BANK OF ENGLAND IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE YEARS

1837-1838-1839.

LONDON & PARIS:

ROBERT HARDWICKE, 192 PICCADILLY.

DENTU, PALAIS ROYAL.

MDCCCLXV.

FRANCE AND THE CONFEDERATE

STATES.

THE natural and perfectly legitimate desire of France to acquire the same supremacy at sea which she already possesses on land, is known to all the world; and while the policy pursued by British Statesmen towards the Confederate States of America affords her the fullest opportunity at this moment of attaining this grand object of her ambition, her mercantile and manufacturing interests imperiously command her to seize it, because her manufacturers must otherwise become mainly dependent for the future on the British possessions in India and elsewhere for a supply of cotton. France has thus two motives, either of which is of itself strong enough, to impelher to action. The Emperor now sees before him. the means of establishing the future naval and commercial glory of France on a foundation so solid and secure that nothing hereafter will be able to shake it; and even were his entanglements

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with Great Britain calculated to embarrass his political movement at this particular moment, it is not probable that the aroused attention of the commercial and manufacturing interests of France to the great crisis before them would acquiesce in

inaction on his part. The opportunity which

offers is, however, somewhat fleeting in its nature: the Statesmen of Great Britain have still in their hands the power to destroy its efficacy, and will not fail to avail themselves of it, if hesitation on the part of France should afford them an opening. France must therefore seize at once what volvenda dies, en! attulit ultro, or be content to forego it altogether and for ever.

To explain this clearly, it is necessary to advert to the governing points in the respective positions of each of the two parties with whom France will be concerned.

I will begin with the Yankees. The vast proportions which their maritime power has assumed during the last fifty years have sprung entirely from the monopoly which the Southerners accorded to them of the carrying trade of their raw produce in cotton, tobacco, &c., and of the commercial returns to it. The indigenous products of Yankeeland itself those that are exportable in ships-are not many, but the Yankees have hitherto enjoyed the export of a great portion of the corn and provisions of the West. Thus their mercantile marine, as dependent merely on their own products and

on those of the West, could never have reached anything like that enormous magnitude which it attained in 1860. Besides this the Yankees do not possess a considerable indigenous nautical population, the sailors who man their ships being of all nations, but chiefly English, of whom I ascertained, in 1839, they had between 40,000 and 50,000 in constant employ. To what number the English sailors had risen in 1860 I have no means of learning, the Yankees carefully concealing the amount, and our own authorities taking no steps to ascertain it.

Now, in the year 1860, which was the last year of the Union, the total exports of the whole Union, omitting the gold of California, amounted to the value of 70,000,000l. in round numbers. Separating this total into two parts, and distinguishing between Northern and Southern products, we shall find that the value of exported Northern produce, including the provisions of the West and the re-exports of manufactured cotton, did not exceed 18,000,000l., while the value of exported Southern produce exceeded 50,000,000l. The Protective Tariff of 1816 practically threw into the hands of Yankee shippers the transport of all Southern products; of these, cotton, the chief, is bulky, and requires much ship-room. Now, connecting these several points together, it becomes obvious that not less than two-thirds of what was the mercantile marine of the Yankees in 1860 had been called into