of sympathy, if of anything, on our part, not of want of
interest, that you have a right to complain. Never, within my memory,
have the hearts of Englishmen been so deeply moved by any foreign
struggle as by this civil war,--not even, if I recollect aright, by the
great European earthquake of 1848. I doubt whether they were more moved
by the Indian mutiny or by our war with Russia. It seemed that history
had brought round again the great crisis of the Thirty Years' War, when
all England throbbed with the mortal struggle waged between the powers
of Liberty and Slavery on their German battle-field; for expectation can
scarcely have been more intense when Gustavus and Tilly were approaching
each other at Leipsic than it was when Meade and Lee were approaching
each other at Gettysburg. Severed from us by the Atlantic, while other
nations are at our door, you are still nearer to us than all the world
beside.

It is of want of sympathy, not of want of interest, that you have to
complain. And the sympathy which has been withheld is not that of the
whole nation, but that of certain classes, chiefly of the class against
whose political interest you are fighting, and to whom your victory
brings eventual defeat. The real origin of your nation is the key to the
present relations between you and the different parties in England. This
is the old battle waged again on a new field. We will not talk too much
of Puritans and Cavaliers. The soldiers of the Union are not Puritans,
neither are the planters Cavaliers, But the present civil war is a vast
episode in the same irrepressible conflict between Aristocracy and
Democracy; and the heirs of the Cavalier in England sympathize with your
enemies, the heirs of the Puritan with you.

The feeling of our aristocracy, as of all aristocracies, is against you.
It does not follow, nor do I believe, that as a body they would desire
or urge their Government to do you a wrong, whatever spirit may be shown
by a few of the less honorable or more violent members of their order.
With all their class sentiments, they are Englishmen, trained to walk in
the paths of English policy and justice. But that their feelings should
be against you is not strange. You are fighting, not for the restoration
of the Union, not for the emancipation of the negro, but for Democracy
against Aristocracy; and this fact is thoroughly understood by both
parties throughout the Old World. As the champions of Democracy, you may