merely to draw from Russell an official statement.  Production of the papers was refused.  Russell stated that the Government still maintained its policy of strict neutrality, that if any action was to be taken it should be by all the maritime powers and that if, in the parliamentary recess, any new policy seemed advisable he would first communicate with those powers.  He also declared very positively that as yet no proposal had been received from any foreign power in regard to America, laying stress upon the “perfect accord” between Great Britain and France[724].

Mason commented on this speech that someone was evidently lying and naturally believed that someone to be Russell.  He hoped that France would promptly make this clear[725].  But France gave no sign of lack of “perfect accord.”  On the contrary Thouvenel even discouraged Slidell from following Mason’s example of demanding recognition and the formal communication was withheld, Mason acquiescing[726].  Slidell thought new disturbances in Italy responsible for this sudden lessening of French interest in the South, but he was gloomy, seeing again the frustration of high hopes.  August 24 he wrote Benjamin: 

“You will find by my official correspondence that we are still hard and fast aground here.  Nothing will float us off but a strong and continued current of important successes in the field.

     I have no hope from England, because I am satisfied that she
     desires an indefinite prolongation of the war, until the
     North shall be entirely exhausted and broken down.

Nothing can exceed the selfishness of English statesmen except their wretched hypocrisy.  They are continually casting about their disinterested magnaminity and objection of all other considerations than those dictated by a high-toned morality, while their entire policy is marked by egotism and duplicity.  I am getting to be heartily tired of Paris[727].”

On August 7 Parliament adjourned, having passed on the last day of the session an Act for the relief of the distress in Lancashire by authorizing an extension of powers to the Poor Law Guardians.  Like Slidell and Mason pro-Northern circles in London thought that in August there had come to a disastrous end the Southern push for a change in British policy, and were jubilant.  To be sure, Russell had merely declared that the time for action was “not yet” come, but this was regarded as a sop thrown to the South.  Neither in informed Southern nor Northern circles outside the Cabinet was there any suspicion, except by Adams, that in the six months elapsed since Lindsay had begun his movement the Ministry had been slowly progressing in thoughts of mediation.