prevent a break-down in the spring of 1864, when the calls for more troops and additional supplies were so numerous and pressing. West Virginia was gone, Kentucky and Missouri, too, were wholly within the Federal lines; and most of Tennessee, half of Mississippi, and nearly all the region beyond the great river were lost to the Richmond Government. New Orleans and Norfolk were once more parts of the United States, while large strips of territory in eastern North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida were held in subjection by frowning gunboats. [Illustration: The Confederacy in 1863] A little cotton found its way through the beleaguered ports of Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington to Europe, and brought the lucky blockade runners and their owners rich returns. But trade was so small and the dangers of capture were so many that few could look with any real hope for a return of prosperity until the war was over. Europe must intervene if cotton and tobacco and sugar were to regain their kingly state. And this was the warmest wish of the Confederate chieftains. When the battle of Fredericksburg was fought, all the world thought that the desired recognition would come at once. James M. Mason, the commissioner to England, wrote home that a large majority of the House of Commons was willing to vote for acknowledging Southern independence, and Charles Francis Adams, the Minister of the United States, was of the same opinion. Gladstone, then one of the most popular members of the British Cabinet, and a majority of his colleagues favored the South. Palmerston declared, when the Emancipation Proclamation was read to him, that Lincoln abolished slavery where he had no power to do so and protected it where he had power to abolish it. Of the million voters in England at least three fourths seemed ready to vote for Southern recognition, and all the great manufacturers, the powerful merchants, the country gentry, and great nobles were openly contemptuous of the cause and policy of the North. Carlyle ridiculed the "Yankees," and Dickens made fun of Lincoln, Sumner, Chase, and the rest. It was apparently only a matter of weeks before Lord Palmerston would ask Parliament to authorize him to intervene in order to stop the "useless" bloodshed and slaughter of the war between the States.