“My position here thus far has not been difficult or painful.  If I had followed the course of some of my colleagues in the diplomatic line, this country might have been on the high road to the confederate camp before now.  It did not seem to me to be expedient so to play into the hands of our opponents.  Although there has been and is more or less of sympathy with the slave-holders in certain circles, they are not so powerful as to overbear the general sentiment of the people.  The ministry has been placed in rather delicate circumstances, when a small loss of power on either extreme would have thrown them out[187].”

In Adams’ opinion the Liberals were on the whole more friendly, at least, to the North than were the Conservatives, and he therefore considered it best not to press too harshly upon the Government.

But the concluding sentence of this same letter was significant:  “I wait with patience—­but as yet I have not gone so far as to engage a house for more than a month at a time....”  He might himself be inclined to view more leniently the Proclamation of Neutrality and be able to find excuses for the alleged haste with which it had been issued, but his instructions required strong representations, especially on the latter point.  Adams’ report to Seward of June 14, just noted, on the interview with Russell of June 12, after treating of privateering and the Southern commissioners, turns in greater length to the alleged pledge of delay given by Russell to Dallas, and to the violation of that pledge in a hasty issue of the Proclamation.  He renews attack on the line already taken on May 18[188].  From this time on, throughout and after the war, this criticism was repeatedly made and with increasing bitterness.  British friends of the North joined in the American outcry.  By mere reiteration it became in the popular mind on both sides of the Atlantic an accepted and well-founded evidence of British governmental unfriendliness in May, 1861.  At the conclusion of the Civil War, John Bright in Parliament, commenting on the causes of American ill-will, declared that the Government of 1861, knowing that Adams was on his way, should in mere courtesy, have waited his arrival.  Then, said Bright, the Proclamation, entirely justifiable in itself, might have been issued without offence and without embittering the United States[189].

Had in fact a “pledge to wait” been given to Dallas; and was the Proclamation hasty and premature?  Russell always denied he had given any such pledge, and the text of Dallas’ report of the interview of May 1 would seem to support that denial[190].  On that day Russell for the second time told Dallas that England would not commit herself, as yet, as regards Southern recognition, clearly meaning a recognition of sovereignty, not of belligerency, and immediately asked Dallas what the rumours of a blockade meant.  Dallas replied that he had no information on this point, and Russell “acquiesced in the expediency of disregarding mere rumour, and waiting the full knowledge to be brought by my successor.  The motion, therefore, of Mr. Gregory may be further postponed, at his lordship’s suggestion.”