Freed from the unceasing coast menace and from the danger of being cut in two along the rivers, the effectiveness of the land forces would have been more than doubled. Leaving out of the account the possibility of offensive operations against Washington and the cities of the North, the defense of the seceded States could have been made so secure that the people of the North would have called loudly for peace; the border slave States would have cast in their lot with the Confederacy, and England and France would have openly sided with the South; secession would have triumphed definitely before the end of the year 1863. With the English East India Company, it was a case of "take our ships or leave them." The South left them, and with them it left its chance for independence and for putting two mediocre American republics in the place where one great one, after that decisive moment, was bound to stand forever. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.