"My own impressions derived from the whole interview are, that [while] P. is as well satisfied as I am, that the separation of the States is final and the independence of the South an accomplished fact, the Ministry fears to move under the menaces of the North[1191]."
Slidell's comment was bitter:
"I am very much obliged for your account of your interview with Lord Palmerston. It resulted very much as I had anticipated excepting that his Lordship appears to have said even less than I had supposed he would. However, the time has now arrived when it is comparatively of very little importance what Queen or Emperor may say or think about us. A plague, I say, on both your Houses[1192]."
Slidell's opinion from this time on was, indeed, that the South had nothing to expect from Europe until the North itself should acknowledge the independence of the Confederacy. July 21, The Index expressed much the same view and was equally bitter. It quoted an item in the Morning Herald of July 16, to the effect that Mason had secured an interview with Palmerston and that "the meeting was satisfactory to all parties":
"The withdrawal of Mr. Lindsay's motion was, it is said, the result of that interview, the Premier having given a sort of implied promise to support it at a more opportune moment; that is to say, when Grant and Sherman have been defeated, and the Confederacy stand in no need of recognition."
In the same issue The Index described a deputation of clergymen, noblemen, Members of Parliament "and other distinguished and influential gentlemen" who had waited upon Palmerston to urge mediation toward a cessation of hostilities in America. Thus at last the joint project of the Southern Independence Association and of the Society for Promoting the Cessation of Hostilities in America had been put in execution after the political storm had passed and not before--when the deputation might have had some influence. But the fact was that no deputation, unless a purely party one, could have been collected before the conclusion of the Danish crisis. When finally assembled it "had no party complexion," and the smiling readiness with which it received Palmerston's jocular reply indicating that Britain's safest policy was to keep strictly to neutrality is evidence that even the deputation itself though harassed by Lindsay and others into making this demonstration, was quite content to let well enough alone. Not so The Index which sneered at the childishness of Palmerston:
"... He proved incontestably to his visitors that, though he has been charged with forgetting the vigour of his prime, he can in old age remember the lessons of his childhood, by telling them that
They who in quarrels interpose
Will often wipe a bloody nose (laughter)--
a quotation which, in the mouth of the Prime Minister of the British Empire, and on such an occasion, must be admitted as not altogether unworthy of Abraham Lincoln himself[1193]."
They who in quarrels interpose
Will often wipe a bloody nose (laughter)--
Spence took consolation in the fact that Mason had at last come into personal contact with Palmerston, "even now at his great age a charming contrast to that piece of small human pipe-clay, Lord Russell[1194]." But the whole incident of Lindsay's excited efforts, Mason's journey to London and interview with Palmerston, and the deputation, left a bad taste in the mouth of the more determined friends of the South--of those who were Confederates rather than Englishmen. They felt that they had been deceived and toyed with by the Government. Mason's return to London was formally approved at Richmond but Benjamin wrote that the argument for recognition advanced to Palmerston had laid too much stress on the break-down of the North. All that was wanted was recognition which was due the South from the mere facts of the existing situation, and recognition, if accorded, would have at once ended the war without intervention in any form[1195]. Similarly The Index stated that mediation was an English notion, not a Southern one. The South merely desired justice, that is, recognition[1196]. This was a bold front yet one not unwarranted by the military situation in midsummer of 1864, as reported in the press. Sherman's western campaign toward Atlanta had but just started and little was known of the strength of his army or of the powers of Southern resistance. This campaign was therefore regarded as of minor importance. It was on Grant's advance toward Richmond that British attention was fixed; Lee's stiff resistance, the great losses of the North in battle after battle and finally the settling down by Grant to besiege the Southern lines at Petersburg, in late June, 1864, seemed to indicate that once again an offensive in Virginia to "end the war" was doomed to that failure which had marked the similar efforts of each of the three preceding years.
Southern efforts in England to alter British neutrality practically ended with Lindsay's proposed but undebated motion of June, 1864, but British confidence in Southern ability to defend herself indefinitely, a confidence somewhat shattered at the beginning of 1864--had renewed its strength by July. For the next six months this was to be the note harped upon in society, by organizations, and in the friendly press.