The Ministry did not wait for public pressure.  Immediately on receipt of the news, motions were made, April 27, in both Lords and Commons for an address to the Queen, to be debated “Monday next,” expressing “sorrow and indignation” at the assassination of Lincoln[1297].  April 28, Russell instructed Bruce to express at Washington that “the Government, the Parliament, and the Nation are affected by a unanimous feeling of abhorrence of the criminals guilty of these cowardly and atrocious crimes, and sympathy for the Government and People of the United States[1298]....”  Russell wrote here of both Lincoln and Seward.  The Queen wrote a personal letter of sympathy to Mrs. Lincoln.  Already Bruce had written from Washington that Lincoln “was the only friend of the South in his party[1299],” and he was extremely anxious that Seward’s recovery might be hastened, fearing the possibility of Sumner’s assumption of the Secretaryship of State.  “We miss terribly the comparative moderation of Lincoln and Seward[1300].”

[Illustration:  BRITANNIA SYMPATHISES WITH COLUMBIA. Reproduced by permission of the Proprietors of “Punch"]

The American Minister naturally became the centre toward which the public outpouring of sympathy was directed.  “The excitement in this country has been deep and wide, spreading through all classes of society.  My table is piled high with cards, letters and resolutions[1301]....”  Indeed all the old sources of “addresses” to Adams on emancipation and many organizations having no professed interest in that subject now sent to him resolutions—­the emancipation societies, of horror, indignation, and even accusation against the South; the others of sympathy, more moderate in tone, yet all evincing an appreciation of the great qualities of Lincoln and of the justice of the cause of the North, now victorious.  Within two weeks Adams reported over four hundred such addresses from Emancipation Societies, Chambers of Commerce, Trades Unions, municipalities, boroughs, churches, indeed from every known type of British organizations[1302].

On May 1 the motion for the address to the Crown came up for debate.  In the Lords, Russell emphasized the kindly and forgiving qualities of Lincoln as just those needed in America, and now lost by his death.  Derby, for the Opposition, expressed the horror of the world at Booth’s act, joined in expressions of sympathy to the United States, but repeated the old phrase about the “North fighting for empire, the South for independence,” and hinted that the unusual step now being taken by Parliament had in it a “political object,” meaning that the motion had been introduced in the hope of easing American irritation with Great Britain[1303].  It was not a tactful speech, but Derby’s lieutenant in the Commons, Disraeli, saved his party from criticism by what was distinctly the most thoughtful and best-prepared utterance of the day.  Palmerston was ill.  The Government speech was made by Grey, who incautiously began by asserting that the majority of the people of Great Britain had always been on the side of the North and was met by cries of “No, no” and “Hear, hear.”  Disraeli concluded the debate.  He said: