Four Ememies of the South.
Lord Palmerston, the
Whig premier of
England, an octogenarian, who had been a personal disciple of
Wilberforce in his youth and who had brought down to his present life and office the enthusiasm then inspired by the great emancipator, heard with a smile of incredulity the solemn plea of the
Confederacy at the Court of St. James.
John Bright and
Richard Cobden, the venerable premier's lieutenants, had hardly composed themselves from the exciting sympathy with which they had watched the campaign
Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency.
The
German Prince-Consort, too, Albert, was near to carry into the predicate of Confederate recognition the national German morbidity of hate against slavery.
Albert died soon, yet not before he had developed his stand for the side of the
United States in the
American conflict.
For years after her husband's death, the
Queen lived in a melancholy, and he would be a rash minister who should approach her Majesty with suggestion of variance with her dead husband's known policy.
