The blockade in England and France.
Earl Russell, in the House of Lords, on the 28th ult., in reply to a question from the Earl of Carnarvon, took occasion to explain away the treaty of Paris completely. That treaty said: ‘"The blockade to be respected must be efficient."’ Common men understood that an efficient blockade meant a blockade which kept vessels from entering. But Lord Russell is not a common man, and he does not understand the matter in that light. An officiant blockade, according to him, is a blockade which admits any number of vessels that choose to come in. The present blockade being of this character, is, of course, regarded by his lordship as the very beau ideal of a blockade. There has been nothing like it since the good old times, when the British Minister blockaded all the ports of France, from the Elbe to Otranto, by an "Order in Council," and Napoleon the First blockaded all the British Isles by a decree from Berlin.In the French Senate the Marquis de Boissy "let the eat out of the bag," to use a vulgar but expressive phrase. France is afraid that if the United States be curtailed of power, England will be without a rival on the sea, and she wishes to keep her up as a terror to England. It is well that this thing is now thoroughly understood in the Confederate States, though the knowledge has come something of the latest. The delusion that "cotton is King" has lasted long enough. It is high time that it should be dispelled. It has already cost us an incalculable amount of misery. It lies at the bottom of all the disasters we have suffered of late. Had it never existed, we should have taken advantage of our successes last summer, instead of lying supinely on our backs, and waiting for England and France to do our business for us. It has fled now, and we hope forever. Let our people be assured that, if they expect to be independent, they must fight for it. No people ever became free but by their own exertions.
