is difficult to see what possible hope there can be of reducing the city[1105].”  But on July 20, full news of the events of July 4, when Vicksburg fell and Lee began his retreat from Gettysburg, was received and its significance acknowledged, though efforts were made to prove that these events simply showed that neither side could conquer the other[1106].  In contradiction of previous assertions that “another Vicksburg” might easily be set up to oppose Northern advance in the west there was now acknowledgment that the capture of this one remaining barrier on the Mississippi was a great disaster to the South. The Index, forgetful that it was supposedly a British publication, declared:  “The saddest news which has reached us since the fall of New Orleans is the account of the surrender of Vicksburg.  The very day on which the capitulation took place renders the blow heavier[1107].”

“The fall of Vicksburg,” wrote Spence, “has made me ill all the week, never yet being able to drive it off my mind[1108].”  Adams reported that the news had caused a panic among the holders of the Cotton Loan bonds and that the press and upper classes were exceedingly glad they had refused support of Roebuck’s motion[1109].

If July, 1863, may in any way be regarded as the “crisis” of Southern effort in England, it is only as a despairing one doomed to failure from the outset, and receiving a further severe set-back by the ill-fortune of Lee’s campaign into Pennsylvania.  The real crisis of governmental attitude had long since passed.  Naturally this was not acknowledged by the staunch friends of the South any more than at Richmond it was acknowledged (or understood) that Gettysburg marked the crisis of the Confederacy.  But that the end of Southern hope for British intervention had come at Richmond, was made clear by the action of Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State.  On August 4, he recalled Mason, writing that the recent debates in Parliament showed the Government determined not to receive him: 

“Under these circumstances, your continued residence in London is neither conducive to the interests nor consistent with the dignity of this Government, and the President therefore requests that you consider your mission at an end, and that you withdraw, with your secretary, from London[1110].”

A private letter accompanying the instruction authorized Mason to remain if there were any “marked change” in governmental attitude, but since the decision of the Ministry to seize the Laird Rams had been made public at nearly the same moment when this instruction was received, September 15, Mason could hardly fail to retire promptly.  Indeed, the very fact of that seizure gave opportunity for a dramatic exit though there was no connection between Benjamin’s instruction and the stopping of Confederate ship-building in England.  The real connection was with the failure of the Gettysburg campaign and the humiliating collapse of Roebuck’s motion.  Even the Times was now expanding upon the “serious reverses” of the South and making it clearly understood that England “has not had and will not have the slightest inclination to intervention or mediation, or to take any position except that of strict neutrality[1111].”