Public opinion in England in the main heartily supported the Cabinet decision.  Hammond described it as “almost universal in this country against interference[825],” an estimate justified if the more important journals are taken into account but not true of all.  The Times of November 13 declared: 

“We are convinced that the present is not the moment for these strong measures.  There is now great reason to hope that by means of their own internal action the Americans may themselves settle their own affairs even sooner than Europe could settle them for them.  We have waited so long that it would be unpardonable in us to lose the merit of our self-denial at such a moment as this....  We quite agree with Mr. Cobden that it would be cheaper to keep all Lancashire on turtle and venison than to plunge into a desperate war with the Northern States of America, even with all Europe at our back.  In a good cause, and as a necessity forced upon us in defence of our honour, or of our rightful interests, we are as ready to fight as we ever were; but we do not see our duty or our interest in going blindfold into an adventure such as this.  We very much doubt, more over, whether, if Virginia belonged to France as Canada belongs to England, the Emperor of the French would be so active in beating up for recruits in this American mediation league.”

This was followed up two days later by an assertion that no English statesman had at any time contemplated an offer of mediation made in such a way as to lead to actual conflict with the United States[826].  On the other hand the Herald, always intense in its pro-Southern utterances, and strongly anti-Palmerston in politics, professed itself unable to credit the rumoured Cabinet decision.  “Until we are positively informed that our Ministers are guilty of the great crime attributed to them,” the Herald declared, “we must hope against hope that they are innocent.”  If guilty they were responsible for the misery of Lancashire (depicted in lurid colours): 

“A clear, a sacred, an all-important duty was imposed upon them; to perform that duty would have been the pride and delight of almost any other Englishmen; and they, with the task before them and the power to perform it in their hands—­can it be that they have shrunk back in craven cowardice, deserted their ally, betrayed their country, dishonoured their own names to all eternity, that they might do the bidding of John Bright, and sustain for a while the infamous tyranny of a Butler, a Seward, and a Lincoln[827]?”

In the non-political Army and Navy Gazette the returned editor, W.H.  Russell, but lately the Times correspondent in America, jeered at the American uproar that might now be expected against France instead of England:  “Let the Emperor beware.  The scarred veteran of the New York Scarrons of Plum Gut has set his sinister or dexter eye upon him, and threatens him with the loss of his throne,”