et the situation, he and
Mercier, the French Minister, went the next day, June 15, on an official
visit to Seward with the intention of formally presenting the British
Proclamation and Thouvenel's instructions to Mercier to support it[178].
But Seward "said at once that he could not receive from us a
communication founded on the assumption that

the Southern Rebels were to be regarded as Belligerents; that
this was a determination to which the Cabinet had come
deliberately; that he could not admit that recent events had
in any respect altered the relations between Foreign Powers
and the Southern States; that he would not discuss the
question with us, but that he should give instructions to the
United States Ministers in London and Paris who would thus be
enabled to state the reasons for the course taken by their
Government to Your Lordship and to M. Thouvenel, if you
should be desirous to hear them.... He should not take
Official cognizance of the recognition of the Belligerent
Rights of Southern Rebels by Great Britain and France, unless
he should be forced to do so by an Official communication
addressed to the Government of the United States itself."

In the result the two Ministers submitted their papers to Seward "for
his own use only." They did not regard the moment well chosen "to be
punctilious." Lyons reported that Seward's language and demeanour
throughout the interview were "calm, friendly, and good humoured," but
the fact remained that the United States had not been officially
notified of the Proclamation of Neutrality, and that the American
Government, sensitive to popular excitement in the matter and committed
to the theory of a rebellion of peoples, was thus left free to continue
argument in London without any necessity of making formal protest and of
taking active steps to support such protest[179]. The official relation
was eased by the conciliatory acquiescence of Lyons. The public anger of
America, expressed in her newspapers, astonished the British press and,
temporarily, made them more careful in comment on American affairs. The
_Times_ told its readers to keep cool. "It is plain that the utmost care
and circumspection must be used by every man or party in England to
avoid giving offence to either of the two incensed belligerents[180]."
In answer to the Northern outcry at the lack of British sympathy, it
declared "Neutrality--str