“For fear the telegraph may commit some blunder I write to say that M. Mocquard’s note, being confidential, cannot be used in any way.  I showed it to Messrs. Roebuck and Lindsay when they were here and have no objection that they should again see it confidentially[1087].”

On June 29, Roebuck went to Baron Gros and received the information that no formal communication had been made to Russell.  The next day in an effort in some way to secure an admission of what Mason and his friends believed to be the truth, Lord Campbell asked Russell in the House of Lords if he had received either a document or a verbal communication outlining Napoleon’s desires.  Russell replied that Baron Gros had told him “an hour ago” that he had not even received any instruction to deliver such a communication[1088].  This was in the hours preceding the debate, now finally to occur in the Commons.  Evidently there had been an error in the understanding of Napoleon by Slidell, Roebuck and Lindsay, or else there was a question of veracity between Russell, Baron Gros and Napoleon.

Roebuck’s motion was couched in the form of a request to the Queen to enter into negotiations with foreign powers for co-operation in recognition of the Confederacy.  Roebuck argued that the South had in fact established its independence and that this was greatly to England’s advantage since it put an end to the “threatening great power” in the West.  He repeated old arguments based on suffering in Lancashire—­a point his opponents brushed aside as no longer of dangerous concern—­attacked British anti-slavery sentiment as mere hypocrisy and minimized the dangers of a war with the North, prophesying an easy victory for Great Britain.  Then, warmed to the real attack on the Government Roebuck related at length his interview with Napoleon, claiming to have been commissioned by the Emperor to urge England to action and asserting that since Baron Gros had been instructed to apply again to the British Cabinet it must be evident that the Ministry was concealing something from Parliament.  Almost immediately, however, he added that Napoleon had told him no formal French application could be renewed to Great Britain since Russell had revealed to Seward, through Lyons, the contents of a former application.

Thus following the usual pro-Southern arguments, now somewhat perfunctorily given, the bolt against the Government had been shot with all of Roebuck’s accustomed “vigour” of utterance[1089].  Here was direct attack; that it was a futile one early became evident in the debate.  Lord Robert Montagu, while professing himself a friend of the South, was sarcastic at the expense of Roebuck’s entrance into the field of diplomacy, enlarged upon the real dangers of becoming involved in the war, and moved an amendment in favour of continued British neutrality.  Palmerston was absent, being ill, but Gladstone, for the Government, while carefully avoiding expressions