as the only
possible leader of Republican party policy and rejoiced that this was
so, having great confidence in his chief's integrity and wisdom. Adams
himself was well suited to his new post. He was known as having early in
1849 fought the battle of anti-slavery as a "Free Soil Whig," and later
as a leading Republican member of Congress from Massachusetts.
Principally, however, he was suited to his post by education, family,
and character. He had been taken as a boy to Russia during his father's
ministry at St. Petersburg, and later had been educated in England. His
father and grandfather, John Quincy Adams and John Adams, both
Presidents of the United States, had both, also, been American Ministers
at London. Intensely patriotic, but having wide acquaintance through
training and study with European affairs, especially those of Britain,
and equipped with high intellectual gifts, Adams was still further
fitted to his new post by his power of cool judgment and careful
expression in critical times. His very coolness, sometimes appearing as
coldness and stiff dignity, rendered him an especially fit agent to deal
with Russell, a man of very similar characteristics. The two men quickly
learned to respect and esteem each other, whatever clash arose in
national policies.

But meanwhile Adams, in April, 1861, was not yet arrived in London. The
Southern Government organized at Montgomery, Alabama, but soon
transferred to Richmond, Virginia, was headed by Jefferson Davis as
President and Alexander Stephens as Vice-President. Neither man was well
known in England, though both had long been prominent in American
politics. The little British information on Davis, that he had served in
the United States Senate and as a Cabinet member, seemed to indicate
that he was better fitted to executive duties than his rival, Lincoln.
But Davis' foreign policy was wholly a matter for speculation, and his
Cabinet consisted of men absolutely unknown to British statesmen. In
truth it was not a Cabinet of distinction, for it was the misfortune of
the South that everywhere, as the Civil War developed, Southern
gentlemen sought reputation and glory in the army rather than in
political position. Nor did President Davis himself ever fully grasp the
importance to the South of a well-considered and energetic foreign
policy. At first, indeed, home controversy compelled anxious attention
to the exclusion of other matters. Until war cemented Southern
patri