“The news from York Town, New Orleans, and Corinth seems to portend the conquest of the South.  We have now to see therefore, whether a few leaders or the whole population entertain those sentiments of alienation and abhorrence which were so freely expressed to M. Mercier by the Confederate Statesmen at Richmond.  I know not how to answer this question.  But there are other questions not less important to be solved in the North.  Will the Abolitionists succeed in proclaiming freedom to the Slaves of all those who have resisted?  I guess not.

But then the Union will be restored with its old disgrace and its old danger.  I confess I do not see any way to any fair solution except separation—­but that the North will not hear of—­nor in the moment of success would it be of any use to give them unpalatable advice[629].”

Two days preceding this letter, Thouvenel, at last fully informed of Mercier’s trip to Richmond, instructed him that France had no intention to depart from her attitude of strict neutrality and that it was more than ever necessary to wait events[630].

Mercier’s renewed efforts to start a movement toward mediation were then wholly personal.  Neither France nor Great Britain had as yet taken up this plan, nor were they likely to so long as Northern successes were continued.  In London, Mason, suffering a reaction from his former high hopes, summed up the situation in a few words:  “This Government passive and ignorant, France alert and mysterious.  The Emperor alone knows what is to come out of it, and he keeps his own secret[631].”  The Southern play, following the ministerial rebuff to Lindsay, was now to keep quiet and extended even to discouraging public demonstrations against governmental inaction.  Spence had prevented such a demonstration by cotton operators in Liverpool.  “I have kept them from moving as a matter of judgment.  If either of the Southern armies obtain such a victory as I think probable, then a move of this kind may be made with success and power, whilst at the wrong time for it havoc only would have resulted[632].”  The wrong time for Southern pressure on Russell was conceived by Seward to be the right time for the North.  Immediately following the capture of New Orleans he gave positive instructions to Dayton in Paris and Adams in London to propose the withdrawal of the declaration admitting Southern belligerent rights.  Thouvenel replied with some asperity on the folly of Seward’s demand, and made a strong representation of the necessity of France to obtain cotton and tobacco[633].  Adams, with evident reluctance, writing, “I had little expectation of success, but I felt it my duty at once to execute the orders,” advanced with Russell the now threadbare and customary arguments on the Proclamation of Neutrality, and received the usual refusal to alter British policy[634].  If Seward was sincere in asking for a retraction of belligerent rights to the South he much mistook European attitude;