I said--and my hon. Friend has admitted this--that when the revolt or secession was first announced, people here were generally against the South. Nobody thought then that the South had any cause for breaking up the integrity of that great nation. Their opinion was, and what people said, according to their different politics in this country was, 'They have a Government which is mild, and not in any degree oppressive; they have not what some people love very much, and what some people dislike,-- they have not a costly monarchy, and an aristocracy, creating and living on patronage. They have not an expensive foreign policy; a great army; a great navy; and they have no suffering millions discontented and endeavouring to overthrow their Government;--all which things have been said against Governments in this country and in Europe a hundred times within our own hearing,'--and therefore, they said, 'Why should these men revolt?' But for a moment the Washington Government appeared paralyzed. It had no army and no navy; everybody was traitor to it. It was paralyzed and apparently helpless; and in the hour when the government was transferred from President Buchanan to President Lincoln, many people--such was the unprepared state of the North, such was the apparent paralysis of everything there--thought there would be no war; and men shook hands with each other pleasantly, and congratulated themselves that the disaster of a great strife, and the mischief to our own trade, might be avoided. That was the opinion at that moment, so far as I can recollect, and could gather at the time, with my opportunities of gathering such opinion. They thought the North would acquiesce in the rending of the Republic, and that there would be no war. Well, but there was another reason. They were told by certain public writers in this country that the contest was entirely hopeless, as they have been told lately by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am very happy that, though the Chancellor of the Exchequer is able to decide to a penny what shall be the amount of taxes to meet public expenditure in England, he cannot decide what shall be the fate of a whole continent. It was said that the contest was hopeless, and why should the North continue a contest at so much loss of blood and treasure, and at so great a loss to the commerce of the whole world? If a man thought--if a man believed in his heart that the contest was absolutely hopeless--no man in this country had probably any right to form a positive opinion one way or the other--but if he had formed that opinion, he might think, 'Well, the North can never be successful; it would be much better that they should not carry on the war at all; and therefore I am rather glad that the South should have success, for by that the war will be the sooner put an end to.' I think this was a feeling that was abroad.