better to wait until it had arrived. I told him that my
opinion was that the crisis had passed, at least so far as
that the war of invasion would end with the campaign[1190]."

Reporting the interview to Slidell in much the same language, Mason
wrote:

"My own impressions derived from the whole interview are,
that [while] P. is as well satisfied as I am, that the
separation of the States is final and the independence of the
South an accomplished fact, the Ministry fears to move under
the menaces of the North[1191]."

Slidell's comment was bitter:

"I am very much obliged for your account of your interview
with Lord Palmerston. It resulted very much as I had
anticipated excepting that his Lordship appears to have said
even less than I had supposed he would. However, the time has
now arrived when it is comparatively of very little
importance what Queen or Emperor may say or think about us. A
plague, I say, on both your Houses[1192]."

Slidell's opinion from this time on was, indeed, that the South had
nothing to expect from Europe until the North itself should acknowledge
the independence of the Confederacy. July 21, _The Index_ expressed much
the same view and was equally bitter. It quoted an item in the _Morning
Herald_ of July 16, to the effect that Mason had secured an interview
with Palmerston and that "the meeting was satisfactory to all parties":

"The withdrawal of Mr. Lindsay's motion was, it is said, the
result of that interview, the Premier having given a sort of
implied promise to support it at a more opportune moment;
that is to say, when Grant and Sherman have been defeated,
and the Confederacy stand in no need of recognition."

In the same issue _The Index_ described a deputation of clergymen,
noblemen, Members of Parliament "and other distinguished and influential
gentlemen" who had waited upon Palmerston to urge mediation toward a
cessation of hostilities in America. Thus at last the joint project of
the Southern Independence Association and of the Society for Promoting
the Cessation of Hostilities in America had been put in execution
_after_ the political storm had passed and not before--when the
deputation might have had some influence. But the fact was that no
deputation, unless a purely party one, could have been collected before
the conclusion of the Danish crisis. When finally assembled it "h