instructions, directing them to recognise the rebels as belligerents, he declined to listen to them. The United States, accordingly, persisted until the end in regarding the rebellion as a domestic difficulty, and one with which foreign governments had no right to interfere. At the present day, it appears most remarkable that the two great sources of encouragement held out to the rebels--of help from Northern sympathisers, and the hope of full recognition by European powers--proved in the end to be allurements which led them on to ruin. Had it not been for the defeat at Bull Run, slavery would perhaps have still existed; and but for the hope of foreign aid, the South would never have been so utterly conquered and thoroughly exhausted as it was. It must, however, be admitted that the irritation of the Union-men of the North against England at this crisis was carried much too far, since they did not take fully into consideration the very large number of their sincere friends in Great Britain who earnestly advocated their cause, and that among these were actually the majority of the journalists. To those who did not understand American politics in detail, the spectacle of about one-third of the population, even though backed by constitutional law, opposing the majority, seemed to call for little sympathy. And if the motto of Emancipation for the sake of the white man offended the American Abolitionists, who were unable to see that it was a _ruse de guerre_ in their favour, it is not remarkable that the English Abolitionists should have been equally obtuse.