Many mill owners and workers resented the blockade and continued to see the war as an issue of tariffs against free trade. Attempts were made to run the blockade by ships from Liverpool, London and New York. 71,751 bales of American cotton reached Liverpool in 1862. Confederate flags were flown in many cotton towns. On 31 December 1862, a meeting of cotton workers at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, despite their increasing hardship, resolved to support the Union in its fight against slavery. An extract from the letter they wrote in the name of the Working People of Manchester to His Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America says: On 19 January 1863, Abraham Lincoln sent an address thanking the cotton workers of Lancashire for their support, A monument in Brazenose Street, Lincoln Square, Manchester, commemorates the events and reproduces portions of both documents. The Abraham Lincoln statue by George Grey Barnard, 1919, was formerly located in the gardens at Platt Hall in Rusholme. The Federal American government sent a gift of food to the people of Lancashire. The first consignment was sent aboard the George Griswold. Other ships were the Hope and Achilles. Effects in other parts of the world To moderate the effects of the cotton famine, the British tried to diversify its sources of cotton by making former subsistence farmers in British India, Egypt and elsewhere grow cotton for export often at the expense of staple food production. An attempt to grow cotton was also made on the island of Sicily. With the ending of the American Civil War, these new cotton farmers became redundant and their cotton was hardly demanded. This led to their impoverishment and aggravated various famines in these countries in the second half of the 19th century. In China, the British enjoyed an increase in trade following the results of the Second Opium War and subsequent rise of exports from China by 30 percent from year 1859-1860. But with the outbreak of the American Civil War caused disruptions driving the price of cotton "so high that the Chinese stopped buying from outside". The textile trade lost two-thirds of its value from 1861-1862 and kept falling. Regions such as Australia, welcomed skilled spinners and weavers and encouraged their immigration. Legacy In a 2015 article, economic historian Walker Hanlon finds that the cotton famine significantly affected the direction of technological progress