In these last days of March matters were in fact rapidly drawing to a head both in America and England. At Washington, from March seventh to the thirty-first, the question of issuing letters of marque and reprisal had been prominently before the Cabinet and even Welles who had opposed them was affected by unfavourable reports received from Adams as to the intentions of Great Britain. The final decision was to wait later news from England[989]. This was Seward's idea as he had not as yet received reports of the British reaction to his communications through Lyons and Adams. March 27 was the critical day of decision in London, as it was also the day upon which public and parliamentary opinion was most vigorously debated in regard to Great Britain's neutral duty. Preceding this other factors of influence were coming to the front. In the first days of March, Slidell, at Paris, had received semi-official assurances that if the South wished to build ships in French yards "we should be permitted to arm and equip them and proceed to sea[990]." This suggestion was permitted to percolate in England with the intention, no doubt, of strengthening Bullock's position there. In the winter of 1862-3, orders had been sent to the Russian Baltic fleet to cruise in western waters and there was first a suspicion in America, later a conviction, that the purpose of this cruise was distinctly friendly to the North—that the orders might even extend to actual naval aid in case war should arise with England and France. In March, 1863, this was but vague rumour, by midsummer it was a confident hope, by September-October, when Russian fleets had entered the harbours of New York and San Francisco, the rumour had become a conviction and the silence of Russian naval officers when banqueted and toasted was regarded as discreet confirmation. There was no truth in the rumour, but already in March curious surmises were being made even in England, as to Russian intentions, though there is no evidence that the Government was at all concerned. The truth was that the Russian fleet had been ordered to sea as a precaution against easy destruction in Baltic waters, in case the difficulties developing in relation to Poland should lead to war with France and England[991].

In England, among the people rather than in governmental England, a feeling was beginning to manifest itself that the Ministry had been lax in regard to the Alabama, and as news of her successes was received this feeling was given voice. Liverpool, at first almost wholly on the side of the Lairds and of Southern ship-building, became doubtful by the very ease with which the Alabama destroyed Northern ships. Liverpool merchants looked ahead and saw that their interests might, after all, be directly opposed to those of the ship-builders. Meetings were held and the matter discussed. In February, 1863, such a meeting at Plaistow, attended by the gentry of the neighbourhood, but chiefly by working men, especially by dock labourers and by men from the ship-building yards at Blackwall, resolved that "the Chairman be requested to write to the Prime Minister of our Queen, earnestly entreating him to put in force, with utmost vigilance, the law of England against such ships as the Alabama[992]." Such expressions were not as yet widespread, nor did the leading papers, up to April, indulge in much discussion, but British doubt was developing[993].

Unquestionably, Russell himself was experiencing a renewed doubt as to Britain's neutral duty. On March 23, he made a speech in Parliament which Adams reported as "the most satisfactory of all the speeches he has made since I have been at this post[994]." On March 26, came the presentation by Adams of Seward's instruction of which Russell wrote to Lyons as made in no unfriendly tone and as a result of which Adams wrote: "The conclusion which I draw ... is, that the Government is really better disposed to exertion, and feels itself better sustained for action by the popular sentiment than ever before[995]." Russell told Adams that he had received a note from Palmerston "expressing his approbation of every word" of his speech three days before. In a portion of the despatch to Seward, not printed in the Diplomatic Correspondence, Adams advised against the issue of privateers, writing, "In the present favourable state of popular mind, it scarcely seems advisable to run the risk of changing the current in Great Britain by the presentation of a new issue which might rally all national pride against us as was done in the Trent case[996]." That Russell was indeed thinking of definite action is foreshadowed by the advice he gave to Palmerston on March 27, as to the latter's language in the debate scheduled for that day on the Foreign Enlistment Act. Russell wrote, referring to the interview with Adams:

"The only thing which Adams could think of when I asked him what he had to propose in reference to the Alabama was that the Government should declare their disapproval of the fitting out of such ships of war to prey on American commerce.

"Now, as the fitting out and escape of the Alabama and Oreto was clearly an evasion of our law, I think you can have no difficulty in declaring this evening that the Government disapprove of all such attempts to elude our law with a view to assist one of the belligerents[997]."

But the tone of parliamentary debate did not bear out the hopeful view of the American Minister. It was, as Bright wrote to Sumner, "badly managed and told against us[998]," and Bright himself participated in this "bad management." For over a year he had been advocating the cause of the North in public speeches and everywhere pointing out to unenfranchised England that the victory of the North was essential to democracy in all Europe. Always an orator of power he used freely vigorous language and nowhere more so than in a great public meeting of the Trades Unions of London in St. James' Hall, on March 26, the evening before the parliamentary debate. The purpose of this meeting was to bring public pressure on the Government in favour of the North, and the pith of Bright's speech was to contrast the democratic instincts of working men with the aristocratic inclinations of the Government[999]. Reviewing "aristocratic" attitude toward the Civil War, Bright said:

"Privilege thinks it has a great interest in this contest, and every morning, with blatant voice, it comes into your streets and curses the American Republic. Privilege has beheld an afflicting spectacle for many years past. It has beheld thirty millions of men, happy and prosperous, without emperor, without king, without the surroundings of a court, without nobles, except such as are made by eminence in intellect and virtue, without State bishops and State priests.

"'Sole venders of the lore which works salvation,' without great armies and great navies, without great debt and without great taxes.

* * * * *

"You wish the freedom of your country. You wish it for yourselves.... Do not then give the hand of fellowship to the worst foes of freedom that the world has ever seen.... You will not do this. I have faith in you. Impartial history will tell that, when your statesmen were hostile or coldly neutral, when many of your rich men were corrupt, when your press—which ought to have instructed and defended—was mainly written to betray, the fate of a Continent and of its vast population being in peril, you clung to freedom with an unfailing trust that God in his infinite mercy will yet make it the heritage of all His children[1000]."

The public meeting of March 26 was the most notable one in support of the North held throughout the whole course of the war, and it was also the most notable one as indicating the rising tide of popular demand for more democratic institutions. That it irritated the Government and gave a handle to Southern sympathizers in the parliamentary debate of March 27 is unquestioned. In addition, if that debate was intended to secure from the Government an intimation of future policy against Southern shipbuilding it was conducted on wrong lines for immediate effect—though friends of the North may have thought the method used was wise for future effect. This method was vigorous attack. Forster, leading in the debate[1001], called on Ministers to explain the "flagrant" violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act, and to offer some pledge for the future; he asserted that the Government should have been active on its own initiative in seeking evidence instead of waiting to be urged to enforce the law, and he even hinted at a certain degree of complicity in the escape of the Alabama. The Solicitor-General answered in a legal defence of the Government, complained of the offence of America in arousing its citizens against Great Britain upon unjustifiable grounds, but did not make so vigorous a reply as might, perhaps, have been expected. Still he stood firmly on the ground that the Government could not act without evidence to convict—in itself a statement that might well preclude interference with the Rams. Bright accused the Government of a "cold and unfriendly neutrality," and referred at length to the public meeting of the previous evening:

"If you had last night looked in the faces of three thousand of the most intelligent of the artisan classes in London, as I did, and heard their cheers, and seen their sympathy for that country for which you appear to care so little, you would imagine that the more forbearing, the more generous, and the more just the conduct of the Government to the United States, the more it would recommend itself to the magnanimous feelings of the people of this country."

This assumption of direct opposition between Parliament and the people was not likely to win or to convince men, whether pro-Southern or not, who were opponents of the speaker's long-avowed advocacy of more democratic institutions in England. It is no wonder then that Laird, who had been castigated in the speeches of the evening, rising in defence of the conduct of his firm, should seek applause by declaring, "I would rather be handed down to posterity as the builder of a dozen Alabamas than as a man who applies himself deliberately to set class against class, and to cry up the institutions of another country which, when they come to be tested, are of no value whatever, and which reduce the very name of liberty to an utter absurdity." This utterance was greeted with great cheering—shouted not so much in approval of the Alabama as in approval of the speaker's defiance of Bright.



In short, the friends of the North, if they sought some immediate pledge by the Government, had gone the wrong way about to secure it. Vigour in attack was no way to secure a favourable response from Palmerston. Always a fighting politician in public it was inevitable that he should now fight back. Far from making the statement recommended to him by Russell, he concluded the debate by reasserting the correctness of governmental procedure in the case of the Alabama, and himself with vigour accused Forster and Bright of speaking in such a way as to increase rather than allay American irritation. Yet a careful reading of the speeches of both the Solicitor-General and of Palmerston, shows that while vindicating the Government's conduct in the past, they were avoiding any pledge of whatever nature, for the future.

Adams was clearly disappointed and thought that the result of the debate was "rather to undo in the popular mind the effect of Lord Russell's speech than to confirm it[1002]." He and his English advisers were very uneasy, not knowing whether to trust to Russell's intimations of more active governmental efforts, or to accept the conclusion that his advice had been rejected by Palmerston[1003]. Possibly if less anxious and alarmed they would have read more clearly between the lines of parliamentary utterances and have understood that their failure to hurry the Government into public announcement of a new policy was no proof that old policy would be continued. Disappointed at the result in Parliament, they forgot that the real pressure on Government was coming from an American declaration of an intention to issue privateers unless something were done to satisfy that country. Certainly Russell was unmoved by the debate for on April 3 he wrote to Palmerston:

"The conduct of the gentlemen who have contracted for the ironclads at Birkenhead is so very suspicious that I have thought it necessary to direct that they should be detained. The Attorney-General has been consulted and concurs in the measure, as one of policy, though not of strict law.

"We shall thus test the law, and if we have to pay damages we have satisfied the opinion which prevails here as well as in America that this kind of neutral hostility should not be allowed to go on without some attempt to stop it[1004]."

Two days later, on April 5, the Alexandra, a vessel being equipped to join the Alabama as a commerce destroyer, was seized on the ground that she was about to violate the Enlistment Act and a new policy, at least to make a test case in law, was thereby made public. In fact, on March 30, but three days after the debate of March 27, the case of the Alexandra had been taken up by Russell, referred to the law officers on March 31, and approved by them for seizure on April 4[1005]. Public meetings were quickly organized in support of the Government's action, as that in Manchester on April 6, when six thousand people applauded the seizure of the Alexandra, demanded vigorous prosecution of the Lairds and others, and urged governmental activity to prevent any further ship-building for the South[1006].

On April 7, Russell wrote to Lyons:

"The orders given to watch, and stop when evidence can be procured, vessels apparently intended for the Confederate service will, it is to be hoped, allay the strong feelings which have been raised in Northern America by the escape from justice of the Oreto and Alabama[1007]."

It thus appears that orders had been issued to stop, on evidence to be sure, but on evidence of the vessels being "apparently intended" for the South. This was far from being the same thing as the previous assertion that conclusive evidence was required. What, then, was the basic consideration in Russell's mind leading to such a face-about on declared policy? Chagrin at the very evident failure of existing neutrality law to operate, recognition that there was just cause for the rising ill-will of the North, no doubt influenced him, but more powerful than these elements was the anxiety as to the real purpose and intent in application of the American "privateering" Bill. How did Russell, and Lyons, interpret that Bill and what complications did they foresee and fear?

As previously stated in this chapter, the privateering Bill had been introduced as an "administration measure" and for that reason passed without serious debate. In the Cabinet it was opposed by Welles, Secretary of the Navy, until he was overborne by the feeling that "something must be done" because vessels were building in England intended to destroy the blockade. The Rams under construction were clearly understood to have that purpose. If privateers were to offset the action of the Rams there must be some definite plan for their use. Seward and Adams repeatedly complained of British inaction yet in the same breath asserted that the privateers were intended to chase and destroy Alabamas—a plan so foolish, so it seemed to British diplomats, as to be impossible of acceptance as the full purpose of Seward. How, in short, could privateers make good an injury to blockade about to be done by the Rams? If added to the blockading squadrons on station off the Southern ports they would but become so much more fodder for the dreaded Rams. If sent to sea in pursuit of Alabamas the chances were that they would be the vanquished rather than the victors in battle. There was no Southern mercantile marine for them to attack and privateering against "enemy's commerce" was thus out of the question since there was no such commerce.

There remained but one reasonable supposition as to the intended use of privateers. If the Rams compelled the relaxation of the close blockade the only recourse of the North would be to establish a "cruising squadron" blockade remote from the shores of the enemy. If conducted by government war-ships such a blockade was not in contravention to British interpretation of international law[1008]. But the Northern navy, conducting a cruising squadron blockade was far too small to interfere seriously with neutral vessels bringing supplies to the Confederacy or carrying cotton from Southern ports. A "flood of privateers," scouring the ocean from pole to pole might, conceivably, still render effective that closing in of the South which was so important a weapon in the Northern war programme.

This was Russell's interpretation of the American plan and he saw in it a very great danger to British commerce and an inevitable ultimate clash leading to war. Such, no doubt, it was Seward's desire should be Russell's reaction, though never specifically explaining the exact purpose of the privateers. Moreover, nine-tenths of the actual blockade-running still going on was by British ships, and this being so it was to be presumed that "privateers" searching for possible blockade runners would commit all sorts of indignities and interferences with British merchant ships whether on a blockade-running trip or engaged in ordinary trade between non-belligerent ports.

Immediately on learning from Lyons details of the privateering bill, Russell had instructed the British Minister at Washington to raise objections though not formally making official protest, and had asked for explanation of the exact nature of the proposed activities of such vessels. Also he had prepared instructions to be issued by the Admiralty to British naval commanders as to their duty of preventing unwarranted interference with legitimate British commerce by privateers[1009]. The alteration of governmental policy as indicated in the arrest of the Alexandra, it might be hoped, would at least cause a suspension of the American plan, but assurances were strongly desired. Presumably Russell knew that Adams as a result of their conversations, had recommended such suspension, but at Washington, Lyons, as yet uninformed of the Alexandra action, was still much alarmed. On April 13 he reported that Seward had read to him a despatch to Adams, relative to the ships building in England, indicating that this was "a last effort to avert the evils which the present state of things had made imminent[1010]." Lyons had argued with Seward the inadvisability of sending such a despatch, since it was now known that Russell had "spoken in a satisfactory manner" about Confederate vessels, but Seward was insistent. Lyons believed there was real cause for anxiety, writing:

"A good deal of allowance must be made for the evident design of the Government and indeed of the people to intimidate England, but still there can be little doubt that the exasperation has reached such a point as to constitute a serious danger. It is fully shared by many important members of the Cabinet—nor are the men in high office exempt from the overweening idea of the naval power of the United States, which reconciles the people to the notion of a war with England. Mr. Seward for a certain time fanned the flame in order to recover his lost popularity. He is now, I believe, seriously anxious to avoid going farther. But if strong measures against England were taken up as a Party cry by the Republicans, Mr. Seward would oppose very feeble resistance to them. If no military success be obtained within a short time, it may become a Party necessity to resort to some means of producing an excitement in the country sufficient to enable the Government to enforce the Conscription Act, and to exercise the extra-legal powers conferred by the late Congress, To produce such an excitement the more ardent of the party would not hesitate to go, to the verge of a war with England. Nay there are not a few who already declare that if the South must be lost, the best mode to conceal the discomfiture of the party and of the nation, would be to go to war with England and attribute the loss of the South to English interference[1011]."

On the same day Lyons wrote, privately:

"I would rather the quarrel came, if come it must, upon some better ground for us than this question of the ships fitted out for the Confederates. The great point to be gained in my opinion, would be to prevent the ships sailing, without leading the people here to think that they had gained their point by threats[1012]."

So great was Lyons' alarm that the next day, April 14, he cipher-telegraphed Monck in Canada that trouble was brewing[1013], but soon his fears were somewhat allayed. On the seventeenth he could report that Seward's "strong" despatch to Adams was not intended for communication to Russell[1014], and on the twenty-fourth when presenting, under instructions, Russell's protest against the privateering plan he was pleased, if not surprised, to find that the "latest advices" from England and the news of the seizure of the Alexandra, had caused Seward to become very conciliatory. Lyons was assured that the plan "was for the present at rest[1015]." Apparently Seward now felt more security than did Lyons as to future British action for three days later the British Minister wrote to Vice-Admiral Milne that an American issue of letters of marque would surely come if England did not stop Southern ship-building, and he wrote in such a way as to indicate his own opinion that effective steps must be taken to prevent their escape[1016].

The whole tone and matter of Lyons' despatches to Russell show that he regarded the crisis of relations in regard to Southern ship-building in British yards as occurring in March-April, 1863. Seward became unusually friendly, even embarrassingly so, for in August he virtually forced Lyons to go on tour with him through the State of New York, thus making public demonstration of the good relations of the two Governments. This sweet harmony and mutual confidence is wholly contrary to the usual historical treatment of the Laird Rams incident, which neglects the threat of the privateering bill, regards American protests as steadily increasing in vigour, and concludes with the "threat of war" note by Adams to Russell just previous to the seizure of the Rams, in September. Previously, however, American historians have been able to use only American sources and have been at a loss to understand the privateering plan, since Seward never went beyond a vague generalization of its object in official utterances. It is the British reaction to that plan which reveals the real "threat" made and the actual crisis of the incident.

It follows therefore that the later story of the Rams requires less extended treatment than is customarily given to it. The correct understanding of this later story is the recognition that Great Britain had in April given, a pledge and performed an act which satisfied Seward and Adams that the Rams would not be permitted to escape. It was their duty nevertheless to be on guard against a British relaxation of the promise made, and the delay, up to the very last moment, in seizing the Rams, caused American anxiety and ultimately created a doubt of the sincerity of British actions.

Public opinion in England was steadily increasing against Southern ship-building. On June 9, a memorial was sent to the Foreign Office by a group of ship-owners in Liverpool, suggesting an alteration in the Foreign Enlistment Act if this were needed to prevent the issue of Southern ships, and pointing out that the "present policy" of the Government would entail a serious danger to British commerce in the future if, when England herself became a belligerent, neutral ports could be used by the enemy to build commerce destroyers[1017]. The memorial concluded that in any case it was a disgrace that British law should be so publicly infringed. To this, Hammond, under-secretary, gave the old answer that the law was adequate "provided proof can be obtained of any act done with the intent to violate it[1018]." Evidently ship-owners, as distinguished from ship-builders, were now acutely alarmed. Meanwhile attention was fixed on the trial of the Alexandra, and on June 22, a decision was rendered against the Government, but was promptly appealed.

This decision made both Northern and Southern agents anxious and the latter took steps further to becloud the status of the Rams. Rumours were spread that the vessels were in fact intended for France, and when this was disproved that they were being built for the Viceroy of Egypt. This also proved to be untrue. Finally it was declared that the real owners were certain French merchants whose purpose in contracting for such clearly warlike vessels was left in mystery, but with the intimation that Egypt was to be the ultimate purchaser. Captain Bullock had indeed made such a contract of sale to French merchants but with the proviso of resale to him, after delivery. On his part, Russell was seeking proof fully adequate to seizure, but this was difficult to obtain and such as was submitted was regarded by the law officers as inadequate. They reported that there was "no evidence capable of being presented to a court of justice." He informed Adams of this legal opinion at the moment when the latter, knowing the Rams to be nearing completion, and fearing that Russell was weakening in his earlier determination, began that series of diplomatic protests which very nearly approached a threat of war.

At Washington also anxiety was again aroused by the court's decision in the Alexandra case, and shortly after the great Northern victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, Seward wrote a despatch to Adams, July 11, which has been interpreted as a definite threat of war. In substance Seward wrote that he still felt confident the Government of Great Britain would find a way to nullify the Alexandra decision, but renewed, in case this did not prove true, his assertion of Northern intention to issue letters of marque, adding a phrase about the right to "pursue" Southern vessels even into neutral ports[1019]. But there are two considerations in respect to this despatch that largely negative the belligerent intent attributed to it: Seward did not read or communicate it to Lyons, as was his wont when anything serious was in mind; and he did not instruct Adams to communicate it to Russell. The latter never heard of it until the publication, in 1864, of the United States diplomatic correspondence[1020].

In London, on July 11, Adams began to present to Russell evidence secured by Consul Dudley at Liverpool, relative to the Rams and to urge their immediate seizure. Adams here but performed his duty and was in fact acting in accordance with Russell's own request[1021]. On July 16 he reported to Seward that the Roebuck motion for recognition of the South[1022] had died ingloriously, but expressed a renewal of anxiety because of the slowness of the government; if the Rams were to escape, Adams wrote to Russell, on July 11, Britain would herself become a participant in the war[1023]. Further affidavits were sent to Russell on August 14, and on September 3, having heard from Russell that the Government was legally advised "they cannot interfere in any way with these vessels," Adams sent still more affidavits and expressed his regret that his previous notes had not sufficiently emphasized the grave nature of the crisis pending between the United States and Great Britain. To this Russell replied that the matter was "under serious and anxious consideration," to which, on September 5, in a long communication, Adams wrote that if the Rams escaped: "It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war."

The phrase was carefully chosen to permit a denial of a threat of war on the explanation that Great Britain would herself be participating in the war. There is no question that at the moment Adams thought Russell's "change of policy" of April was now thrown overboard, but the fact was that on September 1, Russell had already given directions to take steps for the detention of the Rams and that on September 3, positive instructions were given to that effect[1024], though not carried out until some days later. There had been no alteration in the "new policy" of April; the whole point of the delay was governmental anxiety to secure evidence sufficient to convict and thus to avoid attack for acting in contradiction to those principles which had been declared to be the compelling principles of non-interference in the case of the Alabama. But so perfect were the arrangements of Captain Bullock that complete evidence was not procurable and Russell was forced, finally, to act without it[1025].

It would appear from a letter written by Russell to Palmerston, on September 3, the day on which he gave the order to stop, that no Cabinet approval for this step had yet formally been given, since Russell notified Palmerston of his purpose and asked the latter, if he disapproved, to call a Cabinet at once[1026]. The plan to stop the Rams must have long been understood for Palmerston called no Cabinet. Moreover it is to be presumed that he was preparing the public for the seizure, for on this same September 3, the Times, in a long editorial, argued that the law as it stood (or was interpreted), was not in harmony with true neutrality, and pointed out future dangers to British commerce, as had the Liverpool ship-owners. Delane of the Times was at this period especially close to Palmerston, and it is at least inferential that the editorial was an advance notice of governmental intention to apply a policy known in intimate circles to have been for some time matured. Four days later, while governmental action was still unknown to the public another editorial advocated seizure of the Rams[1027]. Russell had acted under the fear that one of the Rams might slip away as had the Alabama; he had sent orders to stop and investigate, but he delayed final seizure in the hope that better evidence might yet be secured, conducting a rapid exchange of letters with Lairds (the builders), seeking to get admissions from them. It was only on September 9 that Lairds was officially ordered not to send the vessels on a "trial trip," and it was not until September 16 that public announcement was made of the Government's action[1028].

Russell has been regarded as careless and thoughtless in that it was not until September 8 he relieved Adams' mind by assuring him the Rams would be seized, even though three days before, on September 5, this information had been sent to Washington. The explanation is Russell's eager search for evidence to convict, and his correspondence with Lairds which did not come to a head until the eighth, when the builders refused to give information. To the builders Russell was writing as if a governmental decision had not yet been reached. He could take no chance of a "leak" through the American Minister. Once informed, Adams was well satisfied though his immediate reaction was to criticize, not Russell, but the general "timidity and vacillation" of the law officers of the Crown[1029]. Two days later, having learned from Russell himself just what was taking place, Adams described the "firm stand" taken by the Foreign Secretary, noted the general approval by the public press and expressed the opinion that there was now a better prospect of being able to preserve friendly relations with England than at any time since his arrival in London[1030]. Across the water British officials were delighted with the seizure of the Rams. Monck in Canada expressed his approval[1031]. Lyons reported a "great improvement" in the feeling toward England and that Seward especially was highly pleased with Russell's expressions, conveyed privately, of esteem for Seward together with the hope that he would remain in office[1032].

The actual governmental seizure of the Rams did not occur until mid-October, though they had been placed under official surveillance on September 9. Both sides were jockeying for position in the expected legal battle when the case should be taken up by the courts[1033]. At first Russell even thought of making official protest to Mason in London and a draft of such protest was prepared, approved by the Law Officers and subsequently revised by Palmerston, but finally was not sent[1034]. Possibly it was thought that such a communication to Mason approached too nearly a recognition of him in his desired official capacity, for in December the protest ultimately directed to be made through Consul-General Crawford at Havana, instructed him to go to Richmond and after stating very plainly that he was in no way recognizing the Confederacy to present the following:

"It appears from various correspondence the authenticity of which cannot be doubted, that the Confederate Government having no good ports free from the blockade of the Federals have conceived the design of using the ports of the United Kingdom for the purpose of constructing ships of war to be equipped and armed to serve as cruisers against the commerce of the United States of America, a State with which Her Majesty is at peace...."

"These acts are inconsistent with the respect and comity which ought to be shewn by a belligerent towards a Neutral Power.

"Her Majesty has declared her Neutrality and means strictly to observe it.

"You will therefore call upon Mr. Benjamin to induce his Government to forbear from all acts tending to affect injuriously Her Majesty's position[1035]."

To carry out this instruction there was required permission for Crawford to pass through the blockade but Seward refused this when Lyons made the request[1036].

Not everyone in Britain, however, approved the Government's course in seizing the Rams. Legal opinion especially was very generally against the act. Adams now pressed either for an alteration of the British law or for a convention with America establishing mutual similar interpretation of neutral duty. Russell replied that "until the trials of the Alexandra and the steam rams had taken place, we could hardly be said to know what our law was, and therefore not tell whether it required alteration. I said, however, that he might assure Mr. Seward that the wish and intention of Government were to make our neutrality an honest and bona-fide one[1037]." But save from extreme and avowed Southern sympathizers criticism of the Government was directed less to the stoppage of the Rams than to attacks of a political character, attempting to depict the weakness of the Foreign Minister and his humiliation of Great Britain in having "yielded to American threats." Thus, February II, 1864, after the reassembling of Parliament, a party attack was made on Russell and the Government by Derby in the House of Lords. Derby approved the stopping of the Rams but sought to prove that the Government had dishonoured England by failing to act of its own volition until threatened by America. He cited Seward's despatch of July II with much unction, that despatch now having appeared in the printed American diplomatic correspondence with no indication that it was not an instruction at once communicated to Russell. The attack fell flat for Russell simply replied that Adams had never presented such an instruction. This forced Derby to seek other ground and on February 15 he returned to the matter, now seeking to show by the dates of various documents that "at the last moment" Adams made a threat of war and Russell had yielded. Again Russell's reply was brief and to the effect that orders to stop the Rams had been given before the communications from Adams were received. Finally, on February 23, a motion in the Commons called for all correspondence with Adams and with Lairds, The Government consented to the first but refused that with Lairds and was supported by a vote of 187 to 153.[1038]

Beginning with an incautious personal and petty criticism of Russell the Tories had been driven to an attempt to pass what was virtually a vote of censure on the Ministry yet they were as loud as was the Government in praise of Adams and in approval of the seizure of the Rams. Naturally their cause was weakened, and the Ministry, referring to expressions made and intentions indicated as far back as March, 1863, thus hinting without directly so stating that the real decision had then been made, was easily the victor in the vote[1038]. Derby had committed an error as a party leader and the fault rankled for again in April, 1864, he attempted to draw Russell into still further discussion on dates of documents. Russell's reply ignored that point altogether[1039]. It did not suit his purpose to declare, flatly, the fact that in April assurances had been given both to Adams and through Lyons to Seward, that measures would be taken to prevent the departure of Southern vessels from British ports. To have made this disclosure would have required an explanation why such assurance had been given and this would have revealed the effect on both Russell and Lyons of the Northern plan to create a cruising squadron blockade by privateers. There was the real threat. The later delays and seeming uncertainties of British action made Adams anxious but there is no evidence that Russell ever changed his purpose. He sought stronger evidence before acting and he hoped for stronger support from legal advisers, but he kept an eye on the Rams and when they had reached the stage where there was danger of escape, he seized them even though the desired evidence was still lacking[1040]. Seward's "privateering bill" plan possibly entered upon in a moment of desperation and with no clear statement from him of its exact application had, as the anxiety of British diplomats became pronounced, been used with skill to permit, if not to state, the interpretation they placed upon it, and the result had been the cessation of that inadequate neutrality of which America complained.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 966: In other respects, also, this question of belligerent ship-building and equipping in neutral ports was, in practice, vaguely defined. As late as 1843 in the then existing Texan war of independence against Mexico, the British Foreign Secretary, Aberdeen, had been all at sea. Mexico made a contract for two ships of war with the English firm of Lizardi & Company. The crews were to be recruited in England, the ships were to be commanded by British naval officers on leave, and the guns were to be purchased from firms customarily supplying the British Navy. Aberdeen advised the Admiralty to give the necessary authority to purchase guns. When Texas protested he at first seemed to think strict neutrality was secured if the same privileges were offered that country. Later he prohibited naval officers to go in command. One Mexican vessel, the Guadaloupe, left England with full equipment as originally planned; the other, the Montezuma, was forced to strip her equipment. But both vessels sailed under British naval officers for these were permitted to resign their commissions. They were later reinstated. In all this there was in part a temporary British policy to aid Mexico, but it is also clear that British governmental opinion was much in confusion as to neutral duty in the case of such ships. See my book, British Interests and Activities in Texas, Ch. IV.]

[Footnote 967: Bullock, Secret Service under the Confederacy.]

[Footnote 968: Bernard, Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War, p. 338-9.]

[Footnote 969: Parliamentary Papers, 1863, Commons, LXXII. "Correspondence respecting the 'Alabama.'" Also ibid., "Correspondence between Commissioner of Customs and Custom House Authorities at Liverpool relating to the 'Alabama.'" The last-minute delay was due to the illness of a Crown adviser.]

[Footnote 970: State Department, Eng., Vol. 81, No. 264. Adams to Seward, Nov. 21, 1862.]

[Footnote 971: Selborne, in his Memorials: Family and Personal, II, p. 430, declared that in frequent official communication with all members of the Cabinet at the time, "I never heard a word fall from any one of them expressive of anything but regret that the orders for the detention of the Alabama were sent too late." Of quite different opinion is Brooks Adams, in his "The Seizure of the Laird Rams" (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., Vol. XLV, pp. 243-333). In 1865 his father, the American Minister, made a diary entry that he had been shown what purported to be a copy of a note from one V. Buckley to Caleb Huse, Southern agent in England, warning him of danger to his "protege." "This Victor Buckley is a young clerk in the Foreign Office." (Ibid., p. 260, note.)]

[Footnote 972: Fox, Confidential Correspondence, I, p. 165. Fox to Dupont, Nov. 7, 1862.]

[Footnote 973: It is interesting that the opinion of many Continental writers on international law was immediately expressed in favour of the American and against the British contention. This was especially true of German opinion. (Lutz, Notes.)]

[Footnote 974: Lyons Papers. To Lyons, Dec. 20, 1862.]

[Footnote 975: I am aware that Seward's use of the "Privateering Bill," now to be recounted is largely a new interpretation of the play of diplomacy in regard to the question of Southern ship-building in England. Its significance became evident only when British correspondence was available; but that correspondence and a careful comparison of dates permits, and, as I think, requires a revised statement of the incident of the Laird Rams.]

[Footnote 976: Bullock dreamed also of ascending rivers and laying Northern cities under contribution. According to a statement made in 1898 by Captain Page, assigned to command the rams, no instructions as to their use had been given him by the Confederate Government, but his plans were solely to break the blockade with no thought of attacking Northern cities. (Rhodes, IV. 385, note.)]

[Footnote 977: U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862, p. 134.]

[Footnote 978: Wallbridge, Addresses and Resolutions. Pamphlet. New York, n.d. He began his agitation in 1856, and now received much popular applause. His pamphlet quotes in support many newspapers from June, 1862, to September, 1863. Wallbridge apparently thought himself better qualified than Welles to be Secretary of the Navy. Welles regarded his agitation as instigated by Seward to get Welles out of the Cabinet. Welles professes that the "Privateering Bill" slipped through Congress unknown to him and "surreptitiously" (Diary, I, 245-50), a statement difficult to accept in view of the Senate debates upon it.]

[Footnote 979: Cong. Globe, 37th Congress, 2nd Session, Pt. IV, pp. 3271, 3325 and 3336.]

[Footnote 980: Ibid., 3rd Session, Pt. I, pp. 220, 393, and Part II, pp. 960, 1028, 1489.]

[Footnote 981: Brooks Adams, "The Seizure of the Laird Rams." (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, Vol. XLV, pp. 265-6.)]

[Footnote 982: U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1863, Pt. I, p. 116, Feb. 19, 1863.]

[Footnote 983: F.O., Am., Vol. 878, No. 180. Lyons to Russell.]

[Footnote 984: Ibid., Vol. 879, No. 227. Lyons to Russell, March 10, 1863.]

[Footnote 985: Ibid., No. 235. Lyons to Russell, March 13, 1863. Privately Lyons also emphasized American anger. (Russell Papers. To Russell, March 24, 1863.)]

[Footnote 986: U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1863, Pt. I, p. 141. Seward to Adams, March 9, 1863.]

[Footnote 987: F.O., Am., Vol. 869, No. 147. Russell to Lyons, March 24, 1863.]

[Footnote 988: Ibid., Vol. 869, No. 155. Russell to Lyons, March 27, 1863.]

[Footnote 989: Welles, Diary, I, pp. 245-50.]

[Footnote 990: Bigelow, Retrospections, I, 634, Slidell to Benjamin, March 4, 1863.]

[Footnote 991: For example of American contemporary belief and later "historical tradition," see Balch, The Alabama Arbitration, pp. 24-38. Also for a curious story that a large part of the price paid for Alaska was in reality a repayment of expenses incurred by Russia in sending her fleet to America, see Letters of Franklin K. Lane, p. 260. The facts as stated above are given by F.A. Golder, The Russian Fleet and the Civil War (Am. Hist. Rev., July, 1915, pp. 801 seq.). The plan was to have the fleet attack enemy commerce. The idea of aid to the North was "born on American soil," and Russian officers naturally did nothing to contradict its spread. In one case, however, a Russian commander was ready to help the North. Rear-Admiral Papov with six vessels in the harbour of San Francisco was appealed to by excited citizens on rumours of the approach of the Alabama and gave orders to protect the city. He acted without instructions and was later reproved for the order by his superiors at home.]

[Footnote 992: The Liberator, March 6, 1863.]

[Footnote 993: American opinion knew little of this change. An interesting, if somewhat irrational and irregular plan to thwart Southern ship-building operations, had been taken up by the United States Navy Department. This was to buy the Rams outright by the offer of such a price as, it was thought, would be so tempting to the Lairds as to make refusal unlikely. Two men, Forbes and Aspinwall, were sent to England with funds and much embarrassed Adams to whom they discreetly refrained from stating details, but yet permitted him to guess their object. The plan of buying ran wholly counter to Adams' diplomatic protests on England's duty in international law and the agents themselves soon saw the folly of it. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, wrote to Dupont, March 26, 1863: "The Confederate ironclads in England, I think, will be taken care of." (Correspondence, I, 196.) Thurlow Weed wrote to Bigelow, April 16, of the purpose of the visit of Forbes and Aspinwall. (Bigelow, Retrospections, I, 632.) Forbes reported as early as April 18 virtually against going on with the plan. "We must keep cool here, and prepare the way; we have put new fire into Mr. Dudley by furnishing fuel, and he is hard at it getting evidence.... My opinion to-day is that we can and shall stop by legal process and by the British Government the sailing of ironclads and other war-ships." (Forbes MS. To Fox.) That this was wholly a Navy Department plan and was disliked by State Department representatives is shown by Dudley's complaints (Forbes MS.). The whole incident has been adequately discussed by C.F. Adams, though without reference to the preceding citations, in his Studies Military and Diplomatic, Ch. IX. "An Historical Residuum," in effect a refutation of an article by Chittenden written in 1890, in which bad memory and misunderstanding played sad havoc with historical truth.]

[Footnote 994: U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1863, Pt. I, p. 157. To Seward, March 24, 1863.]

[Footnote 995: Ibid., p. 160. To Seward, March 27, 1863.]

[Footnote 996: State Department, Eng., Vol. 82, No. 356. Adams to Seward, March 27, 1863.]

[Footnote 997: Palmerston MS. Russell to Palmerston, March 27, 1863.]

[Footnote 998: Rhodes, IV, p. 369, notes, April 4, 1863. Bright was made very anxious as to Government intentions by this debate.]

[Footnote 999: This topic will be treated at length in Chapter XVIII. It is here cited merely in relation to its effect on the Government at the moment.]

[Footnote 1000: Trevelyan, John Bright, 307-8.]

[Footnote 1001: Hansard, 3rd Series, CLXX, 33-71, for entire debate.]

[Footnote 1002: U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1863, Pt. I, p. 164. Adams to Seward, March 28, 1863.]

[Footnote 1003: Rhodes, IV, 369-72.]

[Footnote 1004: Palmerston MS.]

[Footnote 1005: Bernard, p. 353. The case was heard in June, and the seizure held unwarranted. Appealed by the Government this decision was upheld by the Court of Exchequer in November. It was again appealed, and the Government defeated in the House of Lords in April, 1864.]

[Footnote 1006: Manchester Examiner and Times, April 7, 1863. Goldwin Smith was one of the principal speakers. Letters were read from Bright, Forster, R.A. Taylor, and others.]

[Footnote 1007: F.O., Am., Vol. 869, No. 183.]

[Footnote 1008: "Historicus," in articles in the Times, was at this very moment, from December, 1862, on, discussing international law problems, and in one such article specifically defended the belligerent right to conduct a cruising squadron blockade. See Historicus on International Law, pp. 99-118. He stated the established principle to be that search and seizure could be used "not only" for "vessels actually intercepted in the attempt to enter the blockaded port, but those also which shall be elsewhere met with and shall be found to have been destined to such port, with knowledge of the fact and notice of the blockade." (Ibid., p. 108.)]

[Footnote 1009: F.O., Am., Vol. 869, No. 158. Russell to Lyons, March 28, 1863.]

[Footnote 1010: F.O., Am., Vol. 881, No. 309. To Russell.]

[Footnote 1011: Ibid., No. 310. To Russell, April 13, 1863.]

[Footnote 1012: Russell Papers. To Russell, April 13, 1863.]

[Footnote 1013: F.O., Am., Vol. 882, No. 324. Copy enclosed in Lyons to Russell, April 17, 1863.]

[Footnote 1014: Russell Papers. To Russell.]

[Footnote 1015: F.O., Am., Vol. 882, No. 341. Lyons to Russell, April 24, 1863.]

[Footnote 1016: Lyons Papers, April 27, 1863. Lyons wrote: "The stories in the newspapers about an ultimatum having been sent to England are untrue. But it is true that it had been determined (or very nearly determined) to issue letters of marque, if the answers to the despatches sent were not satisfactory. It is very easy to see that if U.S. privateers were allowed to capture British merchant vessels on charges of breach of blockade or carrying contraband of war, the vexations would have soon become intolerable to our commerce, and a quarrel must have ensued."]

[Footnote 1017: Parliamentary Papers, 1863, Commons, LXXII. "Memorial from Shipowners of Liverpool on Foreign Enlistment Act."]

[Footnote 1018: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1019: U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1863, Pt. I, pp. 308-10.]

[Footnote 1020: The despatch taken in its entirety save for a few vigorous sentences quite typical of Seward's phrase-making, is not at all warlike. Bancroft, II, 385 seq., makes Seward increasingly anxious from March to September, and concludes with a truly warlike despatch to Adams, September 5. This last was the result of Adams' misgivings reported in mid-August, and it is not until these were received (in my interpretation) that Seward really began to fear the "pledge" made in April would not be carried out. Adams himself, in 1864, read to Russell a communication from Seward denying that his July 11 despatch was intended as a threat or as in any sense unfriendly to Great Britain. (F.O., Am., Vol. 939, No. 159. Russell to Lyons, April 3, 1864.)]

[Footnote 1021: Parliamentary Papers, 1864, Commons, LXII. "Correspondence respecting iron-clad vessels building at Birkenhead."]

[Footnote 1022: See next chapter.]

[Footnote 1023: State Department, Eng., Vol. 83, No. 452, and No. 453 with enclosure. Adams to Seward, July 16, 1863.]

[Footnote 1024: Rhodes, IV, 381.]

[Footnote 1025: Many of these details were unknown at the time so that on the face of the documents then available, and for long afterwards, there appeared ground for believing that Adams' final protests of September 3 and 5 had forced Russell to yield. Dudley, as late as 1893, thought that "at the crisis" in September, Palmerston, in the absence of Russell, had given the orders to stop the rams. (In Penn. Magazine of History, Vol. 17, pp. 34-54. "Diplomatic Relations with England during the Late War.")]

[Footnote 1026: Rhodes, IV, p. 382.]

[Footnote 1027: The Times, Sept. 7, 1863.]

[Footnote 1028: Ibid., Editorial, Sept. 16, 1863. The Governmental correspondence with Lairds was demanded by a motion in Parliament, Feb. 23, 1864, but the Government was supported in refusing it. A printed copy of this correspondence, issued privately, was placed in Adams' hands by persons unnamed and sent to Seward on March 29, 1864. Seward thereupon had this printed in the Diplomatic Correspondence, 1864-5, Pt. I, No. 633.]

[Footnote 1029: State Department, Eng., Vol. 84, No. 492. Adams to Seward, Sept. 8, 1863.]

[Footnote 1030: U.S. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1863, Pt. I, p. 370. To Seward, Sept. 10, 1863. Adams, looking at the whole matter of the Rams and the alleged "threat of war" of Sept. 5, from the point of view of his own anxiety at the time, was naturally inclined to magnify the effects of his own efforts and to regard the crisis as occurring in September. His notes to Russell and his diary records were early the main basis of historical treatment. Rhodes, IV, 381-84, has disproved the accusation of Russell's yielding to a threat. Brooks Adams (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, Vol. XLV, p. 293, seq.) ignores Rhodes, harks back to the old argument and amplifies it with much new and interesting citation, but not to conviction. My interpretation is that the real crisis of Governmental decision to act came in April, and that events in September were but final applications of that decision.]

[Footnote 1031: Russell Papers. Monck to Stuart, Sept. 26, 1863. Copy in Stuart to Russell, Oct. 6, 1863.]

[Footnote 1032: Ibid., Lyons to Russell, Oct. 16, 1863.]

[Footnote 1033: Hammond wrote to Lyons, Oct. 17: "You will learn by the papers that we have at last seized the Iron Clads. Whether we shall be able to bring home to them legally that they were Confederate property is another matter. I think we can, but at all events no moral doubt can be entertained of the fact, and, therefore, we are under no anxiety whether as to the public or Parliamentary view of our proceeding. They would have played the devil with the American ships, for they are most formidable ships. I suppose the Yankees will sleep more comfortably in consequence." (Lyons Papers.) The Foreign Office thought that it had thwarted plans to seize violently the vessels and get them to sea. (F.O., Am., Vol. 930. Inglefield to Grey, Oct. 25, and Romaine to Hammond, Oct. 26, 1863.).]

[Footnote 1034: F.O., Am., Vol. 929. Marked "September, 1863." The draft summarized the activities of Confederate ship-building and threatened Southern agents in England with "the penalities of the law...."]

[Footnote 1035: F.O., Am., Vol. 932, No. 1. F.O. to Consul-General Crawford, Dec. 16, 1863. The South, on October 7, 1863, had already "expelled" the British consuls. Crawford was to protest against this also. (Ibid., No. 4.)]

[Footnote 1036: Bonham. British Consuls in the South, p. 254. (Columbia Univ. Studies, Vol. 43.)]

[Footnote 1037: Lyons Papers. Russell to Lyons, Dec. 5, 1863. Bullock, Secret Service, declares the British Government to have been neutral but with strong leaning toward the North.]

[Footnote 1038: Hansard, 3rd Ser., CLXXIII, pp. 430-41, 544-50, 955-1021. The Tory point of view is argued at length by Brooks Adams, The Seizure of the Laird Rams, pp. 312-324.]

[Footnote 1039: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXXIV, pp. 1862-1913. The Index, naturally vicious in comment on the question of the Rams, summed up its approval of Derby's contentions: "Europe and America alike will inevitably believe that it was the threat of Mr. Adams, and nothing else, which induced the Foreign Secretary to retract his letter of the 1st September, and they will draw the necessary conclusion that the way to extort concessions from England is by bluster and menace." (Feb. 18, 1864, p. 106.)]

[Footnote 1040: Lairds brought suit for damages, but the case never reached a decision, for the vessels were purchased by the Government. This has been regarded as acknowledgment by the Government that it had no case. In my view the failure to push the case to a conclusion was due to the desire not to commit Great Britain on legal questions, in view of the claim for damages certain to be set up by the United States on account of the depredations of the Alabama.]



CHAPTER XIV

ROEBUCK'S MOTION

In the mid-period during which the British Government was seeking to fulfil its promise of an altered policy as regards ship-building and while the public was unaware that such a promise had been given, certain extreme friends of the South thought the time had come for renewed pressure upon the Government, looking toward recognition of the Confederacy. The Alexandra had been seized in April, but the first trial, though appealed, had gone against the Government in June, and there was no knowledge that the Ministry was determined in its stand. From January to the end of March, 1863, the public demonstrations in approval of the emancipation proclamation had somewhat checked expressions of Southern sympathy, but by the month of June old friends had recovered their courage and a new champion of the South came forward in the person of Roebuck.

Meanwhile the activities of Southern agents and Southern friends had not ceased even if they had, for a time, adopted a less vigorous tone. For four months after the British refusal of Napoleon's overtures on mediation, in November, 1862, the friends of the South were against "acting now," but this did not imply that they thought the cause lost or in any sense hopeless. Publicists either neutral in attitude or even professedly sympathetic with the North could see no outcome of the Civil War save separation of North and South. Thus the historian Freeman in the preface to the first volume of his uncompleted History of Federal Government, published in 1863, carefully explained that his book did not have its origin in the struggle in America, and argued that the breaking up of the Union in no way proved any inherent weakness in a federal system, but took it for granted that American reunion was impossible. The novelist, Anthony Trollope, after a long tour of the North, beginning in September, 1861, published late in 1862 a two-volume work, North America, descriptive of a nation engaged in the business of war and wholly sympathetic with the Northern cause. Yet he, also, could see no hope of forcing the South back into the Union. "The North and South are virtually separated, and the day will come in which the West also will secede[1041]."

Such interpretations of conditions in America were not unusual; they were, rather, generally accepted. The Cabinet decision in November, 1862, was not regarded as final, though events were to prove it to be so for never again was there so near an approach to British intervention. Mason's friend, Spence, early began to think that true Southern policy was now to make an appeal to the Tories against the Government. In January, 1863, he was planning a new move:

"I have written to urge Mr. Gregory to be here in time for a thorough organization so as to push the matter this time to a vote. I think the Conservatives may be got to move as a body and if so the result of a vote seems to me very certain. I have seen Mr. Horsfall and Mr. Laird here and will put myself in communication with Mr. Disraeli as the time approaches for action for this seems to me now our best card[1042]."

That some such effort was being thought of is evidenced by the attitude of the Index which all through the months from November, 1862, to the middle of January, 1863, had continued to harp on the subject of mediation as if still believing that something yet might be done by the existing Ministry, but which then apparently gave up hope of the Palmerstonian administration:

"But what the Government means is evident enough. It does not mean to intervene or to interfere. It will not mediate, if it can help it; it will not recognize the Confederate States, unless there should occur some of those 'circumstances over which they have no control,' which leave weak men and weak ministers no choice. They will not, if they are not forced to it, quarrel with Mr. Seward, or with Mr. Bright. They will let Lancashire starve; they will let British merchantmen be plundered off Nassau and burnt off Cuba; they will submit to a blockade of Bermuda or of Liverpool; but they will do nothing which may tend to bring a supply of cotton from the South, or to cut off the supply of eggs and bacon from the North[1043]."

But this plan of 'turning to the Tories' received scant encouragement and was of no immediate promise, as soon appeared by the debate in Parliament on reassembling, February 5, 1863. Derby gave explicit approval of the Government's refusal to listen to Napoleon[1044]. By February, Russell, having recovered from the smart of defeat within the Cabinet, declared himself weary of the perpetual talk about mediation and wrote to Lyons, "... till both parties are heartily tired and sick of the business, I see no use in talking of good offices. When that time comes Mercier will probably have a hint; let him have all the honour and glory of being the first[1045]." For the time being Spence's idea was laid aside, Gregory writing in response to an inquiry from Mason:

"The House of Commons is opposed to taking any step at present, feeling rightly or wrongly that to do so would be useless to the South, and possibly embroil us with the North. Any motion on the subject will be received with disfavour, consequently the way in which it will be treated will only make the North more elated, and will irritate the South against us. If I saw the slightest chance of a motion being received with any favour I would not let it go into other hands, but I find the most influential men of all Parties opposed to it[1046]."

Of like opinion was Slidell who, writing of the situation in France, reported that he had been informed by his "friend at the Foreign Office" that "It is believed that every possible thing has been done here in your behalf—we must now await the action of England, and it is through that you must aim all your efforts in that direction[1047]."

With the failure, at least temporary, of Southern efforts to move the British Government or to stir Parliament, energies were now directed toward using financial methods of winning support for the Southern cause. The "Confederate Cotton Loan" was undertaken with the double object of providing funds for Southern agents in Europe and of creating an interested support of the South, which might, it was hoped, ultimately influence the British Government.

By 1863 it had become exceedingly difficult, owing to the blockade, for the Government at Richmond to transmit funds to its agents abroad. Bullock, especially, required large amounts in furtherance of his ship-building contracts and was embarrassed by the lack of business methods and the delays of the Government at home. The incompetence of the Confederacy in finance was a weakness that characterized all of its many operations whether at home or abroad[1048] and was made evident in England by the confusion in its efforts to establish credits there. At first the Confederate Government supplied its agents abroad with drafts upon the house of Fraser, Trenholm & Company, of Liverpool, a branch of the firm long established at Charleston, South Carolina, purchasing its bills of exchange with its own "home made" money. But as Confederate currency rapidly depreciated this method of transmitting funds became increasingly difficult and costly. The next step was to send to Spence, nominated by Mason as financial adviser in England, Confederate money bonds for sale on the British market, with authority to dispose of them as low as fifty cents on the dollar, but these found no takers[1049]. By September, 1862, Bullock's funds for ship-building were exhausted and some new method of supply was required. Temporary relief was found in adopting a suggestion from Lindsay whereby cotton was made the basis for an advance of L60,000, a form of cotton bond being devised which fixed the price of cotton at eightpence the pound. These bonds were not put on the market but were privately placed by Lindsay & Company with a few buyers for the entire sum, the transaction remaining secret[1050].

In the meantime this same recourse to cotton had occurred to the authorities at Richmond and a plan formulated by which cotton should be purchased by the Government, stored, and certificates issued to be sold abroad, the purchaser being assured of "all facilities of shipment." Spence was to be the authorized agent for the sale of these "cotton certificates," but before any reached him various special agents of the Confederacy had arrived in England by December, 1862, with such certificates in their possession and had disposed of some of them, calling them "cotton warrants." The difficulties which might arise from separate action in the market were at once perceived and following a conference with Mason all cotton obligations were turned to Fraser, Trenholm & Company. Spence now had in his hands the "money bonds" but no further attempt was made to dispose of these since the "cotton warrants" were considered a better means of raising funds.

It is no doubt true that since all of these efforts involved a governmental guarantee the various "certificates" or "warrants" partook of the nature of a government bond. Yet up to this point the Richmond authorities, after the first failure to sell "money bonds" abroad were not keen to attempt anything that could be stamped as a foreign "government loan." Their idea was rather that a certain part of the produce of the South was being set aside as the property of those who in England should extend credit to the South. The sole purpose of these earlier operations was to provide funds for Southern agents. By July, 1862, Bullock had exhausted his earlier credit of a million dollars. The L60,000 loan secured through Lindsay then tided over an emergency demand and this had been followed by a development on similar lines of the "cotton certificates" and "warrants" which by December, 1862, had secured, through Spence's agency, an additional million dollars or thereabouts. Mason was strongly recommending further expansion of this method and had the utmost confidence in Spence. Now, however, there was broached to the authorities in Richmond a proposal for the definite floating in Europe of a specified "cotton loan."

This proposal came through Slidell at Paris and was made by the well-established firm of Erlanger & Company. First approached by this company in September, 1862, Slidell consulted Mason but found the latter strongly committed to his own plans with Spence[1051]. But Slidell persisted and Mason gave way[1052]. Representatives of Erlanger proceeded to Richmond and proposed a loan of twenty-five million dollars; they were surprised to find the Confederate Government disinclined to the idea of a foreign loan, and the final agreement, cut to fifteen millions, was largely made because of the argument advanced that as a result powerful influences would thus be brought to the support of the South[1053]. The contract was signed at Richmond, January 28, 1863, and legalized by a secret act of Congress on the day following[1054]. But there was no Southern enthusiasm for the project. Benjamin wrote to Mason that the Confederacy disclaimed the "desire or intention on our part to effect a loan in Europe ... during the war we want only such very moderate sums as are required abroad for the purchase of warlike supplies and for vessels, and even that is not required because of our want of funds, but because of the difficulties of remittance"; as for the Erlanger contract the Confederacy "would have declined it altogether but for the political considerations indicated by Mr. Slidell[1055]...."

From Mason's view-point the prime need was to secure money; from Slidell's (at least so asserted) it was to place a loan with the purpose of establishing strong friends. It had been agreed to suspend the operations of Spence until the result of Erlanger's offer was learned, but pressure brought by Caleb Huse, purchasing agent of the Confederacy, caused a further sale of "cotton warrants[1056]." Spence, fearing he was about to be shelved, became vexed and made protest to Mason, while Slidell regarded Spence[1057] as a weak and meddlesome agent[1058]. But on February 14, 1863, Erlanger's agents returned to Paris and uncertainty was at an end. Spence went to Paris, saw Erlanger, and agreed to co-operate in floating the loan[1059]. Then followed a remarkable bond market operation, interesting, not so much as regards the financial returns to the South, for these were negligible, as in relation to the declared object of Slidell and the Richmond Government—namely, the "strong influences" that would accompany the successful flotation of a loan.

Delay in beginning operations was caused by the failure to receive promptly the authenticated copy of the Act of Congress authorizing the loan, which did not arrive until March 18. By this contract Erlanger & Company, sole managers of the loan, had guaranteed flotation of the entire $15,000,000 at not less than 77, the profit of the Company to be five per cent., plus the difference between 77 and the actual price received, but the first $300,000 taken was to be placed at once at the disposal of the Government. The bonds were put on the market March 19, in London, Liverpool, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, but practically all operations were confined to England. The bid for the loan was entitled "Seven per Cent. Cotton Loan of the Confederate States of America for 3 Millions Sterling at 90 per Cent." The bonds were to bear interest at seven per cent. and were to be exchangeable for cotton at the option of the holder at the price of sixpence "for each pound of cotton, at any time not later than six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the present belligerents." There were provisions for the gradual redemption of the bonds in gold for those who did not desire cotton. Subscribers were to pay 5 per cent. on application. 10 per cent. on allotment, 10 per cent. on each of the days, the first of May, June and July, 1863, and 15 per cent. on the first of August, September and October.

Since the price of cotton in England was then 21 pence per pound it was thought here was a sufficiently wide margin to offer at least a good chance of enormous profits to the buyer of the bonds. True "the loan was looked upon as a wild cotton speculation[1060]," but odds were so large as to induce a heavy gamblers' plunge, for it seemed hardly conceivable that cotton could for some years go below sevenpence per pound, and even that figure would have meant profit, if the Confederacy were established. Moreover, even though the loan was not given official recognition by the London stock exchange, the financial columns of the Times and the Economist favoured it and the subscriptions were so prompt and so heavy that in two days the loan was reported as over-subscribed three times in London alone[1061]. With the closing of the subscription the bonds went up to 95-1/2. Slidell wrote: "It is a financial recognition of our independence, emanating from a class proverbially cautious, and little given to be influenced by sentiment or sympathy[1062]." On Friday, March 27, the allotment took place and three days later Mason wrote, "I think I may congratulate you, therefore, on the triumphant success of our infant credit—it shows, malgre all detraction and calumny, that cotton is king at last[1063]."

"Alas for the King! Two days later his throne began to tremble and it took all the King's horses and all the King's men to keep him in state[1064]." On April 1, the flurry of speculation had begun to falter and the loan was below par; on the second it dropped to 3-1/2 discount, and by the third the promoters and the Southern diplomats were very anxious. They agreed that someone must be "bearing" the bonds and suspected Adams of supplying Northern funds for that purpose[1065]. Spence wrote from Liverpool in great alarm and coincidently Erlanger & Company urged that Mason should authorize the use of the receipts already secured to hold up the price of the bonds. Mason was very reluctant to do this[1066], but finally yielded when informed of the result of an interview between Spence, Erlanger, and the latter's chief London agent, Schroeder. Spence had proposed a withdrawal of a part of the loan from the market as likely to have a stabilizing effect, and opposed the Erlanger plan of using the funds already in hand. But Schroeder coolly informed him that if the Confederate representative refused to authorize the use of these funds to sustain the market, then Erlanger would regard his Company as having "completed their contract ... which was simply to issue the Loan." "Having issued it, they did not and do not guarantee that the public would pay up their instalments. If the public abandon the loan, the 15 per cent sacrificed is, in point of fact, not the property of the Government at all, but the profits of Messrs. Erlanger & Co., actually in their hands, and they cannot be expected to take a worse position. At any rate they will not do so, and unless the compact can be made on the basis we name, matters must take their course[1067]."

In the face of this ultimatum, Spence advised yielding as he "could not hesitate ... seeing that nothing could be so disastrous politically, as well as financially, as the public break-down of the Loan[1068]." Mason gave the required authorization and this was later approved from Richmond. For a time the "bulling" of the loan was successful, but again and again required the use of funds received from actual sales of bonds and in the end the loan netted very little to the Confederacy. Some $6,000,000 was squandered in supporting the market and from the entire operation it is estimated that less than $7,000,000 was realized by the Confederacy, although, as stated by the Economist, over $12,000,000 of the bonds were outstanding and largely in the hands of British investors at the end of the war[1069].

The loan soon became, not as had been hoped and prophesied by Slidell, a source of valuable public support, but rather a mere barometer of Southern fortunes[1070]. From first to last the Confederate Cotton Loan bore to subscribers the aspect of a speculative venture and lacked the regard attached to sound investment. This fact in itself denied to the loan any such favourable influence, or "financial recognition of the Confederacy," as Mason and Slidell, in the first flush of success, attributed to it. The rapid fluctuations in price further discredited it and tended to emphasize the uncertainty of Southern victory. Thus "confidence in the South" was, if anything, lessened instead of increased by this turning from political to financial methods of bringing pressure upon the Government[1071].

Southern political and parliamentary pressure had indeed been reserved from January to June, 1863. Public attention was distracted from the war in America by the Polish question, which for a time, particularly during the months of March and April, 1863, disturbed the good relations existing between England and France since the Emperor seemed bent on going beyond British "meddling," even to pursuing a policy that easily might lead to war with Russia. Europe diverted interest from America, and Napoleon himself was for the moment more concerned over the Polish question than with American affairs, even though the Mexican venture was still a worry to him. It was no time for a British parliamentary "push" and when a question was raised on the cotton famine in Lancashire little attention was given it, though ordinarily it would have been seized upon as an opportunity for a pro-Southern demonstration. This was a bitter attack by one Ferrand in the Commons, on April 27, directed against the cotton manufacturers as lukewarm over employees' sufferings. Potter, a leading cotton manufacturer, replied to the attack. Potter and his brother were already prominent as strong partisans of the North, yet no effort was made to use the debate to the advantage of the South[1072].

In late May both necessity and fortuitous circumstance seemed to make advisable another Southern effort in Parliament. The cotton loan, though fairly strong again because of Confederate governmental aid, was in fact a failure in its expected result of public support for the South; something must be done to offset that failure. In Polish affairs France had drawn back; presumably Napoleon was again eager for some active effort. Best of all, the military situation in America was thought to indicate Southern success; Grant's western campaign had come to a halt with the stubborn resistance of the great Mississippi stronghold at Vicksburg, while in Virginia, Lee, on May 2-3, had overwhelmingly defeated Hooker at Chancellorsville and was preparing, at last, a definite offensive campaign into Northern territory. Lee's advance north did not begin until June 10, but his plan was early known in a select circle in England and much was expected of it. The time seemed ripe, therefore, and the result was notification by Roebuck of a motion for the recognition of the Confederacy—first step the real purpose of which was to attempt that 'turning to the Tories' which had been advocated by Spence in January, but postponed on the advice of Gregory[1073]. The Index clearly indicated where lay the wind: "No one," it declared "now asks what will be the policy of Great Britain towards America; but everybody anxiously waits on what the Emperor of the French will do."

"... England to-day pays one of the inevitable penalties of free government and of material prosperity, that of having at times at the head of national affairs statesmen who belong rather to the past than to the present, and whose skill and merit are rather the business tact and knowledge of details, acquired by long experience, than the quick and prescient comprehension of the requirements of sudden emergencies....

"The nominal conduct of Foreign Affairs is in the hands of a diplomatic Malaprop, who has never shown vigour, activity, or determination, except where the display of these qualities was singularly unneeded, or even worse than useless.... From Great Britain, then, under her actual Government, the Cabinet at Washington has nothing to fear, and the Confederate States nothing to expect[1074]."

Of main interest to the public was the military situation. The Times minimized the western campaigns, regarding them as required for political effect to hold the north-western states loyal to the Union, and while indulging in no prophecies as to the fate of Vicksburg, expressing the opinion that, if forced to surrender it, the South could easily establish "a new Vicksburg" at some other point[1075]. Naturally The Index was pleased with and supported this view[1076]. Such ignorance of the geographic importance of Vicksburg may seem like wilful misleading of the public; but professed British military experts were equally ignorant. Captain Chesney, Professor of Military History at Sandhurst College, published in 1863, an analysis of American campaigns, centering all attention on the battles in Maryland and Virginia and reaching the conclusion that the South could resist, indefinitely, any Northern attack[1077]. He dismissed the western campaigns as of no real significance. W.H. Russell, now editor of the Army and Navy Gazette, better understood Grant's objectives on the Mississippi but believed Northern reconquest of the South to the point of restoration of the Union to be impossible. If, however, newspaper comments on the success of Southern armies were to be regarded as favourable to Roebuck's motion for recognition, W.H. Russell was against it.

"If we could perceive the smallest prospect of awaking the North to the truth, or of saving the South from the loss and trials of the contest by recognition, we would vote for it to-morrow. But next to the delusion of the North that it can breathe the breath of life into the corpse of the murdered Union again, is the delusion of some people in England who imagine that by recognition we would give life to the South, divide the nations on each side of the black and white line for ever, and bring this war to the end. There is probably not one of these clamourers for recognition who could define the limits of the State to be recognized.... And, over and above all, recognition, unless it meant 'war,' would be an aggravation of the horrors of the contest; it would not aid the South one whit, and it would add immensely to the unity and the fury of the North[1078]."

The British Foreign Secretary was at first little concerned at Roebuck's motion, writing to Lyons, "You will see that Roebuck has given notice of a motion to recognize the South. But I think it certain that neither Lord Derby nor Cobden will support it, and I should think no great number of the Liberal party. Offshoots from all parties will compose the minority[1079]." Russell was correct in this view but not so did it appear to Southern agents who now became active at the request of Roebuck and Lindsay in securing from the Emperor renewed expressions of willingness to act, and promptly, if England would but give the word. There was no real hope that Russell would change his policy, but there seemed at least a chance of replacing the Whig Ministry with a Tory one. The date for the discussion of the motion had been set for June 30. On June 13, Lindsay, writing to Slidell, enclosed a letter from Roebuck asking for an interview with Napoleon[1080], and on June 16, Mason wrote that if Slidell saw the Emperor it was of the greatest importance that he, Mason, should be at once informed of the results and how far he might communicate them to "our friends in the House[1081]." Slidell saw the Emperor on June 18, talked of the possibility of "forcing the English Cabinet to act or to give way to a new ministry," asked that an interview be given Lindsay and Roebuck, and hinted that Lord Malmesbury, a warm friend of the Emperor, would probably be the Foreign Secretary in a Tory cabinet. Napoleon made no comment indicating any purpose to aid in upsetting the Palmerston Government; but consented to the requested interview and declared he would go to the length of officially informing the British Ministry that France was very ready to discuss the advisability of recognizing the South[1082].

This was good news. June 22, Slidell received a note from Mocquard stating that Baron Gros, the French Ambassador at London, had been instructed to sound Russell. Meanwhile, Roebuck and Lindsay had hurried to Paris, June 20, saw Napoleon and on the twenty-fifth, Slidell reported that they were authorized to state in the House of Commons that France was "not only willing but anxious to recognize the Confederate States with the co-operation of England[1083]." Slidell added, however, that Napoleon had not promised Roebuck and Lindsay to make a formal proposal to Great Britain. This rested on the assurances received by Slidell from Mocquard, and when Mason, who had let the assurance be known to his friends, wrote that Russell, replying to Clanricarde, on June 26, had denied any official communication from France, and asked for authority from Slidell to back up his statements by being permitted to give Roebuck a copy of the supposed instruction[1084], he received a reply indicating confusion somewhere:

"I called yesterday on my friend at the Affaires Etrangeres on the subject of your note of Saturday: he has just left me. M.D. de Lh. will not give a copy of his instructions to Baron Gros—but this is the substance of it. On the 19th he directed Baron Gros to take occasion to say to leading Members of Parliament that the Emperor's opinions on the subject of American affairs were unchanged. That he was disposed with the co-operation of England immediately to recognize the Confederate States; this was in the form of a draft letter, not a despatch. On the 22nd, he officially instructed the Baron to sound Palmerston on the subject and to inform him of the Emperor's views and wishes. This was done in consequence of a note from the Emperor, to the Minister, in which he said, 'Je me demande, s'il ne serait bien d'avertir Lord Palmerston, que je suis decide a reconnaitre le Sud.' This is by far the most significant thing that the Emperor has said, either to me or to the others. It renders me comparatively indifferent what England may do or omit doing. At all events, let Mr. Roebuck press his motion and make his statement of the Emperor's declaration. Lord Palmerston will not dare to dispute it and the responsibility of the continuance of the war will rest entirely upon him. M. Drouyn de Lhuys has not heard from Baron Gros the result of his interview with Palmerston. I see that the latter has been unwell and it is probable that the former had not been able to see him. There can be no impropriety in Mr. Roebuck's seeing Baron Gros, who will doubtless give him information which he will use to advantage. I write in great haste; will you do me the favour to let Lord Campbell know the substance of this note, omitting that portion of it which relates to the Emperor's inclination to act alone. Pray excuse me to Lord Campbell for not writing to him, time not permitting me to do so[1085]."

This did not satisfy Mason; he telegraphed on the twenty-ninth, "Can I put in hands of Roebuck copy of Mocquard's note brought by Corcoran[1086]." To which Slidell replied by letter:

"For fear the telegraph may commit some blunder I write to say that M. Mocquard's note, being confidential, cannot be used in any way. I showed it to Messrs. Roebuck and Lindsay when they were here and have no objection that they should again see it confidentially[1087]."

On June 29, Roebuck went to Baron Gros and received the information that no formal communication had been made to Russell. The next day in an effort in some way to secure an admission of what Mason and his friends believed to be the truth, Lord Campbell asked Russell in the House of Lords if he had received either a document or a verbal communication outlining Napoleon's desires. Russell replied that Baron Gros had told him "an hour ago" that he had not even received any instruction to deliver such a communication[1088]. This was in the hours preceding the debate, now finally to occur in the Commons. Evidently there had been an error in the understanding of Napoleon by Slidell, Roebuck and Lindsay, or else there was a question of veracity between Russell, Baron Gros and Napoleon.

Roebuck's motion was couched in the form of a request to the Queen to enter into negotiations with foreign powers for co-operation in recognition of the Confederacy. Roebuck argued that the South had in fact established its independence and that this was greatly to England's advantage since it put an end to the "threatening great power" in the West. He repeated old arguments based on suffering in Lancashire—a point his opponents brushed aside as no longer of dangerous concern—attacked British anti-slavery sentiment as mere hypocrisy and minimized the dangers of a war with the North, prophesying an easy victory for Great Britain. Then, warmed to the real attack on the Government Roebuck related at length his interview with Napoleon, claiming to have been commissioned by the Emperor to urge England to action and asserting that since Baron Gros had been instructed to apply again to the British Cabinet it must be evident that the Ministry was concealing something from Parliament. Almost immediately, however, he added that Napoleon had told him no formal French application could be renewed to Great Britain since Russell had revealed to Seward, through Lyons, the contents of a former application.

Thus following the usual pro-Southern arguments, now somewhat perfunctorily given, the bolt against the Government had been shot with all of Roebuck's accustomed "vigour" of utterance[1089]. Here was direct attack; that it was a futile one early became evident in the debate. Lord Robert Montagu, while professing himself a friend of the South, was sarcastic at the expense of Roebuck's entrance into the field of diplomacy, enlarged upon the real dangers of becoming involved in the war, and moved an amendment in favour of continued British neutrality. Palmerston was absent, being ill, but Gladstone, for the Government, while carefully avoiding expressions of sympathy for either North or South, yet going out of his way to pass a moral judgment on the disaster to political liberty if the North should wholly crush the South, was positive in assertion that it would be unwise to adopt either Roebuck's motion or Montagu's amendment. Great Britain should not commit herself to any line of policy, especially as military events were "now occurring" which might greatly alter the whole situation, though "the main result of the contest was not doubtful." Here spoke that element of the Ministry still convinced of ultimate Southern success.

If Gladstone's had been the only reply to Roebuck he and his friends might well have thought they were about to secure a ministerial change of front. But it soon appeared that Gladstone spoke more for himself than for the Government. Roebuck had made a direct accusation and in meeting this, Layard, for the Foreign Office, entered a positive and emphatical denial, in which he was supported by Sir George Grey, Home Secretary, who added sharp criticism of Roebuck for permitting himself to be made the channel of a French complaint against England. It early became evident to the friends of the South that an error in tactics had been committed and in two directions; first, in the assertion that a new French offer had been made when it was impossible to present proof of it; and second, in bringing forward what amounted to an attempt to unseat the Ministry without previously committing the Tories to a support of the motion. Apparently Disraeli was simply letting Roebuck "feel out" the House. The only member of the Tory party strongly supporting him was Lord Robert Cecil, in a speech so clearly a mere party one that it served to increase the strength of ministerial resistance. Friends of the North quickly appreciated the situation and in strong speeches supported the neutrality policy of the Government. Forster laid stress upon the danger of war and the strength of British emancipation sentiment as did Bright in what was, read to-day, the most powerful of all his parliamentary utterances on the American war. In particular Bright voiced a general disbelief in the accuracy of Roebuck's report of his interview with Napoleon, called upon his "friend" Lindsay for his version[1090] of the affair, and concluded by recalling former speeches by Roebuck in which the latter had been fond of talking about the "perjured lips" of Napoleon. Bright dilated upon the egotism and insolence of Roebuck in trying to represent the Emperor of France on the floor of the House of Commons. The Emperor, he asserted, was in great danger of being too much represented in Parliament[1091].

The result of this first day's debate on June 30 was disconcerting to Southern friends. It had been adjourned without a vote, for which they were duly thankful. Especially disconcerting was Slidell's refusal to permit the citation of Mocquard's note in proof of Roebuck's assertions. Mason wrote:

"I have your note of 29th ult. You will see in the papers of to-day the debate in the House last night, at which I was present, and will have seen what in the H.L. Lord Russell said in reply to Lord Campbell. Thus the French affair remains in a 'muss,' unless the Emperor will show his hand on paper, we shall never know what he really means, or derive any benefit from his private and individual revelations. As things now stand before the public, there can be but one opinion, i.e., that he holds one language in private communications, though 'with liberty to divulge,' and another to his ambassador here. The debate is adjourned to to-morrow night, when Lindsay will give in his explanation. It would be uncivil to say that I have no confidence in the Emperor, but certainly what has come from him so far can invite only distrust[1092]."

As in Parliament, so in the public press, immediate recognition of the Confederacy received little support. The Times, while sympathetic with the purpose was against Roebuck's motion, considering it of no value unless backed up by force; to this the Times was decidedly opposed[1093]. Of like opinion was the Economist, declaring that premature recognition was a justifiable ground for a declaration of war by the North[1094]. July 2, Roebuck asked when the debate was to be renewed and was told that must wait on Palmerston's recovery and return to the House. Bright pressed for an immediate decision. Layard reaffirmed very positively that no communication had been received from France and disclosed that Napoleon's alleged complaint of a British revelation to Seward of French overtures was a myth, since the document in question had been printed in the Moniteur, thus attracting Seward's attention[1095]. Thus Roebuck was further discredited. July 4, Spence wrote strongly urging the withdrawal of the motion:

"I have a letter from an eminent member of the House and great friend of the South urging the danger of carrying Mr. Roebuck's motion to a vote. It is plain it will be defeated by a great majority and the effect of this will encourage the North and distress our friends. It will also strengthen the minority of the Cabinet in favour of the North....

"The fact is the ground of the motion, which was action on the part of France, has failed us—and taken shape which tells injuriously instead of being the great support....

"If a positive engagement were made by Mr. Disraeli to support the motion it would alter the question entirely. In the absence of this I fear the vote would be humiliating and would convey an impression wholly delusive, for the members are 10 to 1 in favour of the South and yet on this point the vote might be 5 to 1 against Southern interests[1096]."

On July 6, Palmerston was back in the House and Roebuck secured an agreement for a resumption of the debate on "Monday next[1097]." Meantime many powerful organs of the French press had taken up the matter and were full of sharp criticism of Napoleon's supposed policy and actions as stated by Roebuck. The effect in England was to create a feeling that Napoleon might have difficulty in carrying out a pro-Southern policy[1098]. Palmerston, wishing to avoid further discussion on Napoleon's share in providing fuel for the debate, wrote in a very conciliatory and pleasant way to Roebuck, on July 9:

"Perhaps you will allow me thus privately to urge upon you, and through you upon Mr. Lindsay, the expediency of dropping altogether, whether your debate goes on or not, all further mention or discussion of what passed between you and Mr. Lindsay on the one hand, and the Emperor of the French on the other. In truth the whole proceeding on this subject the other day seems to me to have been very irregular. The British Parliament receives messages and communications from their own sovereign, but not from the sovereigns of other countries...."