BlackStar42 said:
You are so very wrong. This is from Wikipedia, but I'm going to back it up in a second:
"Once the war with the United States began, the Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by Britain and France. The United States realized this as well and made it clear that diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy meant war with the United States ? and the cutting off of food shipments into Britain. The Confederates who had believed that "cotton is king" ? that is, Britain had to support the Confederacy to obtain cotton ? proved mistaken. The British had ample stocks to last over a year and were not about to go to war with the U.S. to try to get more cotton.[67][68]
The Confederate government sent repeated delegations to Europe; historians give them low marks for their poor diplomacy.[69] James M. Mason went to London and John Slidell traveled to Paris, but neither were officially received. Each did succeed in holding unofficial private meetings with high British and French officials but neither secured official recognition for the Confederacy. Britain and the United States came dangerously close to war during the Trent Affair (when the U.S. Navy seized two Confederate agents traveling on a British ship in late 1861), and it seemed possible that the Confederacy would see its much desired recognition. When Lincoln released the two, however, tensions cooled, and in the end the episode did not aid the Confederate cause.
Throughout the early years of the war, British foreign secretary Lord Russell, Napoleon III of France, and, to a lesser extent, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, showed interest in the idea of recognition of the Confederacy, or at least of offering a mediation. Recognition meant certain war with the United States, and war would have meant loss of American grain, loss of exports to the United States, loss of huge investments in American securities, invasion of Canada, much higher taxes, many lives lost and a threat to British trade. Intervention was considered by the British government following the Second Battle of Bull Run, but the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, combined with internal opposition, caused Britain to back away; the British government did allow blockade runners to be built in Britain and operated by British seamen."
Further more, if you need more proof, I'll give you more examples of Britain's intervention with the Confederate states. I wrote a paper on Antietam and learned all about this:
Here's from the History Channel on a documentary about the battle of Antietam's effects on the United States:
(go to about 4:30 into that video)
(pick up here at 4 mins and listen for about 30 seconds
You can also Read about the
CSS Alabama, a British war vessel built in Britian, for the Confederates, and never docked in Confederate ports so was supplied by British owned territories and ports:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-us-cs/csa-sh/csash-ag/alabama.htm
Or you can google the numerous british attempts to sink and/or capture the Union merchant ships, so they could put that money back into the Confederacy.
So dont tell me that Britain didnt help the confederacy, because this is my minor field of study in college (US history 1812 to 1877).
Finally, You started major colonialization in the Northern and Eastern parts of the United States, so Britain did start that. While France had Colonies in the US, they were peaceful trading posts. Thats why if you look at French Canada, you'll see a lot of Native Canadian Americans mixed with French blood in its populous. Britain for all intensive purposes started the extermination of the Native Americans, instead of trying to live in a peaceful coexistence like the French had, and those ideals continued through the British founded colonies. Bout the only time the British wanted to help the Natives was to curb US expansion on the continent and even then they only gave meager munitions and pulled support when things got tough in their own country, leaving the Native people to fall under the colonies.
England founded Jamestown in 1607...50 odd years after France... and we traded just as much as the French with the "locals"
