Unquestionably Persigny here gave Slidell a hint of private instructions now being sent by Napoleon to Thouvenel who was on a visit to London.  The Emperor telegraphed “Demandez au gouvernement anglais s’il ne croit pas le moment venu de reconnaitre le Sud[699].”  Palmerston had already answered this question in Parliament and Thouvenel was personally very much opposed to the Emperor’s suggestion.  There were press rumours that he was in London to bring the matter to a head, but his report to Mercier was that interference in America was a very dangerous matter and that he would have been “badly received” by Palmerston and Russell if he had suggested any change in neutral policy[700].

In spite of this decided opposition by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs it is evident that one ground for renewed Southern hopes was the knowledge of the Emperor’s private desires.  Lindsay chose his time well for on July 16 the first thorough report on Lancashire was laid before Parliament[701], revealing an extremity of distress not previously officially authenticated, and during this week the papers were full of an impending disaster to McClellan’s army.  Lyons, now in London, on his vacation trip, was concerned for the future mainly because of cotton, but did not believe there was much danger of an immediate clash with America[702].  But the great Southern argument of the moment was the Northern military failure, the ability of the South to resist indefinitely and the hopelessness of the war.  On the morning of July 18 all London was in excitement over press statements that the latest news from America was not of McClellan’s retreat but of the capture of his entire army.

Lindsay’s motion was set for debate on this same July 18.  Adams thought the story of McClellan’s surrender had been set afloat “to carry the House of Commons off their feet in its debate to-night[703].”  The debate itself may be regarded as a serious attempt to push the Ministry into a position more favourable to the South, and the arguments advanced surveyed the entire ground of the causes of secession and the inevitability of the final separation of North and South.  They need but brief summary.  Lindsay, refusing to accede to appeals for postponement because “the South was winning anyway,” argued that slavery was no element in the conflict, that the Southern cause was just, and that England, because of her own difficulties, should mediate and bring to a conclusion a hopeless war.  He claimed the time was opportune since mediation would be welcomed by a great majority in the North, and he quoted from a letter by a labouring man in Lancashire, stating, “We think it high time to give the Southern States the recognition they so richly deserve.”