There can be little doubt that this Washington rumour was largely the result of the very positive opinion held by Mercier of ultimate Southern success and his somewhat free private communications.  He may, indeed, have been talking more freely than usual exactly because of anxiety at Northern success, for McClellan, so far as was then known, was steadily, if slowly, progressing toward a victory.  Mercier’s most recent instruction from Thouvenel gave him no authority to urge mediation, yet he thought the moment opportune for it and strongly urged this plan on Lyons.  The latter’s summary of this and his own analysis of the situation were as follows: 

“M.  Mercier thinks it quite within the range of possibility that the South may be victorious both in the battle in Virginia and in that in Tennessee.  He is at all events quite confident that whether victorious or defeated, they will not give in, and he is certainly disposed to advise his Government to endeavour to put an end to the war by intervening on the first opportunity.  He is, however, very much puzzled to devise any mode of intervention, which would have the effect of reviving French trade and obtaining cotton.  I should suppose he would think it desirable to go to great lengths to stop the war; because he believes that the South will not give in until the whole country is made desolate and that the North will very soon be led to proclaim immediate emancipation, which would stop the cultivation of cotton for an indefinite time.

I listen and say little when he talks of intervention.  It appears to me to be a dangerous subject of conversation.  There is a good deal of truth in M. Mercier’s anticipations of evil, but I do not see my way to doing any good.

If one is to conjecture what the state of things will be a month or six weeks hence, one may “guess” that McClellan will be at Richmond, having very probably got there without much real fighting.  I doubt his getting farther this summer, if so far....

The campaign will not be pushed with any vigour during the summer.  It may be begun again in the Autumn.  Thus, so far as Trade and Cotton are concerned, we may be next Autumn, just in the situation we are now.  If the South really defeated either or both the Armies opposed to them I think it would disgust the North with the war, rather than excite them to fresh efforts.  If the armies suffer much from disease, recruiting will become difficult.  The credit of the Government has hitherto been wonderfully kept up, but it would not stand a considerable reverse in the field.  It is possible, under such circumstances that a Peace Party might arise; and perhaps just possible that England and France might give weight to such a Party[628].”

In brief, Lyons was all against either intervention or mediation unless a strong reaction toward peace should come in the North, and even then regarded the wisdom of such a policy as only “just possible.”  Nor was Russell inclined to depart from established policy.  He wrote to Lyons at nearly the same time: