good
ground of complaint leading to war would be established. _This_ was the
ultimate ulterior purpose in Seward's mind; the negotiation was but a
method of fixing a quarrel on some foreign Power in case the United
States should seek, as Seward desired, a cementing of the rift at home
by a foreign war.

In the details of the negotiation C.F. Adams agrees with Bancroft, but
with this new interpretation. The opening misunderstanding he ascribed,
as did Lyons, to the simple fact that Seward "had refused to see the
despatch" in which Russell's proposals were made[267]. Seward's
instructions of July 6, after the misunderstanding was made clear to
him, pushing the negotiation, were drawn when he was "still riding a
very high horse--the No. 10 charger, in fact, he had mounted on the 21st
of the previous May[268]," and this warlike charger he continued to ride
until the sobering Northern defeat at Bull Run, July 21, put an end to
his folly. If that battle had been a Northern victory he would have gone
on with his project. Now, with the end of a period of brain-storm and
the emergence of sanity in foreign policy, "Secretary Seward in due time
(September 7) pronounced the proposed reservation [by Russell] quite
'inadmissible.' And here the curtain fell on this somewhat prolonged and
not altogether creditable diplomatic farce[269]."

Incidentally C.F. Adams examined also British action and intention.
Lyons is wholly exonerated. "Of him it may be fairly said that his
course throughout seems to furnish no ground for criticism[270]." And
Lyons is quoted as having understood, in the end, the real purpose of
Seward's policy in seeking embroilment with Europe. He wrote to Russell
on December 6 upon the American publication of despatches, accompanying
the President's annual message: "Little doubt can remain, after reading
the papers, that the accession was offered solely with the view to the
effect it would have on the privateering operations of the Southern
States; and that a refusal on the part of England and France, after
having accepted the accession, to treat the Southern privateers as
pirates, would have been made a serious grievance, if not a ground of
quarrel[271]...." As to Russell, combating Henry Adams' view, it is
asserted that it was the great good fortune of the United States that
the British Foreign Secretary, having declared a policy of neutrality,
was not to be driven from its honest application by irritations, nor
se