Americans continually point to the period of the Civil war and triumphantly declare that Englishmen were unfriendly to the United States at that time. So they were. And Englishmen were unfriendly to the Confederate states during that time. In fact, Englishmen did exactly what Americans did at that time--some took the side of the North and others took the side of the South. This it was their privilege to do. They simply asserted the right of free men to think as they pleased, and to express those thoughts freely. But that in so doing they showed hostility to the United States it is false and foolish to assert. There was neither unfriendliness nor malice. This hostility to the South, so far as it existed, was based solely upon the existence of slavery there. That which existed against the North was based solely upon the belief that a stronger power was taking advantage of its strength to trample upon the political rights of a weaker one. Any person living either North or South at that time cannot deny that they met many examples of both of these opinions among their respective acquaintances in both these sections. At the commencement of the Civil War, the Queen issued a proclamation of neutrality, forbidding the sale of munitions of war to either party, warning her subjects against entering any blockaded port for purposes of trade under penalty of forfeiture of vessel and cargo if captured by either contestant. Great Britain, as well as all other civilized powers, granted to the Confederacy belligerent rights, the same as had been accorded to them by the United States. Many, through cupidity, were tempted to enter into an illegal traffic with the seceded states.