clamour of the Abolitionists and philan thropists of New England increased the irritation of the slave owners, who, free from all serious apprehensions for their property, were nevertheless exasperated at finding themselves the victims of a moral and evangelical crusade. To the divergence produced by dissimilarity of manners and of race was added a new cause of antipathy in the difference of material interests. The South is agricultural, the North manufacturing; and the growing political preponderance of the Conservative Protectionists of the latter drove the former into an alliance, based upon identity of interest, with the democratical Free-traders of the North. The Northern democrats and the Southern agriculturists for a while were together able to contest the palm of political supremacy. Gradually the conviction forced itself upon them that the tide had turned; that their day was over; and that the collected strength of the North was about to drive them into the unenviable position of a hopeless political minority. The mercies of an American majority are cruel; and a vanquished party in that land of political libertinism reaps little enjoyment from its constitutional privileges. The election. of Mr. Lincoln was a signal gun which showed that power had for ever passed into the hands of the Protectionists and Abolitionists. The passing of the Morrill tariff was a second signal gun that showed the North were not inclined to abandon the fruits of their great victory. The South seceded in a body; not because slavery was at stake, but because henceforward they had nothing to hope from the constitution.

A small but liberal-minded party in this country, misled by the exalted enthusiasm of the New England philanthropists, and infected with the Utopian chivalry of Transatlantic literary cliques, believed themselves, and endeavoured to persuade their countrymen, that the freedom of the Negro was the secret object of the aspirations of the North. The North, as a body, were inclined to be neither so philanthropic nor so unpractical. The leaders of the Republican

party were actually pledged by the Chicago platform of 1860 to the maintenance of the status quo Mr. Lincoln in his inaugural speech had recognised the obligation, and declared that he had neither the lawful right, nor, indeed, the inclination, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it already existed. A Republican Congress has since adopted the same view as the Republican President of the Union. Emancipation may, perhaps, be ultimately proposed as an extreme and desperate resource by those who have hitherto been its antagonists on principle; but it will be at most a military measure justified by the necessities of a campaign, not a concession demanded by the moral feeling of the nation at large. If there is something to be said for it, there is much to be said against it. It would be a violent interference with the laws of property; it might, for aught that human knowledge can decide, result in the infernal bloodshed and massacre of a servile war, and it would raise a tumult of stormy dissatisfaction in many districts where the Union flag still waves. Too clearsighted to overlook the real nature of the American conflict, English semi-Liberal critics at once laid a cynical finger on the blot in the case which the English philanthropists were seeking to make out. Only poets, or at best prophets, could fairly call the Northern cause the cause of Abolition, when the vast majority of the Northern States were not Abolitionists in theory. The North might be allowed, at least, to know what they were fighting for.

That the negro's interests were not directly at stake, was acknowledged before long by public opinion. SemiLiberals and Conservatives immediately jumped to the illogical conclusion that, because the war was not a war of abolition, it must therefore be unnecessary and unnatural. It is the pretentious practice of certain political writers, to call everything wicked which does not immediately tend to the advantage of their own country. Those who had characterised the Italian war as criminal,

came forward once more and denounced the indignant patriotism of the North as nefarious. The Times newspaper led the van of denunciation, and was overcome with the sense of the wickedness of the Northern manufacturers. This famous, and often manly journal, which has long represented the virtues and the prejudices of the English people, during the last year has itself been passing through no slight ordeal. Its circulation and influence have been materially affected by the sudden success of the penny papers, the best of which are by no means wanting in ability and moral elevation. English daily journalism still remains for the most part a monarchical system; but the Times has been compelled to descend one step towards the level of its economical opponents, and a further reduction in its price may convert the monarchy of letters into a republic. Its conduct in some things has neither been so judicious nor so successful since its superiority has begun to be questioned. Its policy with respect to the American contest has been seriously improvident. On the other side of the Atlantic, the New York Herald, and a crowd of contemptible journals, have sinned extravagantly against good feeling and generosity, in their animadversions upon ourselves.

Sane and intelligent Americans acknowledge that England may fairly be indignant at the daily insults she receives from the viler portion of their press. But the Times has apparently determined to avenge us upon the New York Herald. From the first it eagerly announced that the efforts of the North must fail. It exulted over the panic at Bull's Run. It predicted that the military enthusiasm of the Union must issue in an iron despotism. Throughout the late complication its bitterness and pessimism contrasted badly with the more manly and English calmness of more than one of its contemporaries. Heaven knows that America

has faults enough. The Times of 1861 devoted itself to the unpatriotic task of exaggerating them in the eyes of England.

Whatever be the insults and mortifications we have received from the United

States in times past, hereafter we shall possibly be of opinion that it was both clumsy and ungenerous to take the present opportunity for revenging them. Though the North is not contending for the forcible emancipation of the negro, it is contending for a noble and a sacred stake. If love of country means anything at all, if national honour is a cause for which war is lawful, if the existence of a great empire is worth preserving, if the patriotic traditions of its unity and strength have a right to touch the hearts of its citizens, the North may claim our sympathies. It is a miserable Tory quibble to assert that the United States, having risen into national existence by means of revolution, are bound to acquiesce patiently in their dissolution by the same agency. There is no divine virtue about the historical origin of the Old World kingdoms, which makes loyalty to a European throne a duty, but fidelity to a Transatlantic Republic a chimera. By the grace of God kings reign. By the grace of God republics are formed. Loyalty to an hereditary crown is a debt we owe to the traditions which we have inherited with our country; and what sacred sentiment is there connected with legitimacy or a Salic Law, which may not attach itself in as high a degree to the cause of national union or the name of Washington? The contract that binds together the different parts of the American Union is one of the most solemn social compacts which history knows. A baffled minority, in their impatience of an electoral defeat, may determine on their country's dissolution, and call on her to abdicate for ever her grand and prominent place on the world's stage. To avert such a catastrophe, their fellow-countrymen appeal to arms. The appeal is naturally made in the name of loyalty itself.

The prevalent impression that Great Britain will be benefited by the dissolution of the Union has, beyond all question, contributed not a little to the interest with which the public watches the fortunes of the South. Grave doubt remains whether the separation of the South and North would render an English war with

selfishness. Whatever our past wrongs, let us repair one greater wrong done by us to America at her birth, nearly a century ago, and refuse, as far as we can, to assist at the dissolution of a great, a self-governed, and an AngloSaxon republic. When the Southern Confederacy has clearly shown that it is something more than the bubble of a year, it will have a right to those international courtesies which permanent Governments alone can claim. It is yet possible that the flame of revolution may expire in the Southern sky as suddenly as it has risen, and leave behind it no sign but the smouldering embers of an extinct conflagration. The suspension of specie payments in the North is an ominous symptom of financial exhaustion, but the Confederates have already passed this landmark on the road to ruin. If the North deserves victory, it will have spirit enough to do what the mother country has done before now, and cheerfully to support taxation proportioned to a grand emergency. During the next few months we may expect a series of military movements, the effect of which in all human likelihood will be the serious discouragement of the Confederates. No irreparable affront should be offered to the North by an English cabinet, until the course of events and the tardy justice due to the South require us to acknowledge-what generous Englishmen will never acknowledge but with pain-that the Union is finally dissolved.

The fortune that attends on genius, out of the mortifying occurrences of the last two months, has brought honour and advantage to the French Emperor. The affair of the Trent furnished Napoleon III. with an opportunity of making a diplomatic stroke and winning a diplomatic triumph. A short-sighted politician, in his eager anxiety to break the Southern blockade, might have hailed with satisfaction the prospect of an impending collision between England and the Union. But the French Emperor plays a longer and a more brilliant game. Since the American revolution, it has been the traditional policy of France

to defend the cause of neutral rights and the so-called liberty of the seas; for it is the interest of all Continental powers that the belligerent rights of England-who will always be the greatest maritime belligerent in the world—should be strictly defined. Within twelve hours of the news of the proceedings of the San Jacinto, the official Parisian press seized on the golden occasion, and England was encouraged by France to commit herself to a declaration of the rights of neutral navies. The proceedings of the Paris Congress of 1856 prove sufficiently that Great Britain, in return for the suppression of privateering, and the rule which compels a blockade to be effective, is not unwilling that immunities should be granted to neutral goods on board an enemy, and to enemy's goods on board a neutral. But Continental Europe is so firmly impressed with the idea that England is the tyrant of the occan, that it rejoices at our solemnly estopping ourselves from future violations of international law. The Emperor of the French has been in this instance-what he loves to be-the leader of the European Chorus, and the champion of the principles of progress. Nor is it merely that he has officiated as the spokesman of the Continent. It is in a difference between England and America that his authoritative and friendly sentence has made itself heard; and both England and the New World have heard with profound attention his trenchant and vigorous words. Slowly but surely he is creeping into the first place at the council-board of Europe. It is something that he has proved his loyalty to England, and at a critical moment conciliated our respect and good-will by a mark of his good faith. It is something, too, that he has hindered the navy of the North from dashing itself to pieces in an encounter with an unequal foe. But not the least useful of the advantages he has gained by his prompt action is that he has once more taught the powers of Europe to accustom themselves to listen for his voice.