It affected at every turn British public attitude, creating an intensity and bitterness of tone, on both sides, unexampled in the expressions of a neutral people.

In America this was little understood, and American writers both during the war and long afterwards, gave little attention to it[1397].

Immediately upon the conclusion of the war, Goldwin Smith, whose words during the conflict were bitter toward the aristocracy, declared that "the territorial aristocracy of this country and the clergy of the Established Church" would have been excusable "if they could only have said frankly that they desired the downfall of institutions opposed to their own, instead of talking about their sympathy for the weak, and their respect for national independence, and their anxiety for the triumph of Free Trade[1398]." This was stated before the democratic hope in England had been realized.

Three years later the same staunch friend of the North, now removed to America and occupying a chair of history at Cornell University, wrote of the British aristocracy in excuse of their attitude: "I fought these men hard; I believed, and believe now, that their defeat was essential to the progress of civilization.

But I daresay we should have done pretty much as they did, if we had been born members of a privileged order, instead of being brought up under the blessed influence of equality and justice[1399]." Such judgment and such excuses will appear to the historian as well-founded.