246 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 



not to be limited by the property destroyed by 

 the Confederate cruisers. As grounds for na 

 tional claims against Great Britain that were not 

 to be ignored in any satisfactory settlement, 

 Sumner included the shrinkage of the American 

 mercantile marine through the transfer of ves 

 sels to the British flag for protection against the 

 cruisers; the rise in the cost of marine insurance; 

 and the cost of the war for the two years by 

 which it was estimated to have been prolonged 

 through the acts and negligence of the British 

 Government. As to the money reckoning of 

 the claims thus set forth, Sumner admitted that 

 a figure was difficult to arrive at. The direct 

 losses by the destruction of private property 

 he thought might total some $15,000,000; for 

 the indirect losses the suggestions that he made 

 pointed to a sum of many hundred millions. 



Sumner s speech was received with vocif 

 erous joy by all the Anglophobes in the United 

 States. The Fenians were deeply gratified with 

 his exposure of British treachery, and prepared 

 with eagerness for the revenge that they thought 

 must be exacted. The great mass of average 

 citizens whose antipathy to the British had 

 been dulled by the lapse of years since the war, 

 were stirred with the ancient wrath through 



