[Footnote 803:  Palmerston MS. Marked:  “Printed Oct. 24, 1862.”]

[Footnote 804:  Morley, Gladstone, II, 84.  Morley was the first to make clear that no final decision was reached on October 23, a date hitherto accepted as the end of the Cabinet crisis.  Rhodes, IV, 337-348, gives a resume of talk and correspondence on mediation, etc., and places October 23 as the date when “the policy of non-intervention was informally agreed upon” (p. 343), Russell’s “change of opinion” being also “complete” (p. 342).  Curiously the dictum of Rhodes and others depends in some degree on a mistake in copying a date.  Slidell had an important interview with Napoleon on October 28 bearing on an armistice, but this was copied as October 22 in Bigelow’s France and the Confederate Navy, p. 126, and so came to be written into narratives of mediation proposals.  Richardson, II, 345, gives the correct date.  Rhodes’ supposition that Seward’s instructions of August 2 became known to Russell and were the determining factor in altering his intentions is evidently erroneous.]

[Footnote 805:  Maxwell, Clarendon, II, 265.]

[Footnote 806:  Ibid., p. 266.]

[Footnote 807:  Russell Papers.  Palmerston to Russell, Oct. 24, 1862.  Palmerston was here writing of Italian and American affairs.]

[Footnote 808:  Palmerston MS. Oct. 25, 1862.]

[Footnote 809:  Russell Papers.  To Russell.]

[Footnote 810:  F.O., France, Vol. 1446.  Cowley to Russell, Oct. 28, 1862.  Cowley, like Lyons, was against action.  He approved Drouyn de Lhuys’ “hesitation.”  It appears from the Russian archives that France approached Russia.  On October 31, D’Oubril, at Paris, was instructed that while Russia had always been anxious to forward peace in America, she stood in peculiarly friendly relations with the United States, and was against any appearance of pressure.  It would have the contrary effect from that hoped for.  If England and France should offer mediation Russia, “being too far away,” would not join, but might give her moral support. (Russian Archives, F.O. to D’Oubril, Oct. 27, 1862 (O.S.).  No. 320.) On the same date Stoeckl was informed of the French overtures, and was instructed not to take a stand with France and Great Britain, but to limit his efforts to approval of any agreement by the North and South to end the war.  Yet Stoeckl was given liberty of action if (as Gortchakoff did not believe) the time had assuredly come when both North and South were ready for peace, and it needed but the influence of some friendly hand to soothe raging passions and to lead the contending parties themselves to begin direct negotiations (Ibid., F.O. to Stoeckl, Oct. 27, 1862 (O.S.).)]

[Footnote 811:  Mason Papers.  Slidell to Mason, Oct. 29, 1862.  Slidell’s full report to Benjamin is in Richardson, II, 345.]

[Footnote 812:  F.O., France, Vol. 1446, No. 1236.  Cowley thought neither party would consent unless it saw some military advantage. (Russell Papers.  Cowley to Russell, Oct. 31, 1862.) Morley, Gladstone, II, 84-5, speaks of the French offer as “renewed proposals of mediation.”  There was no renewal for this was the first proposal, and it was not one of mediation though that was an implied result.]