cey, Rost, and Mann as
commissioners to Europe to press the claims of the Confederacy for
recognition, very few Southerners had any doubt that the blockade,
would be short-lived. "Cotton is King" was the answer that silenced all
questions. Without American cotton the English mills would have to shut
down; the operatives would starve; famine and discontent would between
them force the British ministry to intervene in American affairs. There
were, indeed, a few far-sighted men who perceived that this confidence
was ill-based and that cotton, though it was a power in the financial
world, was not the commercial king. The majority of the population,
however, had to learn this truth from keen experience.

Several events of 1861 for a time seemed to confirm this illusion. The
Queen's proclamation in the spring, giving the Confederacy the status of
a belligerent, and, in the autumn, the demand by the British Government
for the surrender of the commissioners, Mason and Slidell, who had been
taken from a British packet by a Union cruiser--both these events seemed
to indicate active British sympathy. In England, to be sure, Yancey
became disillusioned. He saw that the international situation was not so
simple as it seemed; that while the South had powerful friends abroad,
it also had powerful foes; that the British anti-slavery party was
a more formidable enemy than he had expected it to be; and that
intervention was not a foregone conclusion. The task of an unrecognized
ambassador being too annoying for him, Yancey was relieved at his own
request and Mason was sent out to take his place. A singular little
incident like a dismal prophecy occurred as Yancey was on his way home.
He passed through Havana early in 1862, when the news of the surrender
of Fort Donelson had begun to stagger the hopes and impair the prestige
of the Confederates. By the advice of the Confederate agent in Cuba,
Yancey did not call on the Spanish Governor but sent him word that
"delicacy alone prompted his departure without the gratification of
a personal interview." The Governor expressed himself as "exceedingly
grateful for the noble sentiment which prevented" Yancey from causing
international complications at Havana.

The history of the first year of Confederate foreign affairs is
interwoven with the history of Confederate finance. During that year the
South became a great buyer in Europe. Arms, powder, cloth, machinery,
medicines, ships, a thousand thin