ht followed in one of the
most powerful of his speeches, followed by others not less striking. I
was on the point of adding my words to theirs, when there occurred,
towards the end of 1861, the seizure of the Southern envoys on board a
British vessel, by an officer of the United States. Even English
forgetfulness has not yet had time to lose all remembrance of the
explosion of feeling in England which then burst forth, the expectation,
prevailing for some weeks, of war with the United States, and the
warlike preparations actually commenced on this side. While this state
of things lasted, there was no chance of a hearing for anything
favourable to the American cause; and, moreover, I agreed with those who
thought the act unjustifiable, and such as to require that England
should demand its disavowal. When the disavowal came, and the alarm of
war was over, I wrote, in January, 1862, the paper, in _Fraser's
Magazine_, entitled "The Contest in America," [and I shall always feel
grateful to my daughter that her urgency prevailed on me to write it
when I did, for we were then on the point of setting out for a journey
of some months in Greece and Turkey, and but for her, I should have
deferred writing till our return.] Written and published when it was,
this paper helped to encourage those Liberals who had felt overborne by
the tide of illiberal opinion, and to form in favour of the good cause a
nucleus of opinion which increased gradually, and, after the success of
the North began to seem probable, rapidly. When we returned from our
journey I wrote a second article, a review of Professor Cairnes' book,
published in the _Westminster Review_. England is paying the penalty, in
many uncomfortable ways, of the durable resentment which her ruling
classes stirred up in the United States by their ostentatious wishes for
the ruin of America as a nation; they have reason to be thankful that a
few, if only a few, known writers and speakers, standing firmly by the
Americans in the time of their greatest difficulty, effected a partial
diversion of these bitter feelings, and made Great Britain not
altogether odious to the Americans.

This duty having been performed, my principal occupation for the next
two years was on subjects not political. The publication of Mr. Austin's
_Lectures on Jurisprudence_ after his decease, gave me an opportunity of
paying a deserved tribute to his memory, and at the same time expressing
some thoughts on a subj