tically defended the military preparations as a
necessary precaution. Bright's speech was probably intended for American
consumption with the purpose of easing American ill-will, by showing
that even in Parliament there were those who disapproved of that show of
force to which America so much objected. He foresaw that this would long
be the basis of American bitterness. But Palmerston was undoubtedly
correct in characterizing Bright's opinion as a "solitary one." And
looked at from a distance of time it would seem that a British
Government, impressed as it was with a sense of Seward's unfriendliness,
which had not prepared for war when making so strong a demand for
reparation, would have merited the heaviest condemnation. If Mill was
right in stating that the demand for reparation was a necessity, then so
also were the military preparations.

Upon the Government the _Trent_ acted to bring to a head and make more
clear the British relation to the Civil War in America. By November,
1861, the policy of strict neutrality adopted in May, had begun to be
weakened for various reasons already recited--weakened not to the point
of any Cabinet member's advocacy of change, but in a restlessness at the
slow development of a solution in America. Russell was beginning to
_think_, at least, of recognition of the Confederacy. This was clear to
Lyons who, though against such recognition, had understood the drift, if
Schleiden is to be trusted, of Ministerial opinion. Schleiden reported
on December 31 that Lyons had expressed to him much pleasure at the
peaceful conclusion of the _Trent_ affair, and had added, "England will
be too generous not to postpone the recognition of the independence of
the South as long as possible after this experience[498]." But the
_Trent_ operated like a thunder-storm to clear the atmosphere. It
brought out plainly the practical difficulties and dangers, at least as
regards Canada, of a war with America; it resulted in a weakening of the
conviction that Seward was unfriendly; it produced from the British
public an even greater expression of relief, when the incident was
closed, than of anger when it occurred; and it created in a section of
that public a fixed belief, shared by at least one member of the
Cabinet, that the issue in America was that of slavery, in support of
which England could not possibly take a stand.

This did not mean that the British Government, nor any large section of
the public, believ