[Footnote 1123:  The Liberator, Nov. 27, 1863.  I have not dwelt upon Beecher’s tour of England and Scotland in 1863, because its influence in “winning England” seems to me absurdly over-estimated.  He was a gifted public orator and knew how to “handle” his audiences, but the majority in each audience was friendly to him, and there was no such “crisis of opinion” in 1863 as has frequently been stated in order to exalt Beecher’s services.]

[Footnote 1124:  Dodd, Jefferson Davis, p. 319.  The words are Dodd’s.]

[Footnote 1125:  State Department, Eng., Vol. 84, No. 557.  Adams to Seward, Dec. 17, 1863.]

[Footnote 1126:  Hotze Correspondence.  McHenry to Hotze, Dec. 1, 1863.]

[Footnote 1127:  McHenry, The Cotton Trade, London, 1863.  The preface in the form of a long letter to W.H.  Gregory is dated August 31, 1863.  For a comprehensive note on McHenry see C.F.  Adams in Mass.  Hist.  Soc. Proceedings, March, 1914, Vol.  XLVII, 279 seq.]

[Footnote 1128:  Mason Papers.]

CHAPTER XV

THE SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE ASSOCIATION

Northern friends in England were early active in organizing public meetings and after the second emancipation proclamation of January 1, 1863, these became both numerous and notable.  Southern friends, confident in the ultimate success of the Confederacy and equally confident that they had with them the great bulk of upper-class opinion in England, at first thought it unnecessary to be active in public expressions aside from such as were made through the newspapers.  Up to November, 1862, The Index records no Southern public meeting.  But by the summer of 1863, the indefatigable Spence had come to the conclusion that something must be done to offset the efforts of Bright and others, especially in the manufacturing districts where a strong Northern sympathy had been created.  On June 16, he wrote to Mason that on his initiative a Southern Club had been organized in Manchester and that others were now forming in Oldham, Blackburn and Stockport.  In Manchester the Club members had “smashed up the last Abolitionist meeting in the Free Trade Hall”: 

“These parties are not the rich spinners but young men of energy with a taste for agitation but little money.  It appears to my judgment that it would be wise not to stint money in aiding this effort to expose cant and diffuse the truth.  Manchester is naturally the centre of such a move and you will see there are here the germs of important work—­but they need to be tended and fostered.  I have supplied a good deal of money individually but I see room for the use of L30 or L40 a month or more[1129].”

The appeal for funds (though Spence wrote that he would advance the required amounts on the chance of reimbursement from the Confederate secret service fund) is interesting in comparison with the contributions