'
He also says, addressing an audience:--
'Why, Sirs, British lords hold their lands, British bishops hold
their revenues, Victoria holds her sceptre, by the grace of
cotton, as surely as by the grace of God.'
Senator Wigfall says:--
'If we stop the supply of cotton for one week, England would be
starving. Queen Victoria's crown would not stand on her head one
week, if the supply of cotton was stopped; nor would her head
stand on her shoulders.'
Mr. Stephens, who is the Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy,
says:--
'There will be revolution in Europe, there will be starvation
there; our cotton is the element that will do it.'
Now, I am not stating the mere result of any discovery of my own, but it
would be impossible to read the papers of the South, or the speeches
made in the South, before, and at the time of, and after the secession,
without seeing that the universal opinion there was, that the stoppage
of the supply of cotton would be our instantaneous ruin, and that if
they could only lay hold of it, keep it back in the country, or burn it,
so that it never could be used, that then the people of Lancashire,
merchants, manufacturers, and operatives in mills--everybody dependent
upon this vast industry--would immediately arise and protest against the
English Government abstaining for one moment from the recognition of the
South, from war with the North, and from a resolution to do the utmost
that we could to create a slave-holding independent republic in the
South.
Pages:
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371