3rd Ser., CLXXIII, pp. 430-41, 544-50,
955-1021. The Tory point of view is argued at length by Brooks Adams,
_The Seizure of the Laird Rams_, pp. 312-324.]

[Footnote 1039: Hansard, 3rd. Ser., CLXXIV, pp. 1862-1913. _The Index_,
naturally vicious in comment on the question of the Rams, summed up its
approval of Derby's contentions: "Europe and America alike will
inevitably believe that it was the threat of Mr. Adams, and nothing
else, which induced the Foreign Secretary to retract his letter of the
1st September, and they will draw the necessary conclusion that the way
to extort concessions from England is by bluster and menace." (Feb. 18,
1864, p. 106.)]

[Footnote 1040: Lairds brought suit for damages, but the case never
reached a decision, for the vessels were purchased by the Government.
This has been regarded as acknowledgment by the Government that it had
no case. In my view the failure to push the case to a conclusion was due
to the desire not to commit Great Britain on legal questions, in view of
the claim for damages certain to be set up by the United States on
account of the depredations of the _Alabama_.]

CHAPTER XIV

ROEBUCK'S MOTION

In the mid-period during which the British Government was seeking to
fulfil its promise of an altered policy as regards ship-building and
while the public was unaware that such a promise had been given, certain
extreme friends of the South thought the time had come for renewed
pressure upon the Government, looking toward recognition of the
Confederacy. The _Alexandra_ had been seized in April, but the first
trial, though appealed, had gone against the Government in June, and
there was no knowledge that the Ministry was determined in its stand.
From January to the end of March, 1863, the public demonstrations in
approval of the emancipation proclamation had somewhat checked
expressions of Southern sympathy, but by the month of June old friends
had recovered their courage and a new champion of the South came forward
in the person of Roebuck.

Meanwhile the activities of Southern agents and Southern friends had not
ceased even if they had, for a time, adopted a less vigorous tone. For
four months after the British refusal of Napoleon's overtures on
mediation, in November, 1862, the friends of the South were against
"acting now," but this did not imply that they thought the cause lost or
in any sense hopeless. Publicists either neutral in attitude or even
professedly s