“We had indeed, been wronged.  We had suffered an indignity, and something more than an indignity, which, not to have resented, would have been to invite a constant succession of insults and injuries from the same and from every other quarter.  We could have acted no otherwise than we have done; yet it is impossible to think, without something like a shudder, from what we have escaped.  We, the emancipators of the slave—­who have wearied every Court and Government in Europe and America with our protests and remonstrances, until we goaded them into at least ostensibly co-operating with us to prevent the enslaving of the negro ... we should have lent a hand to setting up, in one of the most commanding positions of the world, a powerful republic, devoted not only to slavery, but to pro-slavery propagandism....”

No such protestations of relief over escape from a possible alliance with the South were made officially by the Government, or in a debate upon the Trent, February 6, when Parliament reassembled.  In the Lords the Earl of Shelburne thought that America should have made a frank and open apology.  The Earl of Derby twitted the United States with having yielded to force alone, but said the time “had not yet come” for recognizing the Confederacy.  Lord Dufferin expressed great friendship for America and declared that Englishmen ought to make themselves better informed of the real merits of the Civil War.  Earl Granville, speaking for the Government, laid stress upon the difficulties at home of the Washington administration in pacifying public opinion and asserted a personal belief that strict neutrality was England’s best policy, “although circumstances may arise which may call for a different course.”  On the same day in the Commons the debate was of a like general tenor to that in the Lords, but Disraeli differed from his chief (Derby) in that he thought America had been placed in a very difficult position in which she had acted very honourably.  Palmerston took much credit for the energetic military preparations, but stated “from that position of strict neutrality, it is not our intention to depart “—­an important declaration if taken, as apparently it was not, as fixing a policy.  In substance all speakers, whether Whig or Tory, praised the Government’s stand, and expressed gratification with the peaceful outcome[497].

A further debate on the Trent was precipitated by Bright on February 17, in connection with the estimates to cover the cost of the military contingents sent to Canada.  He asserted that England by generously trusting to American honour, might have won her lasting friendship, and it is worthy of note that for the first time in any speech made by him in Parliament, Bright declared that the war was one for the abolition of slavery.  Palmerston in reply made no comment on the matter of slavery, but energetically defended the military preparations as a necessary precaution.