The distinguished English statesman, who, during the progress of the late war, declared that “Mr. Jefferson Davis had created a nation,” stated more than the truth, though he hardly exaggerated the flattering estimate which the intelligent public of Europe places upon the unsurpassed ability and energy with which the limited resources of the South, as compared with those of her enemies, were, for the most part, wielded by the Confederate administration. Nor, indeed, would such an estimate have been too extravagant to be entertained by his own countrymen, had the South achieved her independence by any stroke of mere good fortune, such as repeatedly favored her adversaries at critical moments of the war, when, apparently, the most trifling incidents regulated the balance.
