he Northern cause. Three other motives conducing to the
same result remain to be analyzed.

Many Englishmen believe--as will have been abundantly apparent to
Americans during the vicissitudes of the last few years--that the
greatness of the United States involves a serious danger to England,
whether in the projects upon Canada which are attributed to the States,
or in other directions, such as that of naval power. It is no business
of mine to discuss the validity of this belief, but simply to record it
as one important motive why the success of the Federal Government was
not desired. It is a substantial and a reasoned motive; and very few
persons, whether in England or out of it, are so cosmopolite or
calm-minded as to assume that the growth and aggrandizement of a foreign
power, in its proportional relation to one's own nation, are matter for
brotherly satisfaction and congratulation without _arriere pensee_,
provided always that growth proceeds from internal conditions honorable
to the foreigner, and not in themselves derogatory or offensive to the
home-power. Few will heartily say, "Let our neighbors and competitors
develop to their uttermost, and welcome; be it our sole care that we
also develop to _our_ uttermost. They shall run us as close as they
like, and shall find that we do not mean to be run down." To say this
might be an act of national Christianity; but it is not one which has
ever been in very active exercise or popular repute. It may be observed,
too, that, besides all other causes of national vigilance or jealousy,
the Trent affair, at an early date in the war, brought the whole
practical question very forcibly home to us; and though Englishmen
almost unanimously, within the limits of my reading and hearing,
protested that a rupture with the United States would be formidable and
disabling only to that belligerent, (a point on which I ventured to
fancy that British self-confidence might not have fathomed all the
possibilities of Providence,) the crisis did not the less tend to rouse
all our defensive and some of our aggressive instincts, and to weight
the scales of public feeling against the North. The question of perils
from American power then passed out of the region of mere theory, and
became practical and imminent. The danger itself dispersed, indeed, as
suddenly as it had come, but the impression remained.

Another motive for siding against the North was the abstract hatred of
war, which has grown