206 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 



Forster, and Mill, under the influence of Sum- 

 ner and other extreme antislavery doctrinaires. 

 This judgment gained no great support in the 

 higher classes of society, but, through the ear 

 nestness and eloquence of Bright and Cobden 

 especially, won a vast body of adherents among 

 the middle and lower classes, and thus secured 

 for Charles Francis Adams, the American min 

 ister, a moral backing for which he was pro 

 foundly grateful. It was not till after the 

 formal adoption of the policy of emancipation 

 by President Lincoln, however, that the maxi 

 mum influence of this particular element of 

 British opinion was discernible. 



At the outbreak of the war Lord Palmerston 

 was prime minister, and Earl Russell was 

 foreign secretary. When in April, 1861, large 

 armies were called into the field by both the 

 United States and the Confederacy, privateers 

 were commissioned by the South, and a blockade 

 of the Southern ports was proclaimed by Presi 

 dent Lincoln, it was clearly time for the British 

 Government to recognize the situation. Com 

 mercial relations with both sections were vast 

 and intricate, and with privateering in full sway 

 on one side and blockade proclaimed on the 

 other, trouble for British merchants and mar- 



