(1) Complete restoration of the Union.

     (2) No receding on emancipation.

     (3) No cessation of hostilities “short of an end of the war,
     and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the Government.”

A few days later the President decided that his own presence was desirable and joined his Secretary of State in the “Hampton Roads Conference” of February 3.  It quickly appeared that the Confederates did indeed hope to draw the North into a foreign war for a “traditional American object,” using the argument that after such a war restoration of the Union would be easily accomplished.  The enemy proposed was not Great Britain but France, and the place of operations Mexico.  There was much discussion of this plan between Seward and Stephens, the leading Southern Commissioner, but Lincoln merely listened, and when pressed for comment stuck fast to his decision that no agreement whatever would be entered into until the South had laid down its arms.  The Southerners urged that there was precedent for an agreement in advance of cessation of hostilities in the negotiations between Charles I and the Roundheads.  Lincoln’s reply was pithy:  “I do not profess to be posted in history.  On all such matters I turn you over to Seward.  All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I is that he lost his head in the end[1272].”

When news of the holding of this conference reached England there occurred a panic on the Stock Exchange due to the uncertainty created by the prospect of an immediate end of the American War.  “The consternation,” wrote Adams, “was extraordinary[1273].”  What did the United States intend to do?  “The impression is now very general that peace and restoration at home are synonymous with war with this country.”  There existed an “extraordinary uneasiness and indefinite apprehension as to the future.”  So reported Adams to Seward; and he advised that it might be well for the United States “to consider the question how far its policy may be adapted to quiet this disturbance”; due allowance should be made for the mortification of those leaders who had been so confident of Southern victory and for expressions that might now fall from their lips; it was possible that reassurances given by the United States might aid in the coming elections in retaining the Government in power—­evidently, in Adams’ opinion, a result to be desired[1274].

Adams’ advice as to the forthcoming elections was but repetition of that given earlier and with more emphasis[1275].  Apparently Seward was then in no mood to act on it, for his reply was distinctly belligerent in tone, recapitulating British and Canadian offences in permitting the enemy to use their shores, and asserting that the measures now proposed of abrogating the reciprocity treaty of 1854 with Canada and the agreement of 1817 prohibiting armaments on the Great Lakes, were but defensive measures required to protect American soil[1276].  These matters Adams had