[Illustration:  WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER (1851)]

In short, the friends of the North, if they sought some immediate pledge by the Government, had gone the wrong way about to secure it.  Vigour in attack was no way to secure a favourable response from Palmerston.  Always a fighting politician in public it was inevitable that he should now fight back.  Far from making the statement recommended to him by Russell, he concluded the debate by reasserting the correctness of governmental procedure in the case of the Alabama, and himself with vigour accused Forster and Bright of speaking in such a way as to increase rather than allay American irritation.  Yet a careful reading of the speeches of both the Solicitor-General and of Palmerston, shows that while vindicating the Government’s conduct in the past, they were avoiding any pledge of whatever nature, for the future.

Adams was clearly disappointed and thought that the result of the debate was “rather to undo in the popular mind the effect of Lord Russell’s speech than to confirm it[1002].”  He and his English advisers were very uneasy, not knowing whether to trust to Russell’s intimations of more active governmental efforts, or to accept the conclusion that his advice had been rejected by Palmerston[1003].  Possibly if less anxious and alarmed they would have read more clearly between the lines of parliamentary utterances and have understood that their failure to hurry the Government into public announcement of a new policy was no proof that old policy would be continued.  Disappointed at the result in Parliament, they forgot that the real pressure on Government was coming from an American declaration of an intention to issue privateers unless something were done to satisfy that country.  Certainly Russell was unmoved by the debate for on April 3 he wrote to Palmerston: 

“The conduct of the gentlemen who have contracted for the ironclads at Birkenhead is so very suspicious that I have thought it necessary to direct that they should be detained.  The Attorney-General has been consulted and concurs in the measure, as one of policy, though not of strict law.

“We shall thus test the law, and if we have to pay damages we have satisfied the opinion which prevails here as well as in America that this kind of neutral hostility should not be allowed to go on without some attempt to stop it[1004].”

Two days later, on April 5, the Alexandra, a vessel being equipped to join the Alabama as a commerce destroyer, was seized on the ground that she was about to violate the Enlistment Act and a new policy, at least to make a test case in law, was thereby made public.  In fact, on March 30, but three days after the debate of March 27, the case of the Alexandra had been taken up by Russell, referred to the law officers on March 31, and approved by them for seizure on April 4[1005].  Public meetings were quickly organized in support of the Government’s action, as that in Manchester on April 6, when six thousand people applauded the seizure of the Alexandra, demanded vigorous prosecution of the Lairds and others, and urged governmental activity to prevent any further ship-building for the South[1006].