“Your description of the state of things between the two parties is most comprehensive and just.  I am, however, much inclined to agree with Lewis that at present we could take no step nor make any communication of a distinct proposition with any advantage.”

* * * * *

“All that we could possibly do without injury to our position would be to ask the two Parties not whether they would agree to an armistice but whether they might not turn their thoughts towards an arrangement between themselves.  But the answer of each might be written by us beforehand.  The Northerners would say that the only condition of arrangement would be the restoration of the Union; the South would say their only condition would be an acknowledgment by the North of Southern Independence—­we should not be more advanced and should only have pledged each party more strongly to the object for which they are fighting.  I am therefore inclined to change the opinion on which I wrote to you when the Confederates seemed to be carrying all before them, and I am very much come back to our original view of the matter, that we must continue merely to be lookers-on till the war shall have taken a more decided turn[796].”

By previous arrangement the date October 23 had been set for a Cabinet to consider the American question but Russell now postponed it, though a few members appeared and held an informal discussion in which Russell still justified his “armistice” policy and was opposed by Lewis and the majority of those present.  Palmerston did not attend, no action was possible and technically no Cabinet was held[797].  It soon appeared that Russell, vexed at the turn matters had taken, was reluctant in yielding and did not regard the question as finally settled.  Yet on the afternoon of this same day Adams, much disturbed by the rumours attendant upon the speeches of Gladstone and Lewis, sought an explanation from Russell and was informed that the Government was not inclined at present to change its policy but could make no promises for the future[798].  This appeared to Adams to be an assurance against any effort by Great Britain and has been interpreted as disingenuous on Russell’s part.  Certainly Adams’ confidence was restored by the interview.  But Russell was apparently unconvinced as yet that a suggestion of armistice would necessarily lead to the evil consequences prophesied by Lewis, or would, indeed, require any departure from a policy of strict neutrality.  On the one side Russell was being berated by pro-Southerners as weakly continuing an outworn policy and as having “made himself the laughing-stock of Europe and of America[799];” on the other he was regarded, for the moment, as insisting, through pique, on a line of action highly dangerous to the preservation of peace with the North.  October 23 Palmerston wrote his approval of the Cabinet postponement, but declared Lewis’ doctrine of “no recognition of Southern independence until the North had admitted it” was unsound[800].  The next day he again wrote:  “... to talk to the belligerents about peace at present would be as useless as asking the winds during the last week to let the waters remain calm[801].”