"Bright, Forster, the Duke of Argyll and 'Tom' Hughes spoke effectively to convince England that the United States was fighting the great battle of humanity. 'The question of intervention between the Federal and Confederate Governments arose early in the War. It was practically considered only by England and France. The latter was far more inclined to such action; it proposed it earlier, more frequently and in a more extreme form.' When the purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was understood, the heart of the English people responded to it with an impulse no power could withstand and which no Government could defy. A great public meeting was held in London on New Year's Eve which hailed the dawn of an era of universal freedom and of closer friendship between England and America. At the same time a similar gathering in Manchester, stricken as it was with the cotton famine, adopted similar resolutions addressed to the President of the United States. At Sheffield a vast gathering passed resolutions to the effect that it was the duty of England to give her sympathy and moral support to the Northern States. All England took up the cry within the next few weeks. Deputations waited upon the American Minister with addresses of sympathy and encouragement. At least two members of the Cabinet, the Duke of Argyll and Milner Gibson, spoke publicly for the Federal Cause. Vast meetings at Spurgeon's Tabernacle and at Exeter Hall applauded the name of Lincoln and cried down that of Jefferson Davis. In Gloucestershire any apparent complicity of England with the Confederacy in the equipment of warships was condemned and in almost every considerable city or town in England, Scotland or Wales such sentiments were expressed at great popular assemblies. An increasing number of statesmen, including such men as Lord Disraeli and Lord Derby, openly espoused the Federal side." Since the Civil War, the evidences of England's friendship have been as many as they have been valuable. We have good reason to believe, although it never can be proved as the proposals were never reduced to writing, that at the time of our war with Spain an effort was made by the Powers of Continental Europe, who were all strongly pro-Spanish and anti-American in their sympathies, to band Europe together and to intervene unitedly between the United States and Spain, but in the interests of Spain and to the detriment of the United States. This scheme was only blocked by the attitude of England. AT MANILA