Beyond the actual loss in the national tonnage, there was a further loss in the arrest of our natural increase in this branch of industry, which an intelligent statistician puts at five per cent. annually, making in 1866 a total loss on this account of 1,384,953 tons, which must be added to 1,229,035 tons actually lost.[83] The same statistician, after estimating the value of a ton at forty dollars gold, and making allowance for old and new ships, puts the sum-total of national loss on this account at $110,000,000. Of course this is only an item in our bill. To these authorities I add that of the National Board of Trade, which, in a recent report on American Shipping, after setting forth the diminution of our sailing tonnage, says that it is nearly all to be traced to the war on the ocean; and the result is summed up in the words, that, “while the tonnage of the nation was rapidly disappearing _by the ravages of the Rebel cruisers_ and by sales abroad, in addition to the usual loss by the perils of the sea, there was no construction of new vessels going forward to counteract the decline even in part.”[84] Such is the various testimony, all tending to one conclusion. This is what I have to say for the present on _national losses_ through the destruction of commerce. These are large enough; but there is another chapter, where they are larger far: I refer, of course, to the national losses caused by the prolongation of the war, and traceable directly to England. Pardon me, if I confess the regret with which I touch this prodigious item; for I know well the depth of feeling which it is calculated to stir. But I cannot hesitate. It belongs to the case. No candid person, who studies this eventful period, can doubt that the Rebellion was originally encouraged by hope of support from England,--that it was strengthened at once by the concession of belligerent rights on the ocean,--that it was fed to the end by British supplies,--that it was encouraged by every well-stored British ship that was able to defy our blockade,--that it was quickened into frantic life with every report from the British pirates, flaming anew with every burning ship; nor can it be doubted that without British intervention the Rebellion would have soon succumbed under the well-directed efforts of the National Government. Not weeks or months, but years, were added in this way to our war, so full of costly sacrifice. The subsidies which in other times England contributed to Continental wars were less effective than the aid and comfort which she contributed to the Rebellion. It cannot be said too often that the _naval base_ of the Rebellion was not in America, but in England. The blockade-runners and the pirate ships were all English. England was the fruitful parent, and these were the “hell-hounds,” pictured by Milton in his description of Sin, which, “when they list, would creep into her womb and kennel there.” Mr. Cobden boldly said in the House of Commons