CYRUS FIELD CARRIES ON 94 
ence to “this destructive and hopeless war” and “‘your fright- 
ful conflict” reveal how deeply sober Englishmen were im- 
pressed by the bitter and protracted struggle in a country so 
closely linked with their own; as does also the reference to 
the “amount of misery inflicted upon Europe such as no 
other civil war in the history of man has ever brought upon 
those beyond its immediate range.” 
Somewhat strange to modern readers is Gladstone’s con- 
viction that victory for the North was impossible, that the 
spirited and determined Southerners could never be “con- 
quered and kept down.” As the letter phrases it, “You have 
failed because you resolved to do what men could not do.” 
Gladstone did not believe in slavery, which he called “the 
terrible calamity and curse,” but he agreed with General 
Winfield Scott, the outspoken American who had said to the 
South: “Wayward sisters, go in peace.” Finally, the letter 
concluded: ‘Laws stranger than human will are on the side 
of self-defence; and the aim at the impossible . . . is not 
only folly, but guilt to boot.” 
The letter in full is as follows: 
11 Carlton House Terrace, 
November 27, 1862. 
My dear Sir,—I thank you very much for giving me the Thir- 
teen Months. Will you think that I belie the expression I have 
used if I tell you candidly the effect this book has produced upon 
my mind? I think you will not; I do not believe that you or your 
countrymen are among those who desire that any one should 
purchase your favor by speaking what is false, or by forbearing 
to speak what is true. The book, then, impresses me even more 
deeply than I was before impressed with the heavy responsibility 
you incur in persevering with this destructive and hopeless war 
at the cost of such dangers and evils to yourselves, to say nothing 
of your adversaries, or, of an amount of misery inflicted upon 
Europe such as no other civil war in the history of man has ever 
brought upon those beyond its immediate range. Your frightful 
conflict may be regarded from many points of view. ‘The compe- 
tency of the Southern States to secede, the rightfulness of their 
