 In Britain , Benjamin spent a week in London assisting Mason in winding up Confederate affairs . He then went to Paris to visit his wife and daughter for the first time since before the war . Friends in Paris urged him to join a mercantile firm there , but Benjamin felt that such a career would be subject to interference by Seward and the United States . Accordingly , Benjamin sought to shape his old course in a new country , resuming his legal career as an English barrister . Most of Benjamin 's property had been destroyed or confiscated , and he needed to make a living for himself and his relatives . He had money in the United Kingdom as he had , during the war , purchased cotton for transport to Liverpool by blockade runner . 
