The unprejudiced interpretation of this report is merely that Russell refrained from pressing Dallas about a matter—­blockade—­of which Dallas knew nothing, agreeing that this would be explained by Adams, and especially that he let Dallas understand that Gregory’s motion, which was one for recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the South, would be postponed.  If there was a pledge here it was a pledge not to recognize Southern sovereignty until after Adams’ arrival.

But even if there was no promise of delay “there can be no question,” writes the son of Adams in a brief biography of his father, “that the proclamation of the 13th was issued with unseemly haste....  The purpose was manifest.  It was to have the status of the Confederacy as a belligerent an accomplished fact before the arrival of the newly accredited minister.  This precipitate action was chiefly significant as indicating an animus; that animus being really based on ... the belief, already matured into a conviction, that the full recognition of the Confederacy as an independent power was merely a question of time, and probably of a very short time[191].”  The author does not, however, support the contemporary American contention that any Proclamation was contrary to international custom and that no recognition of belligerent status was permissible to neutrals until the “insurgents” had forced the mother country itself to recognize the division as fully accomplished, even while war still continued.  Indeed American practice was flatly contradictory of the argument, as in the very pertinent example of the petty Canadian rebellion of 1837, when President Van Buren had promptly issued a proclamation of neutrality.  It is curious that in his several replies to Seward’s complaints Russell did not quote a letter from Stevenson, the American Minister to London, addressed to Palmerston, May 22, 1838.  Stevenson was demanding disavowal and disapproval of the “Caroline” affair, and incidentally he asserted as an incontrovertible principle “that civil wars are not distinguished from other wars, as to belligerent and neutral rights; that they stand upon the same ground, and are governed by the same principles; that whenever a portion of a State seek by force of arms to overthrow the Government, and maintain independence, the contest becomes one de facto of war[192].”  This was as exact, and correct, a statement of the British view as could have been desired[193].

The American Minister, whatever his official representation, did not then hold, privately, the view of “unfriendly animus.”  On July 2, 1861, his secretary son wrote:  “The English are really on our side; of that I have no doubt whatever. [Later he was less sure of this.] But they thought that as a dissolution seemed inevitable and as we seemed to have made up our minds to it, that their Proclamation was just the thing to keep them straight with both sides, and when it turned out otherwise they did their best to correct their mistake[194].”  The modern historical judgment of the best American writers likewise exonerates the British Government of “unfriendly animus[195],” but is still apt to refer to the “premature” issue of the Proclamation.