_Individual losses_ may be estimated with reasonable accuracy. Ships burnt or sunk with their cargoes may be counted, and their value determined; but this leaves without recognition the vaster damage to commerce driven from the ocean, and that other damage, immense and infinite, caused by the prolongation of the war, all of which may be called _national_ in contradistinction to _individual_. Our _national losses_ have been frankly conceded by eminent Englishmen. I have already quoted Mr. Cobden, who did not hesitate to call them “cruel losses.” During the same debate in which he let drop this testimony, he used other words, which show how justly he comprehended the case. “_You have been_,” said he, “_carrying on hostilities from these shores against the people of the United States_, and have been inflicting an amount of damage on that country greater than would be produced by many ordinary wars. It is estimated that the loss sustained by the capture and burning of American vessels has been about $15,000,000, or nearly £3,000,000 sterling. _But that is a small part of the injury which has been inflicted on the American marine._ We have rendered the rest of her vast mercantile property for the present valueless.”[74] Thus, by the testimony of Mr. Cobden, were those individual losses which are alone recognized by the pending treaty only “a small part of the injury inflicted.” After confessing his fears with regard to “the heaping up of a _gigantic material grievance_” such as was then accumulating, he adds, in memorable words:-- “You have already done your worst towards the American mercantile marine. What with the high rate of insurance, what with these captures, and what with the rapid transfer of tonnage to British capitalists, you have virtually made valueless that vast property. Why, if you had gone and helped the Confederates by bombarding all the accessible seaport towns of America, a few lives might have been lost, which, as it is, have not been sacrificed; but you could hardly have done more injury in the way of destroying property than you have done by these few cruisers.”[75] With that clearness of vision which he possessed in such rare degree, this statesman saw that England had “virtually made valueless a vast property,” as much as if this power had “bombarded all the accessible seaport towns of America.” So strong and complete is this statement, that any further citation seems superfluous; but I cannot forbear adducing a pointed remark in the same debate, by that able gentleman, Mr. William E. Forster:-- “There could not,” said he, “be a stronger illustration of the damage which had been done to the American trade by these cruisers than the fact, that, so completely was the American flag driven from the ocean, the Georgia, on her second cruise, did not meet a single American vessel in six weeks, though she saw no less than seventy vessels in a very few days.”[76]