itive conviction that the United States Government
was as much astonished as was that of Great Britain by the attack on the
_Trent._[441] To this the _Times_ gave a full column of report on
December 5 and the day following printed five close-type columns of the
speech itself. Editorially it attacked Bright's position, belittling the
speech for having been made at the one "inconspicuous" place where the
orator would be sure of a warm welcome, and asking why Manchester or
Liverpool had not been chosen. In fact, however, the _Times_ was
attempting to controvert "our ancient enemy" Bright as an apostle of
democracy rather than to fan the flames of irritation over the _Trent_,
and the prominence given to Bright's speech indicates a greater
readiness to consider as hopeful an escape from the existing crisis.

After December 3 and up to the ninth, the _Times_ was more caustic about
America than previously. The impression of its editorials read to-day is
that more hopeful of a peaceful solution it was more free to snarl. But
with the issue of December 10 there began a series of leaders and
communications, though occasionally with a relapse to the former tone,
distinctly less irritating to Americans, and indicating a real desire
for peace[442]. Other newspapers either followed the _Times_, or were
slightly in advance of it in a change to more considerate and peaceful
expressions. Adams could write to Seward on December 6 that he saw no
change in the universality of the British demand for satisfaction of the
"insult and injury thought to be endured," but he recognized in the next
few days that a slow shift was taking place in the British temper and
regretted the violence of American utterances. December 12, he wrote to
his son in America: "It has given us here an indescribably sad feeling
to witness the exultation in America over an event which bids fair to be
the final calamity in this contest...." Great Britain "is right in
principle and only wrong in point of consistency. Our mistake is that we
are donning ourselves in her cast-off suit, when our own is better worth
wearing[443]." His secretarial son was more vehement: "Angry and hateful
as I am of Great Britain, I still can't help laughing and cursing at the
same time as I see the accounts of the talk of our people. What a bloody
set of fools they are! How in the name of all that's conceivable could
you suppose that England would sit quiet under such an insult. _We_
should hav