navy be maintained without a commercial marine? Hence a necessity will arise for the fostering of a Southern shipping interest. Thus, from every consideration, the Confederacy will be compelled, in self-defence, to resort to the same means of building up its own resources of all kinds which England and every other nation have employed, in their infancy, and under whose protecting care the resources of Great Britain have become among the wonders of the world. And this system of protection will be especially necessary to the South, because its population is more deficient in all those requisites for self-sustentation and progress than any other modern civilized people, under its present slavery régime. It will begin its national career under the burthen of a debt of fabulous proportions, compared with its It must incur immense annual expenses to maintain all the varied machinery of an independent government-its civil list, its military and naval power, its customs and postoffice departments, the lighting of its coasts, the maintenance of its harbours, &c. &c. Of all these incumbrances, the Slave States, as we have seen, bore less than one-fourth of the weight, under the Union, and were, even then, comparatively retrograding and absolutely impoverished. So far, then, from being able to sacrifice its own interests to the advantage of British manufacturers and shippers, the Confederacy must subject these to stringent customs' regulations; and, in addition, it must levy a tax upon all its exports of cotton and tobacco. resources. But, even supposing free-trade to be established, of what great advantage will it be to Great Britain, to compensate for all the probable losses to which British trade will be subjected, in consequence of the ill-feeling or animosity engendered at the North by Southern independence, gained through English connivance and aid? We have seen the wretched condition of the mass of the Southern population. We have shown that slavery, while it has enriched a few thousand planters and their agents and brokers, has reduced the millions to "hopeless ignorance and poverty." Can we hope for improvement, when the Confederacy shall have become independent upon the exclusive basis of slavery, and when all the expenses of a separate government shall come to be borne by a reduced population, daily becoming more impoverished? All the ordinary articles of manufacture needed by the mass of the Southern population M have hitherto been furnished from the North, and must continue to be sought thence, as from the nearest and cheapest market. Will the small residue left to be supplied from England and all Europe compensate the former for all the disadvantages of its new alliance, and for the loss, or the diminished value, of its hitherto best customer? We say nothing about the morality of the new alliance. We have discussed its value upon the pound, shilling, and pence standard of its British advocates. And we believe that, even upon this basis, England has been made to commit a gross blunder by those who have been allowed to shape its policy towards the United States. The idea is diligently disseminated that slavery is already destroyed, and that if the Confederacy should become independent it will be as a free republic. Let not the anti-slavery men of Great Britain allow themselves to be deceived by this artful assurance of the Southern advocates. If only those States of the Confederacy lying east of the Mississippi should become independent, comprising only the eastern part of Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, they will embrace territory and population enough for a considerable State. It must be borne in mind that, during the war, thousands of slaves have been removed from the Border States to the cottongrowing States for safety from Federal troops; so that the slavepopulation of the States we have named is greater now than before the war, and vastly more numerous as compared with the whites, whom the war has decimated. And of the 331,711 square miles, or 212,295,040 acres, of territory embraced within those States, only some 36,000,000 acres were under cultivation in 1860, leaving still untouched 176,295,000 acres an area larger than that of France, England, and Wales combined. It is idle, therefore, to suppose that a country so extensive as this, possessing natural resources so great, capable of producing a crop of cotton sufficient to keep in operation all the cotton mills of the world, with a slave force larger than it ever owned before, and ruled by men whose ability and energy, and whose determination to uphold slavery, will have carried the Confederacy triumphantly through the war-we say it is idle to suppose that such a State, if it become independent, will not live out its national life as a "slave republic." Who shall say, too, that the new power may not possess itself of Cuba, and thus add to its resources and its territory? The leading men of the Confederacy have, as we know, long coveted, and frequently attempted to possess themselves of, this island; with a large military force at their own command, and possessed of a navy created in British ports-aided, too, by disaffected planters in Cuba-the possibility of conquering the island would be sufficiently encouraging to induce the attempt. We say, therefore, that if the Confederate States do become independent, they will constitute a "slave republic," or a slave power under some other name. Any aid or encouragement from England, or from Englishmen, will only contribute to the accomplishment of this end, which the Southern leaders proclaimed from the first to be their great object, and which they have never ceased to keep in view. It is really curious to examine some of the many charges which have been brought against the United States Government and the people of the Free States, in order to create an odium against them in England, under cover of which the true policy, which both principle and interest should have dictated to Great Britain towards them, might be ignored or unheeded. We pass over the stale slanders so often uttered against us of barbarism, cruelty, and the like. Those who believe these fictions, and who wish to find a refutation of the same, will find them abundantly answered in the able speech of Senator Sumner on Our Foreign Relations, delivered in New York, in September, 1863. We would also refer honest inquirers to the reports and records of the United States Sanitary Commissionan association which had, up to the close of 1863, expended more than a million of dollars, and seven millions' worth of supplies of various sorts, all voluntary contributions, in the relief of the sick, the wounded, and the suffering, not only of the United States military forces, but also of those of the Confederate Government, without distinction, as well as all the needy inhabitants of the South who have come within the sphere of its action. We pass over likewise the plea that England's favour is shown to the "Slave Republic" because this is the weaker party in the contest, and Englishmen always side with the feeble. Credat Judæus. England has been fighting, in some quarter or other of the globe, for a century, with some poor but brave tribe which, pro aris et focis, has contended against her armies as courageously M 2 as the Southerners now fight in behalf of slavery. At this moment, British troops are combating with varying success against some wretched tribes in New Zealand. An assertion which British orators in and out of Parliament seem to be still fond of repeating is, that the seizure of the Trent, and the removal from it of the Southern Commissioners, was a wanton and predetermined act of the Government of the United States, and that the latter only made reparation for the act upon the threats of the British Government. Now, it is well known that Mr. Seward's despatch to Mr. Adams, which declared that the American Government had not authorized that seizure, regretted it, and was willing to make any suitable reparation for it, was dated on the same day as the British demand for restitution and satisfaction. But one of the prominent London journals, which has the reputation of being a semi-official organ of the Premier, did not hesitate at the time to invent two deliberate falsehoodsfirst, denying that the American minister had received any such despatch, and, secondly, asserting that he had not communicated it to the British Government. Meanwhile, the howl for war was encouraged, and re-echoed, according to the journals of the time, from the pulpit of at least one of the fashionable London churches. That seizure was entirely contrary to the doctrine of the United States from its origin as a nation. And the reason why the Commissioners taken from the Trent were not released without waiting for the British demand for restoration was simply in order that Great Britain-which as a belligerent had always treated neutrals ruthlessly, from seizing a whole fleet at Copenhagen, to impressing seamen by hundreds from American ships—should, as a neutral, place on record in the archives at Washington a full, formal, and official recognition of the rights of neutrals. Another gross violation of historical truth, and of the truths of English history as well, is in the attempt to fasten upon Republican Institutions the especial odium of this war, and of the many evils which have accompanied it. How can any thoughtful and intelligent Englishman imagine that he has found in English history any warrant for the assertion that Monarchism, constitutional or otherwise, has been more incompatible with, or less promotive of, war and lavish expenditure, of political immorality and corruption, of judicial venality, of utter worthlessness and incapacity, from the highest to the lowest personages, than democratic republicanism? the And here we insist that it is eminently unjust to hold " American system of politics" responsible either for this war, or for the train of evils which have attended it. For we have had implanted and growing up in our midst, a system which is diametrically opposite to ours-the aristocratic, oligarchic system of the Slave States-which has completely ruled its own section of the country, and swayed the policy of the whole nation. Like an immense and baneful planet which deviates the majestic march of the earth itself, this disturbing element has drawn the American Constitution astray from its normal and intended orbit. This charge against American institutions was made, in a particularly marked and offensive way, by no less a personage than the British Premier. In his speech soliciting from the House of Commons a suitable appanage for the Prince and Princess of Wales, he thought it necessary, it would seem, to stimulate their loyalty and liberality by making an otherwise most uncalled-for and indecorous attack upon America. He told his audience of "the wide-spread misery and desolation created in the West by democratic and republican institutions. Our institutions," he continued, "our institutions 1 not only 1 1 Far be it from us to detract from the merits of British institutions. We love England, as the land of great deeds done, and of wise lessons taught, in behalf of human progress; as the cradle of our own nation, the fons et origo of our own literature, laws, liberties, and religion. We well remember the feeling of almost reverence which impelled us, on first setting foot upon her soil, to raise our hat in salutation. We regret that Englishmen, in expressing their satisfaction with their own institutions, should so generally decry those of other lands. It is in no spirit of fault-finding or of controversy, but in defence of our own chosen systems of politics and government, that we submit the following comparative statements, from authorities which Englishmen cannot accuse of Anglophobia. The first is from an interesting work on "The Social Condition and Education of the People in England and Europe," by Joseph Kay, Esq. M. A. Trinity Coll. Cambridge, who was appointed by the University to examine the above subject. His book is made up from official statistics and reports, and from personal investigation. At the commencement of the first volume, Mr. Kay says: "If the object of Government be to create an enormously wealthy class, and to raise to the highest pitch the civilization of about one-fifth of the nation, while it leaves nearly three-fifths sunk in the lowest depths of ignorance, hopelessness, and degradation, then the system hitherto pursued in Great Britain is perfect; for the classes of our aristocracy, our landed gentry, our merchants, manufacturers, and richer tradespeople, are wealthier, more refined in their tastes, more active and enterprising, more intelligent, and consequently more prosperous, than the corresponding classes of any other country in the world.”—Vol. i. p. 6. Mr. Kay sums up the result of his studies in the following words :-"Here, where the poor have no stake whatever in the country; where there are no small properties; where the most frightful discrepancy exists between the richer and poorer classes; where the poor fancy they have nothing to lose and everything to |