tJN'FRIElSrDLTN'ESS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 271 



And wbeu an armed Confederate vessel entered an English, 

 port, she was permitted to take in coal sufficient to enable her 

 to reach a southern port. This was according to the rules of 

 international law. But the English authorities gave it, (in the 

 interest of the Confederates), a practical construction which con- 

 formed to its letter but violated its spirit. They held that a 

 Confederate steamer having coaled once in an English port and 

 departed, might return as often as its officers pleased, for fresh 

 supplies of coal, without any troublesome questions being asked. 

 So that, under this rule, a Confederate privateer, without mak- 

 ing a home port, was able to continue its cruise along the great 

 ocean highways frequented by our commercial marine, run into 

 Nassau when it pleased for coal, capture our merchant ships, 

 and levy forced contributions upon or destroy them. They held 

 that no violence was thereby done to the principles of national 

 neutrality, because the British government did not know and 

 was not obligated to inform itself whether or not the privateer 

 had since its previous coaling, returned to a home port, nor what 

 had become of its previous supplies. 



The unfriendliness of the British government to the American 

 Union at that time, furnished a solid foundation ujDon which 

 the rebellion rested its hopes. It greatly protracted the Avar, and 

 largely increased the harvests of suffering and deatli, and, as a 

 necessary consequence, impoverished the South, wasted the sub- 

 stance of the North, and stirred up bitter feelings of hostility 

 between the two nations after the memories of old and bloody 

 family quarrels had nearly faded away. And what did England 

 and her colonies thereby gain ? The cotton she received from 

 blockade runners during the war, formed but a very small frac- 

 tional part of the entire crop. The value of her vessels and car- 

 goes captured by our cruisers while endeavoring to run the 

 blockade, aggi'egated many millions of dollars, Nassau waa 



