ENGLAND AND OUR CIVIL WAR--BLOCKADE RUNNING
I have referred already to the antagonism felt toward me in certain
English quarters because of my speeches in favor of the Federal American
Union in the hour of its danger. Love of country was always stronger in
me than love of money, and I let slip no opportunity to defend the cause
of the Union and to prove to the English of the upper classes that they
were mistaken in supposing that the Confederacy could succeed. Those who
were not in England at this period, when the South was in the first
flush of its success, and when it seemed likely that England and France
would go to the assistance of the South, merely to strengthen themselves
by weakening the power of the United States, can not appreciate the
extent or the power of British sympathy for the Confederacy. The element
in England that took sides with the South was tremendously influential.
I had already felt its power in a personal way through the defeat of my
street-railway projects.
As soon as I observed the trend of British opinion, I went into public
halls and spoke in favor of the Union, and tried to show that right and
might were both on the side of the North, and that, no matter how many
successes the South might win in the beginning of the war, it would
inevitably be crushed beneath the weight of the rest of the country. I
did not confine myself to speeches of this sort. I attacked the men who
were trading on the war by sending blockade runners into Southern ports
in violation of the rules of war. And so I was in some relation with
Lord John Russell on the one hand and Emperor Louis Napoleon on the
other, in the critical days of the Mason-Slidell affair and the
discussion of "belligerent rights" of the South.
Before taking part in this desperate effort to stem the tide of British
opinion, and to defeat the efforts of British traders to make money by
selling merchandise to the South contraband of war, I placed my wife and
children on board a steamer for New York, in order to remove them from
troubled scenes. This fight was to cost me the opportunity of making a
fortune of perhaps $5,000,000, by upsetting my street-railway projects.
I may mention here that in '58, during the Italian war, I bought the
London Morning Chronicle for the French Emperor, paying $10,000 for it,
and putting Thornton Hunt, son of Leigh Hunt, in editorial charge, at a
salary of $2,000 a year. It was a daily paper; and as the Emperor
wanted a weekly also, I arranged for him the purchase of the London
Spectator at the same price, and put in Townsend (I think that was the
name) as editor, at a salary of $2,000 a year. When the war was over,
these papers of course passed out of our hands, and the Chronicle made a
most savage attack on me in the tramway discussion, taking the part of
the omnibus drivers. It again attacked me for my exposure of blockade
running from British ports. I had given the names of the men interested,
the marks of the cargoes, and the destination of the shipments, in a
letter that I wrote to the New York Herald. These men thought they had
assassinated the United States Republic.
The feeling against me was so intense at one time that I anticipated an
attempt to kill me. Strong influences were brought to bear upon me to
stop a paper that I had established in London, with my private
secretary, George Pickering Bemis, as manager, for the purpose of
disseminating correct news and views about the civil war. Secretary
Seward, by the way, sent $100, through his private secretary, Mr. J. C.
Derby (who was afterward connected with the house of D. Appleton and
Company, and wrote his recollections under the title, Fifty Years Among
Authors, Books, and Publishers), to assist in keeping up this journal.
The intense strain wore upon me to such an extent that I had an attack
of insomnia, and almost lost my senses at times. I would not go armed,
but relied for defense upon a small cane that I carried under my arm, so
grasped by the end in front as to enable me to whirl it about instantly
in case I should be attacked from the rear.
In August, '62, I observed that a vessel called the Mavrockadatis was
acting suspiciously, and came to the conclusion that she was a blockade
runner. I believed that she was loaded with supplies for the
Confederates, and that as soon as she was clear at sea she would make
for a Southern port or for some rendezvous with a Confederate ship. I
determined to frustrate this design, and took passage on her for St.
John's, Newfoundland, which I supposed was only her ostensible
destination. Of course, I registered under an assumed name, taking the
name "Oliver" for the occasion.
As it turned out, I was wrong. The vessel kept on her course as
represented, and we arrived at St. John's, Newfoundland, instead of at a
Southern port. This broke up my program, as I had intended, immediately
upon reaching a Southern port, to go direct to Richmond and see if
anything could be done to end the war. As I may not have occasion again
to refer to this plan, which I had had in mind for some time, I shall
speak of it here. I had arranged with the President and with Mr. Seward
to go to Richmond to see what could be done.
My idea was that the Southern leaders were in complete ignorance of the
power and resources of the North; they had fancied, because of the great
military reputation of Southern soldiers, that it would be comparatively
easy to beat Northern troops in the field; and that, in the last event,
England and France would come to their assistance. I felt confident of
convincing Jefferson Davis and other Southern leaders that all these
views were erroneous. I thought it would be a simple thing to prove that
they could not count on the assistance of either England or France, as
these two nations would not unite, and neither would undertake the task
alone. I also thought I could give them such evidence of the great
resources of the North, both in men and means, that they would recognize
the uselessness of the struggle. Another view I had in mind was that I
could impress the Southerners with the suggestion that, in the event of
their abandoning the contest at that stage, they could obtain far better
terms than the victorious North would be content to offer after a long
and harrowing war. But this was not to be. Stanton heard of our plans,
and sent Montgomery Blair to negotiate with the Southern leaders, with
what result is too well known.
I landed in Newfoundland, instead of in the South, as I have said, with
all my immediate plans thwarted. But I took up the course of my life
exactly at the point where I stood. I was in Newfoundland just one day,
and I wrote a history of that Crown Colony from the information I
gleaned in this brief visit. I shall republish it some day. I observed
in St. John's, as I have observed elsewhere, that people are fashioned
by their occupations. These people were physically the creation of
fisheries. I noted the tomcod married to the hake, and the shark wedded
to the swordfish. The fish of the sea, which they ate and upon which
they lived and had their being, were all represented in their features,
from the sardine to the sperm whale.
From St. John's, Newfoundland, I went to Boston, by way of St. Johns,
New Brunswick, stopping at Portland, Maine, for a brief visit. At
Portland I was met by B. F. Guild on behalf of Curtis Guild, owner of
the Boston Commercial Bulletin, which had just been established. Guild
published my Union speeches, and must have spent $1,000 a week--the
Bulletin was a weekly paper--in advertising them and my other writings.
I published my History of Newfoundland in his paper, receiving for it
$10 a column, the only pay I have ever received from a newspaper or
other periodical for my work. I saw recently a notice of the death of B.
F. Guild, at the age of eighty-nine. I had no idea he was so old.
I found that I had returned to my country the most popular American in
public life. I was greeted everywhere by vast concourses of people, who
cheered me and demanded speeches about the situation in England and my
experiences there. At Boston I was met by a tremendous gathering, and it
looked like a procession as we went up State Street to the Revere House.
I was placed in the rooms that had been occupied by the Prince of Wales,
now King Edward, on his visit to Boston two years before.
I was not long in Boston before I got into trouble by trying to
enlighten the people with regard to the war. There was a great
assemblage in Faneuil Hall, where Sumner was to speak, and I went there
to see what was going on. Sumner was not a very effective speaker before
mixed audiences, and could not have stood up for twenty minutes in the
halls of London, where the greatest freedom of debate is indulged in,
and where every speaker must be prepared to answer quickly and to the
point any question that may be hurled at him, or to reply with sharpness
and point to any retort that may come from the crowd that faces him.
I was very much astonished, therefore, to hear Sumner challenge any one
in the audience to confute his arguments. I knew, of course, that the
gantlet thus lightly thrown down was a mere oratorical figure, but in
England it would have been taken up at once, and Sumner would have been
routed. The temptation was too much for me. I rose, to the apparent
astonishment and embarrassment of the orator and of the committee on the
platform, and said: "Mr. Sumner, when you have finished, I should like
to speak a word." The cheering that greeted my acceptance of the
gaily-flung challenge was cordial.
As soon as Sumner had finished I climbed to the platform. There I had
the greatest difficulty with the committee, which seemed determined to
suppress any attempt to reply to the hero and god of the upper classes
in Boston. The moment I began to talk the committee signaled to the
band, and the music drowned my voice. When the band stopped I started
again, but the committee endeavored to stop me. I acted as my own
policeman and cleared the platform, when another rush was made upon me,
and all went tumbling from the stage. I was then arrested and taken to
the City Hall. The crowd seemed decidedly with me, although the utmost
it knew as to my sentiments was that I was opposed to making instant
abolition of slavery a condition precedent to putting an end to the war
(that is, on Lincoln's platform, Union, with or without slavery).
In a few minutes there was a crowd of some thousands of people about the
City Hall demanding loudly that I be set at liberty. I quieted the
people by sending word to them that I was preparing a proclamation to
the American people. This proclamation, entitled "God Save the People,"
was published by Guild in the Bulletin--and I should like to get a copy
of it, as I have lost my own. This arrest did not interfere with me very
much.
I made a contract with Guild to lecture in the North and West, and my
first lecture was given in the Academy of Music, New York. The general
subject was the abolition question, as it related to the war between the
States. At this meeting Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, was made chairman,
but the audience did not like that, and a big cabbage was thrown to the
stage from the gallery. I then took charge of the meeting myself, and
walking to the edge of the stage, said: "I see that you do not like Mr.
Clay; but he should have a fair chance. If Mr. Guild will arrange for a
meeting at Cooper Institute to-morrow night, I will debate with Mr.
Clay, and you can then fire at me cabbages or gold dollars, as you like.
I propose the following subject for the discussion: American Slavery as
a Stepping-stone from African Barbarism to Christian Civilization;
hence, it is a Divine Institution." Mr. Clay accepted.
The next evening, at Cooper Institute, there was a large audience that
packed the hall from door to stage; $1,300 were taken at the box-office.
The papers on the following morning gave from two to four columns of the
discussion, and the London Times considered it sufficiently important,
even to Englishmen, to give a long account and editorial comments. It
said that the honors of the debate had been with me, and gave a specimen
of my repartee, which, it said, had swept Mr. Clay off his feet.
Mr. Clay had referred in his speech to an interview he had had with
President Lincoln, who was then hesitating as to issuing the
Proclamation of Emancipation. Mr. Clay said, "I told the President that
I would not flesh my sword in the defense of Washington unless he issued
a proclamation freeing the slaves." My reply was: "It is fair to assume
that, in order to make Major-General Cassius M. Clay flesh his sword,
the President will issue the proclamation." There was loud laughter at
this. The President did issue his proclamation three months after this.
I received a postal card the other day from Clay, who is now a
nonagenarian, in his armed castle in Kentucky.
I was in Washington after this debate, which occurred in September, '62,
and was warmly received by the President and members of his cabinet. I
had heard very much, of course, about the freedom of speech of Mr.
Lincoln, and was not, therefore, astonished to hear him relate several
characteristic anecdotes. In fact, three of the most prominent men in
the United States at that time were striving to outdo one another in
jests--the President, Senator Nesmyth of Oregon, and Senator Nye.
Mr. Seward invited me to a dinner at his residence, the historic house
where later the assassin tried to kill him, where General Sickles killed
Philip Barton Key, and which in more recent years was occupied by James
G. Blaine. Most of the members of the cabinet were present. I was asked
to describe some of the scenes of my recent travels, and told about
Chinese dinners, to their great amusement. Afterward I told them a story
then current about Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist. Phillips was once
in Charleston, South Carolina, and returned late to dinner at his hotel.
As he approached the door, it was held open by a negro slave. Phillips
said haughtily that he had never permitted a slave to wait on him, and
that he would not do so now. "How long have you been a slave?" asked Mr.
Phillips. The negro replied: "I ain't got no time to talk erbout dat
now, wid only five minits fur dinner." Mr. Phillips told the slave to
leave the room, that he would not let him serve him at the table; he
would wait on himself. "I cain't do dat, suh; I is 'sponsible for de
silber on de table, suh!"
Loud laughter greeted this story. In the very midst of the uproar the
door was burst open, and Secretary Stanton appeared, his face white with
emotion. In a choking voice, that was scarcely audible and would not
have been heard had not every nerve in our bodies been strained to catch
the momentous words we expected, he said: "A battle is raging at
Antietam! Ten thousand men have been killed, and the rebels are now
probably marching on Washington!"
There was a hush, and we told no more stories that night. It is
remarkable that almost all the great battles hung long in the scales of
victory. Neither side knew whether it had won until some time after the
fighting had ceased. It was so at Antietam, and had been so in the case
of Bull Run or Manassas. The true tidings came in slowly.
I took no part in the war on the battlefield, because as soon as I
looked into the causes of the war and its continuance, I saw that it was
a contract war. I came back to this country fully expecting to serve. I
had been assured of a high commission; but could not conscientiously
take part in a struggle in which thousands of lives were being
sacrificed to greed. Such was my honest belief, and such was my course.