Association called the attention
of the Foreign Office to the news that Charleston harbour had been
closed by stone boats and urged governmental remonstrance[538]. Hammond
at once replied quoting the language of Russell's letter of December 20
and stating that further representations would be made[539]. On the
sixteenth Russell again instructed Lyons to speak to Seward, but now was
much less rasping in language, arguing, rather, the injury in the future
to the United States itself in case the harbours were permanently
destroyed since "... the object of war is peace, and the purposes of
peace are mutual goodwill and advantageous commercial intercourse[540]."
To-day it seems absurd that any save the most ignorant observer should
have thought the North contemplated a permanent and revengeful
destruction of Southern port facilities. Nor was there any just ground
for such an extreme British view of the Northern plan. Yet even Robert
Browning was affected by the popular outcry. "For what will you do," he
wrote Story, "if Charleston becomes loyal again[541]?" a query
expressive of the increasing English concern, even alarm, at the intense
bitterness, indicating a long war, of the American belligerents. How
absurd, not to say ridiculous, was this British concern at an American
"lapse toward barbarism" was soon made evident. On January II Lyons,
acting on the instructions of December 20, brought up the matter with
Seward and was promptly assured that there was no plan whatever "to
injure the harbours permanently." Seward stated that there had never
been any plan, even, to sink boats in the main entrance channels, but
merely the lesser channels, because the Secretary of the Navy had
reported that with the blockading fleet he could "stop up the 'large
holes,'" but "could not stop up the 'small ones.'" Seward assured Lyons
that just as soon as the Union was restored all obstructions would be
removed, and he added that the best proof that the entrance to
Charleston harbour had not been destroyed was the fact that in spite of
blockading vessels and stone boats "a British steamer laden with
contraband of war had just succeeded in getting in[542]." Again, on
February 10, this time following Russell's instruction of January 16,
Lyons approached Seward and was told that he might inform Russell that
"all the vessels laden with stone, which had been prepared for
obstructing the harbours, had been already sunk, and that it is not
likely tha