But almost equally with this cause of joy there operated on American minds the notion that the United States had at last given to Great Britain a dose of her own medicine in a previous era—­had exercised upon a British ship that “right of search” which had been so keenly resented by America as to have become almost a permanent cause of a sense of injury once received and never to be forgotten.  There was no clear thinking about this; the obnoxious right of search in times of peace for vagrant seamen, the belligerent right exercised by Britain while America was a neutral, the practice of a “right of visit” claimed by Britain as necessary in suppression of the African Slave Trade—­all were confused by the American public (as they are still in many history textbooks to this day), and the total result of this mixing of ideas was a general American jubilation that the United States had now revenged herself for British offences, in a manner of which Great Britain could not consistently complain.  These two main reasons for exultation were shared by all classes, not merely by the uninformed mob of newspaper readers.  At a banquet tendered Captain Wilkes in Boston on November 26, Governor Andrews of Massachusetts called Wilkes’ action “one of the most illustrious services that had made the war memorable,” and added “that there might be nothing left [in the episode] to crown the exultation of the American heart, Commodore Wilkes fired his shot across the bows of the ship that bore the British lion at its head[437].”

All America first applauded the act, then plunged into discussion of its legality as doubts began to arise of its defensibility—­and wisdom.  It became a sort of temporarily popular “parlour game” to argue the international law of the case and decide that Great Britain could have no cause of complaint[438].  Meanwhile at Washington itself there was evidenced almost equal excitement and approval—­but not, fortunately, by the Department responsible for the conduct of foreign relations.  Secretary of the Navy Welles congratulated Wilkes on his “great public service,” though criticizing him for not having brought the Trent into port for adjudication.  Congress passed a joint resolution, December 2, thanking Wilkes for his conduct, and the President was requested to give him a gold medal commemorative of his act.  Indeed, no evidence of approbation was withheld save the formal approval and avowal of national responsibility by the Secretary of State, Seward.  On him, therefore, and on the wisdom of men high in the confidence of the Cabinet, like Sumner, Lyons pinned his faint hope of a peaceful solution.  Thoroughly alarmed and despondent, anxious as to the possible fate of Canada[439], he advised against any public preparations in Canada for defence, on the ground that if the Trent affair did blow over it should not appear that we ever thought it an insult which would endanger peace[440].  This was very different from the action and attitude of the Government at home, as yet unknown to Lyons.  He wisely waited in silence, advising like caution to others, until the receipt of instructions.  Silence, at the moment, was also a friendly service to the United States.