freely, and without any
check but the civil courts--no one in my judgment has a right to make
the nation responsible for anything except what its Government says and
does. But I know how deeply the conduct and speech of English society
has outraged your people, and still rankles in their minds, and I wished
by some rough analysis, and by the statement of facts within my own
knowledge, and of doings in which I personally took an active part, to
show you that you have done us very scant justice. The dress suit, and
the stomach and digestive apparatus, of England were hostile to you, and
you have taken them for the nation: the brain and heart and muscle of
England were on your side, and these you have ignored and forgotten.
Now, for our Government and Parliament. I will admit at once, if you
please, that Lord Palmerston and the principal members of his Cabinet
were not friendly to you, and would have been glad to have seen your
Republic broken up. I am by no means sure that it was so; but let that
pass. I was not in their counsels, and have no more means of judging of
them than are open to all of you. Your first accusation against us
is, that the Queen’s proclamation of neutrality, which was signed
and published on the 13th of May 1861, was premature, and an act of
discourtesy to your Government, inasmuch as your new Minister, Mr.
Adams, only arrived in England on that very day. Well, looking back from
this distance of time, I quite admit that it would have been far better
to have delayed the publication of the proclamation till after he had
arrived in London. But at the time the case was very different. You
must remember that news of the President’s proclamation of the blockade
reached London on 3rd May. Of course, from that moment the danger of
collision between our vessels and yours, and of the fitting out of
privateers in our harbours, arose at once. In fact, your first capture
of a British vessel, the _General Parkhill_ of Liverpool, was made on
12th May. But if the publication of the proclamation of neutrality was
a mistake, it was made by our Government at the earnest solicitation
of Mr. Forster and other warm friends of yours, who pressed it forward
entirely, as they supposed, in your interest. They wanted to stop
letters of marque and to legitimise the captures made by your blockading
squadron. The Government acted at their instance; so, whether a blunder
or not, the proclamation was not an unfriendly act. Besides, remember
what it amounted to. Simply and solely to a recognition of the fact that
you had a serious war on hand. Mr. Seward had already admitted this in
an official paper of the 4th of May, and your Supreme Court decided, in
the case of the _Amy Warwick_, that the proclamation of blockade was in
itself conclusive evidence that a state of war existed at the time. If
we had ever gone a step further--if we had recognised the independence
of the rebel States, as our Government was strongly urged to do by their
envoys, by members of our Parliament, and lastly by the Emperor of
the French--you would have had good ground of offence. But this was
precisely what we never would do; and when they found this out, the
Confederate Government cut off all intercourse with England, and
expelled our consuls from their towns. So one side blamed us for doing
too much, and the other for doing too little--the frequent fate of
neutrals, as you yourselves are finding at this moment in the case of
the war between Prussia and France.
Then came the first public effort of the sympathisers with the
rebellion. After several preliminary skirmishes, which were defeated
by Mr. Forster (who had what we lawyers should call the watching brief,
with Cobden and Bright behind him as leading counsel, and who used to
go round the lobbies in those anxious days with his pockets bulging out
with documents to prove how effective the blockade was, and how many
ships of our merchants you were capturing every day), Mr. Gregory put a
motion on the paper. He was well chosen for the purpose, as a member of
great experience and ability, sitting on our side of the House, so that
weak-kneed Liberals would have an excuse for following him, and though
not himself in office, supposed to be on intimate terms with the Premier
and other members of the Cabinet. His motion was simply “to call the
attention of the House to the expediency of prompt recognition of the
Southern Confederacy.”
It was set down for 7th June 1861, and I tell you we were all pretty
nervous about the result. The _Spectator, Daily News, Star_, and other
staunch papers opened fire, and we all did what we could in the way of
canvassing; but until the Government had declared itself no Union man
could feel safe. Well, Lord John Russell, as the Foreign Minister,
got up, snubbed the motion altogether, said that the Government had no
intention whatever of agreeing to it, and recommended its withdrawal.
So Mr. Gregory and his friends took their motion off the paper without a
debate, and did not venture to try any other during the session of 1861.
In the late autumn came the unlucky _Trent_ affair, to which I have
already sufficiently alluded. Belying on the feeling which had been
roused by it, and cheered on by the Mason club in Piccadilly and the
_Index_ newspaper fulminations, and by the severe checks of the Union
armies, they took the field again in 1862. This time their tactics were
bolder. They no longer confined themselves to asking the opinion of the
House deferentially. Mr. Lindsay, the great shipowner, who it was said
had a small fleet of blockade-runners, was chosen as the spokesman. He
gave notice of motion, “That in the opinion of this House, the States
which have seceded from the Union have so long maintained themselves,
and given such proofs of determination and ability to support
independence, that the propriety of offering mediation with a view to
terminating hostilities is worthy of the serious and immediate attention
of Her Majesty’s Government.” Again we trembled for the result, and
again the Government came out with a square refusal on the 18th of July,
and this motion shared the fate of its predecessor, and was withdrawn by
its own promoters.
Then came the escape of the _Alabama_. Upon this I have no word to say.
My private opinion has been expressed over and over again in Parliament
(where in my first year, 1866, I think I was the first man to urge open
arbitration on our Government) as well as on the platform and in the
press. But I stand here to-night as an Englishman, and say that at this
moment I have no cause to be ashamed of the attitude of my country. Two
Governments in succession, Tory and Liberal, through Lords Stanley
and Clarendon, have admitted (as Mr. Fish states himself in his last
despatch on the subject) the principle of comprehensive arbitration on
all questions between Governments. This is all that a nation can do.
England is ready to have the case in all its bearings referred to
impartial arbitration, and to pay whatever damages may be assessed
against her without a murmur. She has also agreed (and again I use the
language of Mr. Fish) “to discuss the important changes in the rules
of public law, the desirableness of which has been demonstrated by the
incidents of the last few years, and which, in view of the maritime
prominence of Great Britain and the United States, it would befit them
to mature and propose to the other states of Christendom.” She has, in
fact, surrendered her old position as untenable, and agreed to the terms
proposed by your own Government. What more can you ask of a nation of
your own blood, as proud and sensitive as yourselves on all points where
national honour is in question?
But here I must remind you of one fact which you seem never to have
realised. The _Alabama_ was the only one of the rebel cruisers of
whose character our Government had any notice, which escaped from our
harbours. The _Shenandoah_ was a merchant vessel, employed in the Indian
trade as the _Sea King_. Her conversion into a rebel cruiser was
never heard of till long after she had left England. The _Georgia_ was
actually reported by the surveyor of the Board of Trade as a merchant
ship, and to be “rather crank.” She was fitted out on the French coast,
and left the port of Cherbourg for her first cruise. The _Florida_ was
fitted out in Mobile. She was actually detained at Nassau on suspicion,
and only discharged by the Admiralty Court there on failure of evidence.
On the other hand, our Government stopped the _Rappahannock,_ the
_Alexandra,_ and the _Pampero_, and seized Mr. Laird’s celebrated rams
at Liverpool, and Captain Osborne’s Chinese flotilla, for which last
exercise of vigilance the nation had to pay £100,000.
Such is our case as to the cruisers which did you so much damage. I
believe it to be true. If we are mistaken, however, you will get such
damages for each and all of these vessels as the arbitrator may award.
We reserve nothing. I as an Englishman am deeply grieved that any of my
countrymen, for base love of gain or any other motive, should have dared
to defy the proclamation of my Sovereign, speaking in the nation’s name.
I earnestly long for the time when by wise consultation between our
nations, and the modification of the public law bearing on such cases,
not only such acts as these, but all war at sea, shall be rendered
impossible. The United States and England have only to agree in this
matter, and there is an end of naval war through the whole world.
In 1863 the horizon was still dark. Splendid as your efforts had been,
and magnificent as was the attitude of your nation, tried in the fire
as few nations have been in all history, those efforts had not yet been
crowned with any marked success. With us it was the darkest in the whole
long agony, for in it came the crisis of that attempt of the Emperor of
the French to inveigle us in a joint recognition of the Confederacy,
on the success of which his Mexican adventure was supposed to hang. The
details of those negotiations have never been made public. All we
know is, that Mr. Lindsay and Mr. Roebuck went to Paris and had long
conferences with Napoleon, the result of which was the effort of Mr.
Roebuck (now in turn the representative of the rebels in our Parliament)
to force or persuade our Government into this alliance. Then came the
final crisis. On the 30th of June 1863, a day memorable in our history
as in yours, at the very time that your army of the Potomac was hurrying
through the streets of Gettysburg to meet the swoop of those terrible
Southern legions, John Bright stood on the floor of our House of
Commons, on fire with that righteous wrath which has so often lifted him
above the heads of other English orators.
He dragged the whole plot to light, quoted the former attacks of Mr.
Roebuck on his Imperial host, and then turning to the Speaker, went on,
“And now, sir, the honourable and learned gentleman has been to Paris,
introduced there by the honourable member for Sunderland, and he has
sought to become, as it were, a co-conspirator with the French Emperor,
to drag this country into a policy which I maintain is as hostile to its
interests as it would be degrading to its honour.” From that moment the
cause of the rebellion was lost in England; for by the next mails came
the news of the three days’ fight, and the melting away of Longstreet’s
corps in the final and desperate efforts to break the Federal line on
the slopes of little Round Top. A few weeks more and we heard of the
surrender of Vicksburg, and no more was heard in our Parliament of
recognition or mediation.
I have now, my friends, stated the case between our countries from
an Englishman’s point of view, of course, but I hope fairly and
temperately. At any rate, I have only spoken of matters within my own
personal knowledge, and have only quoted from public records which
are as open to every one of you as they are to me. Search them,
I beseech you, and see whether I am right or not. If wrong, it is from
no insular prejudices or national conceit, and you will at any rate
think kindly and bear with the errors of one who has always loved your
nation well, through good report and evil report, and is now bound to
it by a hundred new and precious ties. If right, all I beg of you is, to
use your influences that old hatreds and prejudices may disappear, and
America and England may march together, as nations redeemed by a common
Saviour, toward the goal which is set for them in a brighter future.
Shall it be love, or hate, John?
It’s you thet’s to decide;
Ain’t your bonds held by Fate, John,
Like all the world’s beside?
So runs the end of the solemn appeal in “Jonathan to John,” the poem
which suggested the title of this lecture. It comes from one who never
deals in wild words. I am proud to be able to call him a very dear and
old friend. He is the American writer who did more than any other to
teach such of us in the old country as ever learned them at all, the
rights and wrongs of this great struggle of yours. Questions asked by
such men can never be safely left on one side. Well, then, I say we
_have_ answered them. We know--no nation, I believe, knows better, or
confesses daily with more of awe--that our bonds are held by fate; that
a strict account of all the mighty talents which have been committed to
us will be required of us English, though we do live in a sea fortress,
in which the gleam of steel drawn in anger has not been seen for more
than a century. We know that we are very far from being what we ought to
be; we know that we have great social problems to work out, and, believe
me, we have set manfully to work to solve them,--problems which go right
down amongst the roots of things, and the wrong solution of which may
shake the very foundations of society. We have to face them manfully,
after the manner of our race, within the four corners of an island not
bigger than one of your large States; while you have the vast
elbow-room of this wonderful continent, with all its million outlets and
opportunities for every human being who is ready to work. Yes, our bonds
are indeed held by fate, but we are taking strict account of the number
and amount of them, and mean, by God’s help, to dishonour none of them
when the time comes for taking them up. We reckon, too, some of us, that
as years roll on, and you get to understand us better, we may yet hear
the words “Well done, brother,” from this side of the Atlantic; and if
the strong old islander, who, after all, is your father, should happen
some day to want a name on the back of one of his bills, I, for one,
should not wonder to hear that at the time of presentation the name
Jonathan is found scrawled across there in very decided characters. For
we have answered that second question, too, so far as it lies in our
power.
It will be love and not hate between the two freest of the great nations
of the earth, if our decision can so settle it. There will never be
anything but love again, if England has the casting vote. For remember
that the force of the decision of your great struggle has not been spent
on this continent. Your victory has strengthened the hands and hearts of
those who are striving in the cause of government, for the people by the
people, in every corner of the Old World. In England the dam that had
for so many years held back the free waters burst in the same year that
you sheathed your sword, and now your friends there are triumphant and
honoured; and if those who were your foes ever return to power you will
find that the lesson of your war has not been lost on them. In another
six years you will have finished the first century of your national
life. By that time you will have grown to fifty millions, and will
have subdued and settled those vast western regions, which now in the
richness of their solitudes, broken only by the panting of the engine as
it passes once a day over some new prairie line, startles the traveller
from the Old World. I am only echoing the thoughts and prayers of
my nation in wishing you God-speed in your great mission. When that
centenary comes round, I hope, if I live, to see the great family of
English-speaking nations girdling the earth with a circle of free and
happy communities, in which the angels’ message of peace on earth and
good-will amongst men may not be still a mockery and delusion. It rests
with you to determine whether this shall be so or not. May the God of
all the nations of the earth, who has so marvellously prospered you
hitherto, and brought you through so great trials, guide you in your
decision!