Potts.] J-'^^ [April 19, 



"I will now proceed with my discursive narrative. Previous to Presi- 

 dent Lincoln's Proclamation in favour of certain forms of Emancipation, 

 which was to take effect on first of January, 1863, there was a very gen- 

 eral feeling throughout England that the war between North and South 

 was not likely to issue in the abolition of slavery, if the North proved 

 victorious. The British people are not, as a rule, well informed upon 

 matters taking place abroad, and are therefore at times liable to make 

 serious mistakes. When the Southern partizans proclaimed that their 

 object was to get rid of the Protective System in the Tariff; and the 

 Northern orators and writers kept dinning that the sole object of the 

 North was to keep intact the Union, the people of this country were 

 dazed. They could not understand the nice distinctions of lawyers as to 

 what was Constitutional and what was not. When it was argued that the 

 whole tendency of the war made for freedom, and at the same time, that 

 the authorities could not constitutionally enact emancipation by a vote of 

 Congress, a shrug of the shoulder sufficiently showed' incredulity. 

 When, however. President Lincoln issued the Proclamation above 

 referred to, it had an instantaneous effect, and the friends of the United 

 States were able to speak and write with a confidence they never before 

 had experienced. It is true that in the north of England, and particu- 

 larly in Lancashire, there was a strong feeling that the action of our gov- 

 ernment should in no way be twisted into a support of the Slave States ; 

 and from the time of the sailing of the Alabima, in August, 1862, tliis 

 feeling rapidly assumed a definite shape. When, therefore, the Presi- 

 dent's Proclamation reached England the friends of Emancipation saw 

 that the time for united action had come. This was recognized in Man- 

 chester sooner than in Liverpool, and this was natural, for Manchester 

 was filled with workingmen who had proved by their conduct all through 

 the struggle that they held that man was not to live by bread alone. In 

 the midst of want they stood firmly by their convictions. In Liverpool, 

 on the other hand, the cotton trade was predominant. Men 'on cliange' 

 were unmistakably ' Southern ' in their proclivities, that is, the majority 

 of them. The mere rabble took tlie same side. All that these could under- 

 stand was that whereas they formerly earned a comfortable living in 

 handling imported cotton, they were now idlers living on the rates, or 

 depending upon very precarious employment. To them 'cotton' was 

 still 'king.' The Emancipationists in Manchester had the masses to aid 

 them, and they therefore took action first, by establishing an Emancipa- 

 tion Society. In Liverpool the rich and the lowest were acting together, 

 whilst the great body of shopkeepers and the handicraftsmen were favor- 

 able to the North. Of course these classifications must be taken as only 

 approximately accurate. 



" Such vv^as the state of feeling in Liverpool when an advertizement 

 appeared in the newspapers calling a meeting to assemble in the ' Claren- 

 don Rooms,' early in the afternoon of the 17th January, 1863. I was 

 present and was surprised to find so many influential merchants in 



