but through me.  If Mr. Seward objects I cannot help it.  I must leave it to your Lordship and H.M.’s Government to support me.  My own despatch to Lord J. Russell I must send in some way, and so I take the responsibility of aiding British interests by sending the mercantile letters as well[359].”  And in Bunch’s printed report to Lyons on Mure’s arrest, his reply as to the private letters was, “I could not consider him [Mure] as being disqualified from being the bearer of a bag to Earl Russell, by his doing what everyone who left Charleston was doing daily[360]....”

Officially Lyons, on September 2, had reported a conversation with Belligny, the French Consul at Charleston, now in Washington, writing, “I am confirmed in the opinion that the negotiation, which was difficult and delicate, was managed with great tact and good judgment by the two Consuls[361].”  But this referred merely to the use of Trescott and its results, not to Bunch’s use of Mure.  The British Government was, indeed, prepared to defend the action of its agents in securing, indirectly, from the South, an acknowledgment of certain principles of international law.  Russell did not believe that Lincoln was “foolhardy enough to quarrel with England and France,” though Hammond (Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs) “is persuaded that Seward wishes to pick a quarrel[362].”  Enquiry was promptly made of France, through Cowley, as to her stand in the matter of the consuls at Charleston, Russell intimating by an enquiry (later printed in the Parliamentary Papers), as to the initiation of the Declaration of Paris negotiations, that it was Thouvenel who had first suggested the approach to the South through the Consuls[363].  This was an error of memory[364], and Cowley was perturbed by Thouvenel’s reticence in reply to the main question.  The latter stated that if a like American demand were made on France “undoubtedly he could not give up an Agent who had done no more than execute the orders entrusted to him[365].”  This looked like harmony, but the situation for the two countries was not the same as no demand had been made for the recall of Belligny.  Cowley was, in reality, anxious and suspicious, for Thouvenel, in conversation, attributed Seward’s anger to Bunch’s alleged indiscretions in talk, and made it clear that France would not “stand by” unless Seward should protest to France against the fact of a communication (not a negotiation) having been held with the Confederacy[366].  Before the French reply was secured Russell had prepared but not sent an answer to Adams, notifying him that the bag from Bunch, on examination, was found not to contain “correspondence of the enemies of the Government of the United States” as had been suspected, and transmitting a copy of Bunch’s explanation of the reason for forwarding private letters[367].  In another letter to Adams of the same date Russell avowed the Government’s responsibility for Bunch’s action on the Declaration of Paris, and declined to recall him, adding: