A writer at that time says: "It is to the disgrace of our country that some of the goods smuggled into the Confederacy via Nassau were from Northern ports, as for example, shiploads of pistols brought from Boston in barrels of lard." There was also a considerable trade between Boston and Confederate ports via Halifax during the war, as well as an immense amount of contraband trade along the border even by the United States officials, as for example, the exploits of General Benjamin F. Butler while in command at Norfolk, Va., in 1864. If citizens of the United States, even those of Massachusetts, the home of the abolitionists, entered into this traffic, what could be expected of Great Britain with her mills closed and thousands of operatives obliged to resort to the poor rates for subsistence, because she was prevented from buying cotton with which the wharves of the Southern states were loaded down awaiting shipment. It was claimed by Unionists that the British ministry and aristocracy, from political and commercial considerations, openly and heartily sympathized with the South, and that, under the friendly flag of Great Britain, secessionists and blockade-runners were welcomed and assisted in the nefarious traffic; that this unfriendliness of the British government at that time furnished a solid foundation upon which the rebellion rested their hopes, thereby protracting the war. It should not be forgotten, however, that the Queen and the royal family stood faithfully by the Union in the days of its sorest peril, and refused to listen to the importunities of the French emperor, to recognize the Southern Confederacy and open the southern ports. France, having taken advantage of the Civil War, set the Monroe Doctrine at defiance and conquered Mexico. Her remaining there depended on the success of the Confederacy, as after events proved. Had Great Britain listened to France and joined her in recognizing the Southern Confederacy, the South would have surely succeeded. It is generally admitted that the strict blockade of the Southern ports is what defeated the Confederacy. It is due to Great Britain that the United States is not dismembered. It should be remembered that during the Civil War the great body of British workmen were on the side of the North. Even in the cotton famine districts they preferred to starve rather than have the Southern ports opened whereby they could obtain an abundance of cotton, thereby relieving their sore necessities. It is also true that the Confederacy had many friends in Great Britain; that Gladstone, the great Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, so far forgot what was due to his position as to make a speech in which he said "he expected the liberation of the slaves by their own masters sooner than from the North; that Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the South have made an army; they are soon, I understand, to have a navy, but greater than all this, they have made a nation."