People in England mostly saw things from the Southern point of view; and when the Northern point of view was put before them, it was not always put persuasively. A certain Dr Jephson of Boston, U.S., delivered an address at the Athenæum at Exeter on 17 March 1863. “The present murderous and fratricidal war in the United States has been fomented by the American slave-holders and the cotton-brokers in England.... This plot on the part of the American slave-holders and the cotton fraternity in England conjointly, to destroy the American Union, has served to evoke such a bitter feeling on the part of the American people against England....” Here was a red rag for John Bull. What right had the Northerners to call themselves the American people? They were only part of it, and the Southerners were part as well. If this had been a cotton-spinning district, there would have been a riot. In those years I was often staying with an aunt of mine not far from Macclesfield and Bollington, where there were cotton mills; and I saw something of the misery and destitution there, when the mills ceased work for want of raw material. No one cared a bit about the merits of the quarrel between the North and South; but everyone could see it was the Northerners who caused all this distress--the supply of cotton was stopped by their blockade. It usually was called a fratricidal war; but in many of the letters here I find it called ‘this stupid war,’ and perhaps that was the better epithet. Had the northern states said Go In Peace, the Wayward Sisters would have been home again by now. My father writes to my grandfather, Basle, 8 August 1849, “Mr Elihu Burritt, the American writer, is travelling to get converts to the Peace Congress, who are going to hold their next meeting at Paris on the 22nd. I had several hours of conversation with him about America.... Four Americans arrived here with us last evening, for a rapid run thro’ the country and then on to attend the Peace Congress. They cannot speak anything but English, and I had to translate for them at the stations, else they would have got nothing to eat all day.” My father always wrote home an account of little things to entertain the old folks here. Thus, he writes from Exeter, 30 October 1838, “I went to the Cathedral on Sunday morning: the Bishop seemed wonderfully devout. He always is so in appearance, but there was less parade of it on Sunday. I hope his sins, or at least a few of them, were wiped away by his humility.”