The Government did indeed feel compelled to lay before Parliament the papers on the blockade.  This was a bulky document of one hundred and twenty-six pages and covered the period from May 3, 1861, to February 17, 1862.  In it were the details of the institution of the blockade, reports from British consuls on its effectiveness, lists of vessels captured and of vessels evading it, all together furnishing a very complete view of this, the principal maritime belligerent effort of the North[569].  The Blockade Papers gave opportunity for debate, if desired, and especially so as almost at the end of this document appeared that instruction of February 15 by Russell to Lyons, which clearly stated British acceptance of the blockade as effective.  Mason’s interview with Russell occurred on the tenth.  Five days later, after Spence had been urged vainly to use his influence for “postponement,” Russell, so it must appear, gave challenge to pro-Southern sentiment by asserting the effectiveness of the blockade, a challenge almost immediately made known to Parliament by the presentation of papers.

Unless Southern sympathizers were meekly to acquiesce, without further protest, in governmental policy they must now make some decided effort.  This came in the shape of a debate in the Commons, on March 7, of a motion by Gregory urging the Government to declare the blockade ineffective[570], and of a similar debate on March 10 in the Lords.  As is inevitable where many speakers participate in a debate the arguments advanced were repeated and reiterated.  In the Commons important speeches for the motion were made by Gregory, Bentinck, Sir James Ferguson, Lord Robert Cecil and Lindsay, while against it appeared Forster and Monckton Milnes.  The Solicitor-General, Roundell Palmer, presented the Government view.  Gregory opened the debate by seeking to make clear that while himself favourable to recognition of the South the present motion had no essential bearing on that question and was directed wholly to a fact—­that the blockade was not in reality effective and should not be recognized as such.  He presented and analysed statistics to prove the frequency with which vessels passed through the blockade, using the summaries given by Mason to Russell in their interview of February 10, which were now before Parliament in the document on the blockade just presented, and he cited the reports of Bunch at Charleston as further evidence.  This was the burden of Gregory’s argument[571], but he glanced in passing at many other points favourable to the South, commenting on its free trade principles, depicting the “Stone Fleet” as a barbarity, asserting the right of the South to secede, declaring that France regarded British attitude as determined by a selfish policy looking to future wars, and attacking Seward on the ground of American inconsistency, falsely paraphrasing him as stating that “as for all those principles of international law, which we have ever upheld, they are as but dust in the balance compared with the exigencies of the moment[572].”  Gregory concluded with the statement that the United States should be treated “with justice and nothing more.”