April 15, Cowley, having received, privately, Russell’s approval of the language used to Lindsay and believing that Thouvenel was about to write to Flahault on the interviews, felt it “necessary to bring them also on my part officially to your [Russell’s] notice[615].”  This official report does not differ materially from that in Cowley’s private letter of the thirteenth, but omitted, naturally, aspersions on Lindsay and suspicions of the use to which he might put his information[616].  Cowley had held a long conversation with Thouvenel, in which it was developed that the source of the Emperor’s views was Rouher, Minister of Commerce, who was very anxious over the future of cotton supply.  It appeared that Lindsay in conversation with Thouvenel had affirmed that “I [Cowley] coincided in his views.”  This exasperated Cowley, and he resented Lindsay’s “unofficial diplomacy,” telling Thouvenel that he “was placed in a false position by Mr. Lindsay’s interference.  M. Thouvenel exclaimed that his own position was still more false, and that he should make a point of seeing the Emperor, on the following morning, and of ascertaining the extent of His Majesty’s participation in the proceeding.”  This was done, with the result that Napoleon acknowledged that on Lindsay’s request he had authorized him to recount to Russell and Palmerston the views expressed, but asserted that “he had not charged him to convey those opinions.”  Cowley concluded his despatch: 

“Monsieur Thouvenel said that the Emperor did not understand the intricacies of this question—­that His Majesty had confounded remarks conveyed in despatches with deliberate proposals—­that no doubt the French Government was more preoccupied with the Cotton question than Her Majesty’s Government seemed to be, and this he (Thouvenel) had shewn in his communications with M. de Flahault, but that he knew too well the general opinions prevailing in England to have made proposals.  Nor, indeed, did he see what proposals could have been made.  He had endeavoured to shew both the Emperor and M. Rouher, that to recognize the independence of the South would not bring Cotton into the markets, while any interference with the blockade would probably have produced a collision.  At the same time he could not conceal from me the just anxiety he experienced to reopen the Cotton trade.  Might not the Northern States be induced to declare some one port Neutral, at which the trade could be carried on?

I said that the events which were now passing in America demonstrated the prudence of the policy pursued by the two Governments.  The recognition of the South would not have prevented the North from continuing its armaments and undertaking the expedition now in progress, and a refusal to acknowledge the blockade as efficient must have been followed by the employment of force, on a question of extreme delicacy[617].”

Formal approval was given Cowley by Russell on April