=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1863; _English History_, pp. 130, 131.
Mr. Bright animadverted severely upon the speech of Mr. Roebuck....
Mr. Roebuck, he said, would help to break up a friendly nation, and
create an everlasting breach between the two nations, because he deemed
it for the interest of England. The whole case rested upon either a
miserable jealousy or a base fear. He looked upon the interest of
England from a different point of view. He believed the war was more
likely than anything else to abolish slavery. The supply of cotton
under slavery must always be insecure. It was the interest of England
that the supply of cotton should be by free labour rather than by
that of slaves. As to the political aspect of the question, the more
he considered this war, the more improbable he thought it that the
United States would be broken into separate Republics. The conclusion
to which he had come was that if there should be a separation, the
interests, the sympathies and the necessities, perhaps the ambition,
of the whole Continent were such that it would be reunited under a
Central Government. And this Government might be in the hands of the
South. Having dwelt at considerable length upon the hideous features
of Southern slavery, and eulogised the Northern institutions, it was
against such a Government, he observed, in such a contest with such
a foe, that Mr. Roebuck asked the House to throw into the scale the
weight of the hostility of England.