itish ministry,
however, appear more problematical.

Mr. Rhodes thinks he can discern evidence that Adams communicated
indirectly to Palmerston the contents of a dispatch from Seward which
indicated that the United States would accept war rather than mediation.
Palmerston had kept his eyes upon the Maryland campaign, and Lee's
withdrawal did not increase his confidence in the strength of the South.
Lord Russell, two months previous, had flatly told the Confederate envoy
at London that the South need not hope for recognition unless it could
establish itself without aid, and that "the fluctuating events of
the war, the alternation of defeat and victory," composed such a
contradictory situation that "Her Majesty's Government are still
determined to wait."

Perhaps the veiled American warning--assuming it was conveyed to
Palmerston, which seems highly probable--was not the only diplomatic
innuendo of the autumn of 1862 that has escaped the pages of history.
Slidell at Paris, putting together the statements of the British
Ambassador and those of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, found in
them contradictions as to what was going on between the two governments
in relation to America. He took a hand by attempting to inspire M.
Drouyn de L'huys with distrust of England, telling him he "HAD SEEN...a
letter from a leading member of the British Cabinet...in which he very
plainly insinuated that France was playing an unfair game," trying to
use England as Napoleon's catspaw. Among the many motives that may
well have animated the Palmerston Government in its waiting policy, a
distrust of Napoleon deserves to be considered.

It is scarcely rash, however, to find the chief motive in home politics.
The impetuous Gladstone at Newcastle lost his head and spoke too soon.
The most serious effect of his premature utterance was the prompt
reaction of the "Northern party" in the Cabinet and in the country.
Whatever Palmerston's secret desires were, he was not prepared to take
the high hand, and he therefore permitted other members of the Cabinet
to state in public that Gladstone had been misunderstood. In an
interview with Adams, Lord Russell, "whilst endeavoring to excuse Mr.
Gladstone," assured him that "the policy of the Government was to adhere
to a strict neutrality and leave the struggle to settle itself." In the
last analysis, the Northern party in England was gaining ground. The
news from America, possibly, and Gladstone's ras