of troops, the like quantity of arms and munitions
furnished under different circumstances are no longer equivalent
succors." Assistance is not a theoretical idea; it is a plain,
practical, unmistakable fact. When the United States had, at vast
cost and by incredible effort, shut the Southern Confederacy from
the sea and blockaded its ports against the entry of supplies, when
that government had no resources within its territory by which it
could put a ship upon the ocean, or break the blockade from within,
then it was that England allowed Confederate officers to camp upon
her soil, organize her labor, employ her machinery, use her ports,
occupy her colonial stations, almost within sight of the blockaded
coast, and to do this continuously, systematically, defiantly.

By these acts the British government gave the most valuable assistance
to the South and actually engaged in defeating the military operations
of the United States. There was no equivalent assistance which
Great Britain could or did render to the United States. They might
have rendered other assistance, but none which would compensate
for this. Let it be supposed for one moment that Mexico had
practiced, on the other side of the Rio Grande, the same sort of
neutrality,--that she had lined the bank of the river with depots
of military supplies; that she had allowed officers of the Confederate
army to establish themselves and organize a complete system for
the receipt of cotton and the delivery of merchandise on her
territory; that her people had served as factors, intermediaries,
and carriers,--would any reasonable interpretation of international
law consider such conduct to be impartial neutrality? But illustration
does not strengthen the argument. The naked statement of England's
position is its worst condemnation. Her course, while ingeniously
avoiding public responsibility, gave unceasing help to the Confederacy
--as effective as if the intention had been proclaimed. The whole
procedure was in disregard of international obligation and was the
outgrowth of what M. Prevost-Paradol aptly charaterized as a
"malignant neutrality."

It cannot be said in reply that the Governments of England and
France were unable to restrain this demonstration of the sympathy,
this exercise of the commercial enterprise of their people. For
the time came when they did restrain it. As soon as it became
evident that the Confederacy was growing weaker, that with all i