“The House of Commons is opposed to taking any step at present, feeling rightly or wrongly that to do so would be useless to the South, and possibly embroil us with the North.  Any motion on the subject will be received with disfavour, consequently the way in which it will be treated will only make the North more elated, and will irritate the South against us.  If I saw the slightest chance of a motion being received with any favour I would not let it go into other hands, but I find the most influential men of all Parties opposed to it[1046].”

Of like opinion was Slidell who, writing of the situation in France, reported that he had been informed by his “friend at the Foreign Office” that “It is believed that every possible thing has been done here in your behalf—­we must now await the action of England, and it is through that you must aim all your efforts in that direction[1047].”

With the failure, at least temporary, of Southern efforts to move the British Government or to stir Parliament, energies were now directed toward using financial methods of winning support for the Southern cause.  The “Confederate Cotton Loan” was undertaken with the double object of providing funds for Southern agents in Europe and of creating an interested support of the South, which might, it was hoped, ultimately influence the British Government.

By 1863 it had become exceedingly difficult, owing to the blockade, for the Government at Richmond to transmit funds to its agents abroad.  Bullock, especially, required large amounts in furtherance of his ship-building contracts and was embarrassed by the lack of business methods and the delays of the Government at home.  The incompetence of the Confederacy in finance was a weakness that characterized all of its many operations whether at home or abroad[1048] and was made evident in England by the confusion in its efforts to establish credits there.  At first the Confederate Government supplied its agents abroad with drafts upon the house of Fraser, Trenholm & Company, of Liverpool, a branch of the firm long established at Charleston, South Carolina, purchasing its bills of exchange with its own “home made” money.  But as Confederate currency rapidly depreciated this method of transmitting funds became increasingly difficult and costly.  The next step was to send to Spence, nominated by Mason as financial adviser in England, Confederate money bonds for sale on the British market, with authority to dispose of them as low as fifty cents on the dollar, but these found no takers[1049].  By September, 1862, Bullock’s funds for ship-building were exhausted and some new method of supply was required.  Temporary relief was found in adopting a suggestion from Lindsay whereby cotton was made the basis for an advance of L60,000, a form of cotton bond being devised which fixed the price of cotton at eightpence the pound.  These bonds were not put on the market but were privately placed by Lindsay & Company with a few buyers for the entire sum, the transaction remaining secret[1050].