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.
