In January, 1861, _De Bow's Review_ contained an article declaring that "the first demonstration of blockade of the Southern ports would be swept away by the English fleets of observation hovering on the Southern coasts, to protect English commerce, and especially the free flow of cotton to English and French factories....

A stoppage of the raw material ...

would produce the most disastrous political results--if not a revolution in England.

This is the language of English statesmen, manufacturers, and merchants, in Parliament and at cotton associations' debates, and it discloses the truth[661]." The historical student will find but few such British utterances at the moment, and these few not by men of great weight either in politics or in commerce.

The South was labouring under an obsession and prophesied results accordingly.