David, Perhaps no one "got the money". The Union blockade was effective enough to cause a disruption in the cotton weaving industry in England and that resulted in an economic depression in some of the northern counties. Have you not heard about the Lancashire Cotton Famine?
http://georgian-victorian-britain.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_lancashire_cotton_famine

My father's ancestors were gunmakers and cotton weavers in Lancashire. It was the Best of Times and the Worst of Times. Anyway, the War would have ended earlier and we would all be better off if the Brits had aided the Confederacy.