Great Britain and the American Civil War Part 7

To the British view the immediate danger to its commercial interests lay in this announced maritime war, and it felt the necessity of defining its neutral position with speed. The underlying fact of the fixity of Southern determination to maintain secession had in the last few weeks become clearly recognized.

Moreover the latest information sent by British officials in America, some of it received just before the issue of the Proclamation of Neutrality, some just after, was all confirmative of the rapid approach of a great war. A letter from Bunch, at Charleston, was received on May 10, depicting the united Southern will to resist Northern attack, and a.s.serting that the South had no purpose save to conduct a strictly defensive war. Bunch was no longer caustic; he now felt that a new nation was in process of birth[159]. May 4, Monson, writing from Was.h.i.+ngton, and just returned from a trip through the South, in the course of which he had visited Montgomery, stated "_no reconstruction_ of the Union is possible," and added that there was no danger of a servile insurrection, a matter that now somewhat began to disturb the British Government and public[160]. A few days later on, May 12, Lyons expressed his strong sympathy with the North for reasons of anti-slavery, law, and race, but added that he shrank from expressions of sympathy for fear of thus encouraging the Northern Cabinet in its plan of prosecuting civil war since such a war would be frightful in its consequences both to America and to England[161].

Such reports if received before the issue of the Proclamation of Neutrality must have strengthened the feeling that prompt action was necessary; if received later, they gave confidence that that action had been wise. May 9, Forster asked in the Commons a series of questions as to the application of the British Foreign Enlistment Act in the American crisis. What would be the status of British citizens serving on Confederate privateers? How would the Government treat citizens who aided in equipping such privateers? Did not the Government intend to take measures to prevent the infringement of law in British ports? Here was pressure by a friend of the North to hasten an official announcement of the policy already notified to Parliament. Sir George Lewis replied stating that the Government was about to issue a general proclamation warning British subjects not to take any part in the war[162]. Similar questions were asked by Derby in the Lords on May 10, and received a similar answer[163]. The few days' delay following Russell's statement of May 6 was due to consideration given by the Law Officers to the exact form required. The Proclamation as issued was dated May 13, and was officially printed in the _London Gazette_ on May 14.

In form and in substance the Proclamation of Neutrality did not differ from customary usage[164]. It spoke of the Confederacy as "states styling themselves the Confederate States of America," prohibited to Englishmen enlistment on either side, or efforts to enlist others, or equipment of s.h.i.+ps of war, or delivery of commissions to such s.h.i.+ps. War vessels being equipped in British ports would be seized and forfeited to the British Government. If a belligerent war-s.h.i.+p came into a British port, no change or increase of equipment was to be permitted. If a subject violated the Proclamation he was both punishable in British courts and forfeited any claim to British protection. The Parliamentary discussion on May 16 brought out more clearly and in general unanimity of opinion the policy of the Government in application of the Proclamation; the South was definitely recognized as a belligerent, but recognition of independence was for the future to determine; the right of the South to send out privateers was regretfully recognized; such privateers could not be regarded as pirates and the North would have no right to treat them as such, but if the North in defiance of international opinion did so treat them, Great Britain had at least warned its subjects that they, if engaged in service on a Southern privateer, had no claim to British protection; a blockade of the South to be respected must be effective at least to the point where a vessel attempting to pa.s.s through was likely to be captured; the plan of blockading the entire Southern coast, with its three thousand miles of coast line, was on the face of it ridiculous--evidence that Members of Parliament were profoundly ignorant of the physical geography of the Southern seaboard[165].

The Parliamentary discussion did not reveal any partiality for one side in the American quarrel above the other. It turned wholly on legal questions and their probable application. On May 15 Russell sent to Lyons the official text of the Proclamation, but did not instruct him to communicate it officially to Seward, leaving this rather to Lyons'

discretion. This was discretionary in diplomatic usage since in strict fact the Proclamation was addressed to British subjects and need not be communicated officially to the belligerents. In the result the discretion permitted to Lyons had, an important bearing, for recognition of Southern belligerency was opposed to the theory upon which the Northern Government was attempting to proceed. Lyons did not then, or later, make official communication to Seward of the Proclamation[166].

The fact soon appeared that the United States seriously objected to the Proclamation of Neutrality, protesting first, its having been issued at all, and, in the second place, resenting what was considered its "premature" announcement by a friendly nation. This matter developed so serious a criticism by both American Government and public, both during and after the Civil War, that it requires a close examination. Did the British Government exhibit an unfriendly att.i.tude toward the North by a "premature" Proclamation of Neutrality?

On May 13 the new American Minister landed at Liverpool, and on the morning of the fourteenth he was "ready for business" in London[167], but the interview with Russell arranged for that day by Dallas was prevented by the illness of Russell's brother, the Duke of Bedford[168].

All that was immediately possible was to make official notification of arrival and to secure the customary audience with the Queen. This was promptly arranged, and on May 16 Adams was presented, Palmerston attending in the enforced absence of Russell. Adams' first report to Seward was therefore brief, merely noting that public opinion was "not exactly what we would wish." In this he referred to the utterances of the press, particularly those of the _Times_, which from day to day and with increasing vigour sounded the note of strict neutrality in a "non-idealistic" war. On May 30 the _Times_, a.s.serting that both parties in America were bidding for English support, summed up public opinion as follows:

"We have been told, in fact, by Northern politicians, that it does not become us to be indifferent, and by Southern leaders that they are half inclined to become British once more. Both sides are bidding for us, and both sides have their partisans over here. On such perilous ground we cannot walk too warily.

"For our own part, we are free to confess that the march of events has induced us to regard the dispute as a more commonplace kind of quarrel than it at first appeared to be.

The real motives of the belligerents, as the truth transpires; appear to be exactly such motives as have caused wars in all times and countries. They are essentially selfish motives--that is to say, they are based upon speculations of national power, territorial aggrandizement, political advantage, and commercial gain. Neither side can claim any superiority of principle, or any peculiar purity of patriotism....

"We certainly cannot discover in these arguments anything to remove the case from the common category of national or monarchical quarrels. The representations of the North might be made word for word by any autocrat or conqueror desirous of 'rectifying' his frontier, consolidating his empire, or retaining a disaffected province in subjection. The manifestos of the South might be put forth by any State desirous of terminating an unpleasant connexion or exchanging union for independence....

"It is just such a question as has been left times out of mind in this Old World to the decision of the sword. The sword will be the arbitrator in the New World too; but the event teaches us plainly enough that Republics and Democracies enjoy no exemption from the pa.s.sions and follies of humanity."

Under these impressions Adams presented himself on May 18 for his first interview with Russell[169]. He stated that he had come with the idea that there was

".... little to do beyond the duty of preserving the relations actually existing between the two nations from the risk of being unfavourably affected by the unfortunate domestic disturbances prevailing in my own country. It was not without pain that I was compelled to admit that from the day of my arrival I had felt in the proceedings of both houses of Parliament, in the language of Her Majesty's ministers, and in the tone of opinion prevailing in private circles, more of uncertainty about this than I had before thought possible,"

Adams then inquired whether the replies given by Russell to Dallas refusing to indicate a policy as to recognition of the South implied a British purpose "to adopt a policy which would have the effect to widen, if not to make irreparable, a breach [between North and South] which we believed yet to be entirely manageable by ourselves."

Russell here replied that "there was no such intention"; he had simply meant to say to Dallas that the British Government "were not disposed in any way to interfere." To this Adams answered that:

".... it was deserving of grave consideration whether great caution was not to be used in adopting any course that might, even in the most indirect way, have an effect to encourage the hopes of the disaffected in America.... It was in this view that I must be permitted to express the great regret I had felt on learning the decision to issue the Queen's proclamation, which at once raised the insurgents to the level of a belligerent State, and still more the language used in regard to it by Her Majesty's ministers in both houses of Parliament before and since. Whatever might be the design, there could be no shadow of doubt that the effect of these events had been to encourage the friends of the disaffected here. The tone of the press and of private opinion indicated it strongly."

Russell's answer was that Adams was placing more stress on recent events than they deserved. The Government had taken the advice of the Law Officers and as a result had concluded that "as a question merely of _fact_, a war existed.... Under such circ.u.mstances

it seemed scarcely possible to avoid speaking of this in the technical sense as _justum bellum_, that is, a war of two sides, without in any way implying an opinion of its justice, as well as to withhold an endeavour, so far as possible, to bring the management of it within the rules of modern civilized warfare. This was all that was contemplated by the Queen's proclamation. It was designed to show the purport of existing laws, and to explain to British subjects their liabilities in case they should engage in the war."

To this Adams answered "... that under other circ.u.mstances

I should be very ready to give my cheerful a.s.sent to this view of his lords.h.i.+p's. But I must be permitted frankly to remark that the action taken seemed, at least to my mind, a little more rapid than was absolutely called for by the occasion.... And furthermore, it p.r.o.nounced the insurgents to be a belligerent State before they had ever shown their capacity to maintain any kind of warfare whatever, except within one of their own harbours, and under every possible advantage. It considered them a marine power before they had ever exhibited a single privateer on the ocean.... The rule was very clear, that whenever it became apparent that any organized form of society had advanced so far as to prove its power to defend and protect itself against the a.s.saults of enemies, and at the same time to manifest a capacity to maintain binding relations with foreign nations, then a measure of recognition could not be justly objected to on any side. The case was very different when such an interference should take place, prior to the establishment of the proof required, as to bring about a result which would not probably have happened but for that external agency."

This representation by the American Minister, thus early made, contains the whole argument advanced against the British Proclamation of Neutrality, though there were many similar representations made at greater length both by Adams later, and by Seward at Was.h.i.+ngton. They are all well summarized by Bernard as "a rejection ... of the proposition that the existence of war is a simple matter of fact, to be ascertained as other facts are--and an a.s.sertion ... of the dogma that there can be no war, so far as foreign nations are concerned, and, therefore, no neutrality, so long as there is a sovereignty _de jure_[170]." But in this first representation Adams, in the main, laid stress upon the _haste_ with which the Proclamation of Neutrality had been issued, and, by inference, upon the evidence that British sympathies were with the South.

One British journal was, indeed, at this very moment voicing exactly those opinions advanced by Adams. The _Spectator_ declared that while the Proclamation, on the face of it, appeared to be one of strict neutrality, it in reality tended "directly to the benefit of the South[171]." A fortnight later this paper a.s.serted, "The quarrel, cover it with cotton as we may, is between freedom and slavery, right and wrong, the dominion of G.o.d and the dominion of the Devil, and the duty of England, we submit, is clear." She should, even though forced to declare her neutrality, refuse for all time to recognize the slave-holding Confederacy[172]. But the _Spectator_ stood nearly alone in this view. The _Sat.u.r.day Review_ defended in every respect the issue of the Proclamation and added, "In a short time, it will be necessary further to recognize the legitimacy of the Southern Government; but the United States have a right to require that the acknowledgment shall be postponed until the failure of the effort which they a.s.sert or believe that they are about to make has resulted in an experimental proof that subjugation is impossible[173]." A few provincial papers supported the view of the _Spectator_, but they were of minor importance, and generally the press heartily approved the Proclamation.

At the time of Adams' interview with Russell on May 18 he has just received an instruction from Seward written under the impression aroused by Dallas' report of Russell's refusal on April 8 to make any pledge as to British policy on the recognition of Southern independence. Seward was very much disturbed by what Russell had said to Dallas. In this instruction, dated April 27[174], he wrote:

"When you shall have read the instructions at large which have been sent to you, you will hardly need to be told that these last remarks of his lords.h.i.+p are by no means satisfactory to this government. Her Britannic Majesty's government is at liberty to choose whether it will retain the friends.h.i.+p of this government by refusing all aid and comfort to its enemies, now in flagrant rebellion against it, as we think the treaties existing between the two countries require, or whether the government of Her Majesty will take the precarious benefits of a different course.

"You will lose no time in making known to Her Britannic Majesty's Government that the President regards the answer of his lords.h.i.+p as possibly indicating a policy that this government would be obliged to deem injurious to its rights and derogating from its dignity."

Having promptly carried out these instructions, as he understood them, Adams soon began to report an improved British att.i.tude, and especially in the Government, stating that this improvement was due, in part, to the vigour now being shown by the Northern Government, in part "to a sense that the preceding action of Her Majesty's ministers has been construed to mean more than they intended by it[175]." But at Was.h.i.+ngton the American irritation was not so easily allayed. Lyons was reporting Seward and, indeed, the whole North, as very angry with the Proclamation of Neutrality[176]. On June 14, Lyons had a long conversation with Seward in which the latter stubbornly denied that the South could possess any belligerent rights. Lyons left the conference feeling that Seward was trying to divide France and England on this point, and Lyons was himself somewhat anxious because France was so long delaying her own Proclamation[177]. To meet the situation, he and Mercier, the French Minister, went the next day, June 15, on an official visit to Seward with the intention of formally presenting the British Proclamation and Thouvenel's instructions to Mercier to support it[178].

But Seward "said at once that he could not receive from us a communication founded on the a.s.sumption that

the Southern Rebels were to be regarded as Belligerents; that this was a determination to which the Cabinet had come deliberately; that he could not admit that recent events had in any respect altered the relations between Foreign Powers and the Southern States; that he would not discuss the question with us, but that he should give instructions to the United States Ministers in London and Paris who would thus be enabled to state the reasons for the course taken by their Government to Your Lords.h.i.+p and to M. Thouvenel, if you should be desirous to hear them.... He should not take Official cognizance of the recognition of the Belligerent Rights of Southern Rebels by Great Britain and France, unless he should be forced to do so by an Official communication addressed to the Government of the United States itself."

In the result the two Ministers submitted their papers to Seward "for his own use only." They did not regard the moment well chosen "to be punctilious." Lyons reported that Seward's language and demeanour throughout the interview were "calm, friendly, and good humoured," but the fact remained that the United States had not been officially notified of the Proclamation of Neutrality, and that the American Government, sensitive to popular excitement in the matter and committed to the theory of a rebellion of peoples, was thus left free to continue argument in London without any necessity of making formal protest and of taking active steps to support such protest[179]. The official relation was eased by the conciliatory acquiescence of Lyons. The public anger of America, expressed in her newspapers, astonished the British press and, temporarily, made them more careful in comment on American affairs. The _Times_ told its readers to keep cool. "It is plain that the utmost care and circ.u.mspection must be used by every man or party in England to avoid giving offence to either of the two incensed belligerents[180]."

In answer to the Northern outcry at the lack of British sympathy, it declared "Neutrality--strict neutrality--is all that the United States Government can claim[181]."

While the burden of American criticism was thus directed toward the British recognition of Southern belligerency, there were two other matters of great moment to the American view--the att.i.tude of the British Government toward Southern privateers, and the hearing given by Russell to the Confederate envoys. On the former, Seward, on May 21, wrote to Adams: "As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent service, you will say that this is a question exclusively our own. We treat them as pirates. They are our own citizens, or persons employed by our own citizens, preying on the commerce of our country. If Great Britain shall choose to recognize them as lawful belligerents and give them shelter from our pursuit and punishment, the law of nations affords an adequate and proper remedy[182]." This was threatening language, but was for Adams' own eye, and in the next sentence of his letter Seward stated that avoidance of friction on this point was easy, since in 1856 Great Britain had invited the United States to adhere to the Declaration of Paris everywhere abolis.h.i.+ng privateering, and to this the United States was now ready to accede.

What Seward really meant to accomplish by this was not made clear for the question of privateering did not const.i.tute the main point of his belligerent letter of May 21. In fact the proposed treatment of privateers as pirates might have resulted in very serious complications, for though the Proclamation of Neutrality had warned British subjects that they would forfeit any claim to protection if they engaged in the conflict, it is obvious that the hanging as a pirate of a British seaman would have aroused a national outcry almost certain to have forced the Government into protest and action against America. Fortunately the cooler judgment of the United States soon led to quiet abandonment of the plan of treating privateers as pirates, while on the other point of giving "shelter" to Confederate privateers Seward himself received from Lyons a.s.surance, even before Adams had made a protest, that no such shelter would be available in British ports[183].

In this same letter of May 21 Seward, writing of the rumour that the Southern envoys were to be received by Russell "unofficially,"

instructed Adams that he must use efforts to stop this and that: "You will, in any event, desist from all intercourse whatever, unofficial as well as official, with the British Government, so long as it shall continue intercourse of either kind with the domestic enemies of this country." Here was a positive instruction as to the American Minister's conduct in a given situation, and a very serious instruction, nearly equivalent to "taking leave" after a rupture of diplomatic relations, but the method to be used in avoiding if possible the necessity of the serious step was left to Adams' discretion. Well might Adams' comment, when reporting the outcome, that this was the "most delicate portion of my task[184]." Adams again went over with Russell the suspicion as to British intentions aroused in America by the Queen's Proclamation, but added that he had not been able to convince himself of the existence of an unfriendly design. "But it was not to be disguised that the fact of the continued stay of the pseudo-commissioners in this city, and still more the knowledge that they had been admitted to more or less interviews with his lords.h.i.+p, was calculated to excite uneasiness.

Indeed, it had already given great dissatisfaction to my Government. I added, as moderately as I could, that in all frankness any further protraction of this relation could scarcely fail to be viewed by us as hostile in spirit, and to require some corresponding action accordingly." Russell replied that both France and England had long been accustomed to receive such persons unofficially, as in the case of "Poles, Hungarians, Italians, etc.," to hear what they had to say. "But this did not imply recognition in their case any more than in ours. He added that he had seen the gentlemen once some time ago, and once more some time since; he had no expectation of seeing them any more[185]."

For the moment, then, a matter which under Seward's instructions might have brought on a serious crisis was averted by the tact of Adams and the acquiescence of Russell. Yet no pledge had been given; Russell merely stated that he had "no expectation" of further interviews with the Southern commissioners; he was still ready to hear from them in writing. This caused a division of opinion between the commissioners; Yancey argued that Russell's concession to Adams was itself a violation of the neutrality the British Government had announced, and that it should be met by a formal protest. But the other members insisted on a reference to Richmond for instructions[186]. On the same day that Adams reported the result to Seward he wrote privately to his son in Boston:

"My position here thus far has not been difficult or painful.

If I had followed the course of some of my colleagues in the diplomatic line, this country might have been on the high road to the confederate camp before now. It did not seem to me to be expedient so to play into the hands of our opponents. Although there has been and is more or less of sympathy with the slave-holders in certain circles, they are not so powerful as to overbear the general sentiment of the people. The ministry has been placed in rather delicate circ.u.mstances, when a small loss of power on either extreme would have thrown them out[187]."

In Adams' opinion the Liberals were on the whole more friendly, at least, to the North than were the Conservatives, and he therefore considered it best not to press too harshly upon the Government.

But the concluding sentence of this same letter was significant: "I wait with patience--but as yet I have not gone so far as to engage a house for more than a month at a time...." He might himself be inclined to view more leniently the Proclamation of Neutrality and be able to find excuses for the alleged haste with which it had been issued, but his instructions required strong representations, especially on the latter point. Adams' report to Seward of June 14, just noted, on the interview with Russell of June 12, after treating of privateering and the Southern commissioners, turns in greater length to the alleged pledge of delay given by Russell to Dallas, and to the violation of that pledge in a hasty issue of the Proclamation. He renews attack on the line already taken on May 18[188]. From this time on, throughout and after the war, this criticism was repeatedly made and with increasing bitterness.

British friends of the North joined in the American outcry. By mere reiteration it became in the popular mind on both sides of the Atlantic an accepted and well-founded evidence of British governmental unfriendliness in May, 1861. At the conclusion of the Civil War, John Bright in Parliament, commenting on the causes of American ill-will, declared that the Government of 1861, knowing that Adams was on his way, should in mere courtesy, have waited his arrival. Then, said Bright, the Proclamation, entirely justifiable in itself, might have been issued without offence and without embittering the United States[189].

Had in fact a "pledge to wait" been given to Dallas; and was the Proclamation hasty and premature? Russell always denied he had given any such pledge, and the text of Dallas' report of the interview of May 1 would seem to support that denial[190]. On that day Russell for the second time told Dallas that England would not commit herself, as yet, as regards Southern recognition, clearly meaning a recognition of _sovereignty_, not of belligerency, and immediately asked Dallas what the rumours of a blockade meant. Dallas replied that he had no information on this point, and Russell "acquiesced in the expediency of disregarding mere rumour, and waiting the full knowledge to be brought by my successor. The motion, therefore, of Mr. Gregory may be further postponed, at his lords.h.i.+p's suggestion."

The unprejudiced interpretation of this report is merely that Russell refrained from pressing Dallas about a matter--blockade--of which Dallas knew nothing, agreeing that this would be explained by Adams, and especially that he let Dallas understand that Gregory's motion, which was one for _recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the South_, would be postponed. If there was a pledge here it was a pledge not to recognize Southern sovereignty until after Adams' arrival.

But even if there was no promise of delay "there can be no question,"

writes the son of Adams in a brief biography of his father, "that the proclamation of the 13th was issued with unseemly haste.... The purpose was manifest. It was to have the status of the Confederacy as a belligerent an accomplished fact before the arrival of the newly accredited minister. This precipitate action was chiefly significant as indicating an animus; that animus being really based on ... the belief, already matured into a conviction, that the full recognition of the Confederacy as an independent power was merely a question of time, and probably of a very short time[191]." The author does not, however, support the contemporary American contention that _any_ Proclamation was contrary to international custom and that no recognition of belligerent status was permissible to neutrals until the "insurgents" had forced the mother country itself to recognize the division as fully accomplished, even while war still continued. Indeed American practice was flatly contradictory of the argument, as in the very pertinent example of the petty Canadian rebellion of 1837, when President Van Buren had promptly issued a proclamation of neutrality. It is curious that in his several replies to Seward's complaints Russell did not quote a letter from Stevenson, the American Minister to London, addressed to Palmerston, May 22, 1838. Stevenson was demanding disavowal and disapproval of the "Caroline" affair, and incidentally he a.s.serted as an incontrovertible principle "that civil wars are not distinguished from other wars, as to belligerent and neutral rights; that they stand upon the same ground, and are governed by the same principles; that whenever a portion of a State seek by force of arms to overthrow the Government, and maintain independence, the contest becomes one _de facto_ of war[192]." This was as exact, and correct, a statement of the British view as could have been desired[193].

The American Minister, whatever his official representation, did not then hold, privately, the view of "unfriendly animus." On July 2, 1861, his secretary son wrote: "The English are really on our side; of that I have no doubt whatever. [Later he was less sure of this.] But they thought that as a dissolution seemed inevitable and as we seemed to have made up our minds to it, that their Proclamation was just the thing to keep them straight with both sides, and when it turned out otherwise they did their best to correct their mistake[194]." The modern historical judgment of the best American writers likewise exonerates the British Government of "unfriendly animus[195]," but is still apt to refer to the "premature" issue of the Proclamation.

This was also John Bright's view. But can Russell and the Government be criticized even as exercising an unwise (not unfriendly) haste? Henry Adams wrote that the British thought the "dissolution seemed inevitable"

and "we seemed to have made up our minds to it." Certainly this was a justifiable conclusion from the events in America from Lincoln's election in November, 1860, to his inauguration in March, 1861--and even to a later date, almost in fact to the first week in April. During this period the British Ministry preserved a strictly "hands off" policy.

Then, suddenly, actual conflict begins and at once each side in America issues declarations, Davis on privateering, Lincoln on blockade and piracy, indicative that _maritime_ war, the form of war at once most dangerous to British interests and most likely to draw in British citizens, was the method first to be tried by the contestants. Unless these declarations were mere bluff and bl.u.s.ter England could not dare wait their application. She must at once warn her citizens and make clear her position as a neutral. The Proclamation was no effort "to keep straight with both sides"; it was simply the natural, direct, and prompt notification to British subjects required in the presence of a _de facto_ war.

Moreover, merely as a matter of historical speculation, it was fortunate that the Proclamation antedated the arrival of Adams. The theory of the Northern administration under which the Civil War was begun and concluded was that a portion of the people of the United States were striving as "insurgents" to throw off their allegiance, and that there could be no recognition of any Southern _Government_ in the conflict. In actual practice in war, the exchange of prisoners and like matters, this theory had soon to be discarded. Yet it was a far-seeing and wise theory nevertheless in looking forward to the purely domestic and const.i.tutional problem of the return to the Union, when conquered, of the sections in rebellion. This, unfortunately, was not clear to foreign nations, and it necessarily complicated relations with them. Yet under that theory Adams had to act. Had he arrived before the Proclamation of Neutrality it is difficult to see how he could have proceeded otherwise than to protest, officially, against any British declaration of neutrality, declaring that his Government did not acknowledge a state of war as existing, and threatening to take his leave. It would have been his duty to _prevent_, if possible, the issue of the Proclamation.

Dallas, fortunately, had been left uninformed and uninstructed. Adams, fortunately, arrived too late to prevent and had, therefore, merely to complain. The "premature" issue of the Proclamation averted an inevitable rupture of relations on a clash between the American theory of "no state of war" and the international fact that war existed. Had that rupture occurred, how long would the British Government and people have remained neutral, and what would have been the ultimate fate of the United States[196]?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 127: Sir George Cornewall Lewis was better informed in the early stages of the American conflict than any of his ministerial colleagues. He was an occasional contributor to the reviews and his unsigned article in the _Edinburgh_, April, 1861, on "The Election of President Lincoln and its Consequences," was the first a.n.a.lysis of real merit in any of the reviews.]

[Footnote 128: In his _Memoirs of an Ex-Minister_, Malmesbury makes but three important references to the Civil War in America.]