There was also the point of view of the increasingly anti-slavery north. During the Mexican war a strong aversion to territorial expansion by conquest for the sake of slave soil had been manifested, and this feeling was steadily increasing in extent and in influence. It manifested itself by opposition to Cuban annexation. At the same time, the commercial instinct was strong in the great cities of the north, and there was an earnest desire to do nothing which might interfere with the profitable trade which already existed between this country and Cuba, and which it was hoped greatly to expand. The interest of Great Britain in Cuban affairs was scarcely less than that of Spain or the United States. That country had once, for a time, possessed Cuba, and had never forgotten that fact nor ceased to entertain the desire to renew that possession as a permanent state of affairs. That country also had very important colonial holdings in the West Indies, and on the adjacent mainland; being, indeed, an American power second only to the United States itself. It owned the Bahamas, Jamaica and other islands, and colonies on the South and Central American coast, which latter it was at that very time seeking greatly to extend. It was keenly desirous of enlarging its possessions and forming a great colonial empire in tropical America, and it realized that nothing could conduce to that end more than the acquisition of Cuba. In the prosecution of this policy, a certain "jingo" faction actually went so far as to pretend that upon the acquisition of Cuba depended Great Britain's retention of Canada, if not, indeed, of her entire American holdings. It was represented that if Great Britain did not intervene to prevent it, the slave-holding South was certain to annex Cuba, and that this would provoke the abolitionist North into seizing Canada, in order to provide in that direction free soil to counter-balance the slave soil of Cuba. Thus, with Canada gone, and Cuba in the hands of the United States, the remainder of the British holdings in the western hemisphere would be in deadly jeopardy. Such visions seem at this time fantastic, and it may be that they were then thus regarded by serious statesmen; yet they were cherished and were not without their influence. Nor was France less deeply and directly interested in Cuba. She, too, had colonies in the West Indies and on the South American coast. She had never forgotten her former vast empire in North America, nor ceased to regret its loss. She was soon to enter upon a campaign of conquest in Mexico. She had at various times, both during and since the Napoleonic era, entertained designs upon peninsular Spain itself, and she had repeatedly made direct overtures for a protectorate over Cuba.