but through me. If Mr. Seward objects I cannot help it. I must
leave it to your Lordship and H.M.'s Government to support me. My own
despatch to Lord J. Russell I must send in some way, and so I take the
responsibility of aiding British interests by sending the mercantile
letters as well[359]." And in Bunch's printed report to Lyons on Mure's
arrest, his reply as to the private letters was, "I could not consider
him [Mure] as being disqualified from being the bearer of a bag to Earl
Russell, by his doing what everyone who left Charleston was doing
daily[360]...."

Officially Lyons, on September 2, had reported a conversation with
Belligny, the French Consul at Charleston, now in Washington, writing,
"I am confirmed in the opinion that the negotiation, which was difficult
and delicate, was managed with great tact and good judgment by the two
Consuls[361]." But this referred merely to the use of Trescott and its
results, not to Bunch's use of Mure. The British Government was, indeed,
prepared to defend the action of its agents in securing, _indirectly_,
from the South, an acknowledgment of certain principles of
international law. Russell did not believe that Lincoln was "foolhardy
enough to quarrel with England and France," though Hammond (Under
Secretary of Foreign Affairs) "is persuaded that Seward wishes to pick a
quarrel[362]." Enquiry was promptly made of France, through Cowley, as
to her stand in the matter of the consuls at Charleston, Russell
intimating by an enquiry (later printed in the Parliamentary Papers), as
to the initiation of the Declaration of Paris negotiations, that it was
Thouvenel who had first suggested the approach to the South through the
Consuls[363]. This was an error of memory[364], and Cowley was perturbed
by Thouvenel's reticence in reply to the main question. The latter
stated that if a like American demand were made on France "undoubtedly
he could not give up an Agent who had done no more than execute the
orders entrusted to him[365]." This looked like harmony, but the
situation for the two countries was not the same as no demand had been
made for the recall of Belligny. Cowley was, in reality, anxious and
suspicious, for Thouvenel, in conversation, attributed Seward's anger to
Bunch's alleged indiscretions in talk, and made it clear that France
would not "stand by" unless Seward should protest to France against the
fact of a communication (not a _negotiation_) having been held with the
Co