When the disavowal came, and the alarm of
war was over, I wrote, in January, 1862, the paper, in _Fraser's
Magazine_, entitled "The Contest in America," [and I shall always feel
grateful to my daughter that her urgency prevailed on me to write it
when I did, for we were then on the point of setting out for a journey
of some months in Greece and Turkey, and but for her, I should have
deferred writing till our return.] Written and published when it was,
this paper helped to encourage those Liberals who had felt overborne by
the tide of illiberal opinion, and to form in favour of the good cause a
nucleus of opinion which increased gradually, and, after the success of
the North began to seem probable, rapidly. When we returned from our
journey I wrote a second article, a review of Professor Cairnes' book,
published in the _Westminster Review_. England is paying the penalty, in
many uncomfortable ways, of the durable resentment which her ruling
classes stirred up in the United States by their ostentatious wishes for
the ruin of America as a nation; they have reason to be thankful that a
few, if only a few, known writers and speakers, standing firmly by the
Americans in the time of their greatest difficulty, effected a partial
diversion of these bitter feelings, and made Great Britain not
altogether odious to the Americans.
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