English view.  Hence the Government received the September, 1862, proclamation with disfavour, the press with contempt, and the public with apprehension—­even the friends of the North.  But no servile war ensued.  In January, 1863, Lincoln kept his promise of wide emancipation and the North stood committed to a high moral object.  A great wave of relief and exultation swept over anti-slavery England, but did not so quickly extend to governmental circles.  It was largely that England which was as yet without direct influence on Parliament which so exulted and now upheld the North.  Could this England of the people affect governmental policy and influence its action toward America?  Lyons correctly interpreted the North and Seward as now more inclined to press the British Government on points previously glossed over, and in the same month in which Lyons wrote this opinion there was coming to a head a controversy over Britain’s duty as a neutral, which both during the war and afterwards long seemed to Americans a serious and distinctly unfriendly breach of British neutrality.  This was the building in British ports of Confederate naval vessels of war.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 846:  Punch, Nov. 22, 1862, has a cartoon picturing Palmerston as presenting this view to Napoleon III.]

[Footnote 847:  Rhodes, IV, p. 348.]

[Footnote 848:  F.O., Am., Vol. 875.  No. 80.  Confidential.  Lyons to Russell, Jan. 27, 1863.  This date would have permitted Mercier to be already in receipt of Napoleon’s instructions, though he gave no hint of it in the interview with Lyons.]

[Footnote 849:  Mercier had in fact approached Stoeckl on a joint offer of mediation without England.  Evidently Stoeckl had asked instructions and those received made clear that Russia did not wish to be compelled to face such a question.  She did not wish to offend France, and an offer without England had no chance of acceptance (Russian Archives, F.O. to Stoeckl, Feb. 16, 1863 (O.S.)).]

[Footnote 850:  F.O.  Am., Vol. 876.  No. 108.  Confidential.  Lyons to Russell, Feb. 2, 1863.]

[Footnote 851:  Rhodes, IV, p. 348.]

[Footnote 852:  F.O., Am., Vol. 868, No. 86.]

[Footnote 853:  Hansard, 3rd.  Ser., CLXIX, pp. 5-53, and 69-152.]

[Footnote 854:  Ibid., pp. 1714-41.  March 23, 1863.]

[Footnote 855:  Ashley, Palmerston, II, 208-9.  To Ellice, May 5, 1861.]

[Footnote 856:  July 13, 1861.]

[Footnote 857:  Harriet Martineau, Autobiography, p. 508, To Mrs. Chapman, Aug. 8, 1861.]

[Footnote 858:  Sept. 21, 1861.]

[Footnote 859:  Saturday Review, Nov. 17, 1860.]

[Footnote 860:  Russell Papers.  To Russell.]

[Footnote 861:  Gladstone Papers.  Russell to Gladstone, Jan. 26, 1862.]

[Footnote 862:  Article in Fraser’s Magazine, Feb. 1862, “The Contest in America.”]