In plain defiance of international law, splendid vessels were built in British yards for the purpose of sweeping the commerce of the United States from the seas; Confederate rifles and cannon were readily procured from British dealers; Confederate loans were floated by British bankers, and over-subscribed by the British public; the sale of shares in British blockade-runners to Confederate ports was an easy matter, as it appealed not only to the cupidity but to the prejudice of the purchaser. All grades of publications,--from the newspapers to the stately reviews,--teemed with abuse of Americans,--abuse written in almost inconceivable ferocity and malice. The humorous organ, _Punch_, did not check its "scurrile jester" in the drawing of most offensive cartoons of the President of the United States; practically the whole of the aristocracy was hostile; in all Parliament but one voice was raised for the North, and that was the voice of John Bright. While the rancor and venom were expended upon the North, and while that section suffered solely from the violations of international law, it must not be supposed that the British press, patricians, and politicians were actuated by any genuine motives of good will to the South. Their hope and prayer were for the disruption and destruction of the Republic, in which the nobility recognized their most powerful,--however passive,--enemy; and the trading classes thought they saw the ruin of their commercial rival. There was, however, one great element in England that was stanchly on the side of the North throughout the whole conflict; and though it did not possess the franchise, this element was not without its influence. The working classes of the kingdom were able to penetrate the mists that blinded their superiors in station, and they saw from the beginning that, whatever the ostensible purpose, the actual result of Northern triumph would be the end of slavery. It is at once a pathetic and magnificent fact, that no amount of specious argument, such as was frequently addressed to him, that no reflection upon his own sufferings, could win the Lancashire cottonspinner,--starving, because of the shortage in the great staple of his industry,--from the cause of human freedom.