London, February 21,1862
Of course if you remain on the island there can be little use for your arm of the service, so I presume you may be employed mainly in the labor of the manège. And even if on the mainland I cannot well conceive what business you can have in a region so sparsely settled with whites and with few elements of aptitude for military operations. Neither Savannah nor Charleston can be taken by cavalry, and apart from these ports what is there in that country important to the object of the war?
To be sure you may individually obtain much insight into the economy of that densely populated slave region, and thus reinforce your means of speculating on the cotton producing theory. If so, I should very well like to see the conclusions to which you may come. To me at this distance it looks very much as if the slave tenure must be irreparably damaged by the social convulsion through which the country is passing, but I confess myself puzzled to see what is likely to take its place. I learn that some letters reach here from Carolina planters declaring that they are utterly ruined. The end to them may then be emigration. And what then? Is it a community of negroes requiring to be taught the very rudiments of social and political economy? . . .
The Trent affair has proved thus far somewhat in the nature of a sharp thunderstorm which has burst without doing any harm, and the consequence has been a decided improvement of the state of the atmosphere. Our English friends are pleased with themselves and pleased with us for having given them the opportunity to be so. The natural effect is to reduce the apparent dimensions of all other causes of offense. The Manchester people are patient and uncomplaining. The distress is not yet of such a kind as to give rise to much uneasiness, and the blockade shuts up the expectation of cotton enough to stimulate the prospect of production in other quarters, so that England shall not be again subject to a similar catastrophe. In the meantime industry naturally seeks new channels, and emigration affords a steady outlet. So that I am now quite encouraged to think that the prospect of interference with us is growing more and more remote. All that I have ever sought for has been the opportunity of developing our policy of repression. At first I confess I had little confidence in its success. But of late I have been thinking better and better of it. And it seems to me that the same impression is growing all around me. . . . The struggle is a tremendous one, and must not be measured hastily. I pity the people of the southern states, but I have no mercy for their profligate leaders, who have wantonly brought them to such a catastrophe.
