the prisoners. This they did in a note of which the expression was
made milder by the wish of the Queen (conveyed in almost the last
letter of the Prince Consort), but which required compliance within a
fortnight. Meanwhile Secretary Welles had approved the sea captain's
action. The North was jubilant at the capture, the more so because
Mason and Slidell were Southern statesmen of the lower type and held to
be specially obnoxious; and the House of Representatives, to make
matters worse, voted its approval of what had been done. Lincoln, on
the very day when the news of the capture came, had seen and said
privately that on the principles which America had itself upheld in the
past the prisoners would have to be given up with an apology. But
there is evidence that he now wavered, and that, bent as he was on
maintaining a united North, he was still too distrustful of his own
better judgment as against that of the public. At this very time he
was already on other points in painful conflict with many friends. In
any case he submitted to Seward a draft despatch making the ill-judged
proposal of arbitration. He gave way to Seward, but at the Cabinet
meeting on Christmas Eve, at which Seward submitted a despatch yielding
to the British demand, it is reported that Lincoln, as well as Chase
and others, was at first reluctant to agree, and that it was Bates and
Seward that persuaded the Cabinet to a just and necessary surrender.

This was the last time that there was serious friction in the actual
intercourse of the two Governments. The lapse of Great Britain in
allowing the famous _Alabama_ to sail was due to delay and misadventure
("week-ends" or the like) in the proceedings of subordinate officials,
and was never defended, and the numerous minor controversies that
arose, as well as the standing disagreement as to the law of blockade
never reached the point of danger. For all this great credit was due
to Lord Lyons and to C. F. Adams, and to Seward also, when he had a
little sobered down, but it might seem as if the credit commonly given
to Lincoln by Americans rested on little but the single happy
performance with the earlier despatch which has been mentioned. Adams
and Lyons were not aware of his beneficent influence--the papers of the
latter contain little reference to him beyond a kindly record of a
trivial conversation, at the end of which, as the Ambassador was going
for a holiday to England, the President said,