It is difficult to exaggerate the consequences of this precipitate, unfriendly, and immoral concession, which has been, and still is, an overflowing fountain of mischief and bloodshed,--“_hoc fonte derivata clades_,”--_first_, in what it vouchsafes to Rebel Slavemongers on sea and in British ports, and, _secondly_, in the removal of impediments from British subjects ready to make money out of Slavery,--all of which has been declared by undoubted British authority. Lord Chelmsford, of professional renown as Sir Frederick Thesiger, now an ex-Chancellor, used these words recently in the House of Lords: “If the Southern Confederacy had not been recognized by us as _a belligerent power_, he agreed with his noble and learned friend [Lord BROUGHAM], that any Englishman aiding them by fitting out a privateer against the Federal Government _would be guilty of piracy_.”[4] But this is changed by the Queen’s Proclamation. For Rebel Slavery there is recognition; for the British subject opportunity of trade. For Rebel Slavery there is fellowship and equality; for the British subject a new customer, to whom he may lawfully sell Armstrong guns, and other warlike munitions of choicest British workmanship, and, as Lord Palmerston tells us, even ships of war, to be used in behalf of Slavery.[5] What was unlawful is suddenly made lawful, while the ban is taken from an odious felony. It seems superfluous to add, that such concession, thus potent in reach, must have been a direct encouragement and overture to the Rebellion. Slavery itself was exalted, when barbarous pretenders, battling to found a new power in its hateful name, without so much as a single port on the ocean where a prize could be carried for condemnation, were yet, _in face of this essential deficiency_, swiftly acknowledged as _ocean_ belligerents, while, as consequence, their pirate ships, cruising for plunder in behalf of Slavery, were acknowledged as national ships, entitled to equal immunities with the national ships of the United States. This simple statement is enough. It is vain to say that the concession was a “necessity.” There may have been strong temptation to it, constituting, perhaps, imagined necessity, as with many there is strong temptation to Slavery itself. But such concession to Rebels fighting for Slavery can be vindicated only as Slavery is vindicated. As well declare “neutrality” between Right and Wrong, between Good and Evil, with concession to Evil of belligerent rights, and then set up the apology of “necessity.” If he is an enemy who does what pleases an enemy, according to the rule borrowed by Grotius from the Christian lawyer of the age of Justinian,[6] then did England become the enemy of the National Union, for this most fruitful concession rejoiced beyond measure the Rebel enemy.