THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
productive, and it could raise loans with greater facility. In the American Civil War the possession of mines and foundries and factories was one of the elements in the superiority of the North; in our Civil War the simpler economic organisation of the time made the control of the manufacturing districts less vital.
The Parliament like the Federal government had the disposal of the national navy. It could intercept the supplies which the King sought to draw from the continent, and prevent him from obtaining foreign help. It could capture seaports held by the King, as for instance Portsmouth, or retain seaports besieged by his forces, such as Hull and Plymouth. The English fleet achieved no exploit comparable to the capture of New Orleans by Farragut, could exert no pressure equivalent to that exercised by the Federal blockading squadrons on the Confederacy, but its influence on the course of the war was greater than historians have allowed.
Except at the beginning, the soldiers of
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