[439] "Mr. Galt, Canadian Minister, is here. He has frightened me by his account of the defencelessness of the Province at this moment." (Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell. Private. Dec. 3, 1861.)
[440] Lyons Papers. Lyons to Monck, Dec. 9, 1861.
[441] Rogers, Speeches by John Bright, I, p. 189 seq.
[442] Among the communications were several on international law points by "Historicus," answering and belittling American legal argument. W.V. Harcourt, under this pseudonym, frequently contributed very acute and very readable articles to the Times on the American civil war. The Times was berated by English friends of the North. Cobden wrote Sumner, December 12, "The Times and its yelping imitators are still doing their worst." (Morley, Cobden, II, 392.) Cobden was himself at one with the Times in suspicion of Seward. "I confess I have not much opinion of Seward. He is a kind of American Thiers or Palmerston or Russell--and talks Bunkum. Fortunately, my friend Mr. Charles Sumner, who is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and has really a kind of veto on the acts of Seward, is a very peaceable and safe man." (ibid., p. 386, to Lieut.-Col. Fitzmayer, Dec. 3, 1861.) It is interesting that Canadian opinion regarded the Times as the great cause of American ill-will toward Britain. A letter to Gait asserted that the "war talk" was all a "farce" (J.H. Pope to Gait, Dec. 26, 1861) and the Toronto Globe attacked the Times for the creation of bad feeling. The general attitude was that if British policy resulted in an American blow at Canada, it was a British, not a Canadian duty, to maintain her defence (Skelton, Life of Sir Alexander Tilloch Gait, pp. 340, 348.) Yet the author states that in the beginning Canada went through the same phases of feeling on the Trent as did Great Britain.
[443] A Cycle of Adams' Letters, I, pp. 81-2.
[444] Ibid., I, p. 83. Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Dec. 13, 1861.
[445] Russell Papers. Lyons to Russell. Private. Nov. 29, 1861.
[446] See the Times, Dec. 14, 1861. Here for the first time the Times used the expression "the last card" as applied to emancipation.
[447] Palmerston MS. Russell to Palmerston, Dec. 11, 1861.
[448] Gladstone Papers. Russell to Gladstone, Dec. 13, 1861. On the same day Lady Russell wrote Lady Dumfermline: "There can be no doubt that we have done deeds very like that of Captain Wilkes.... but I wish we had not done them.... It is all terrible and awful, and I hope and pray war may be averted--and whatever may have been the first natural burst of indignation in this country, I believe it would be ready to execrate the Ministry if all right and honourable means were not taken to prevent so fearful a calamity." (Dana, The Trent Affair. (Proceedings, Mass. Hist. Soc., XLV, p. 528.))