602 The Fall of the Confederacy. 
tion of the Confederacy was desperate. Its armies could 
not be recruited, and neither the genius of Lee nor the 
valour of his troops could much longer resist the ceaseless 
and increasing pressure of the Federal forces. Why then 
were the Northern propositions rejection? Success was 
beyond the pale of probability, and therefore better terms 
could not be obtained. Must we charge the Confederate 
administration with the prodigious crime of rejecting a fair 
opportunity of ending a hopeless conflict? If so we must 
hold the Confederate administration morally responsible 
for every life lost in the war from the hour of the James 
river conference to the surrender of the Confederate army. 
Such a charge and such a conclusion would be a foul 
aspersion. The error of the Confederate administration ~ 
was an error of judgment, not a moral crime. They 
still indulged in the hope of foreign intervention. When 
the news of the fall of Richmond reached Europe a 
special agent of the Confederate Government was in 
Paris making a final effort to obtain intervention. Of 
the three contingencies on which the Confederate ad- 
ministration based their hopes of success that of foreign 
intervention was apparently the most plausible. England 
might get cotton from India, and would not incur the risk 
of a collision even for the sake of her staple industry ; 
but was it likely that she would not embrace the oppor- 
tunity of dividing a power that perpetually threatened her 
dominion in America? 
Was it not also sure that France, which had aided the 
formation of the Empire in Mexico, would support the Con- 
federacy? If the Confederacy fell the Mexican Empire 
must fall too. Was it likely that the French Government 
would set up an empire that it did not mean to sustain in 
the only way it could be effectually sustained? It would 
be tedious to recount the arguments for and against recog- 
nition. We have evidence enough that the expectation of 
intervention was not utterly unfounded. There was a Con- 
federate party in France. There was a Confederate party 
in England. It needed but a little, a very little addition to 
the pro-Confederate sympathy to turn the scale. We will 
not hazard an opinion as to whether it was in the power 
of the Confederate administration to have turned the scale 
of European sentiment actively in favour of the Confede- 
racy; but beyond dispute they refused to adopt a policy 
that would have converted a host of opponents into well- 
wishers, and they adhered to a policy that gave the North 
overwhelming moral force in Europe. 
P af joy (_# ; 
mr 
ena 
